00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Stuart Gary: This is space Time Series 28, episode
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 66, for broadcast on the 2nd of June,
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 2025. Coming up on Space.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 Finally, a possible resolution to ongoing debate
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 over the Hubble constant. New data suggest
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 that Venus's crust is surprisingly thin
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 and targeting the building blocks of stellar
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 formation. All that and more coming up
00:00:23 --> 00:00:24 on, Space Time.
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 Voice Over Guy: Welcome to Space Time with Stuart.
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 Stuart Gary: New data from the Webb Space Telescope may finally
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 have found a solution to the long standing debate over the
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 universe's rate of expansion, a, figure known as the
00:00:53 --> 00:00:55 Hubble constant. For the past decade,
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 scientists have been trying to get to the bottom of what seemed to be a
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 major inconsistency in the universe. The
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 universe has been expanding out ever since the big
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 bang, 13.82 billion years ago.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 And that rate of expansion, that is how fast the universe
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 is moving, is known as the Hubble constant. The
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 problem is that figure is different depending on how you
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 measure it, whether you're looking at it through cosmic history
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 or back from the present day. It was always
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 thought that as measurements got better and more accurate, the
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 differences between the two figures would gradually narrow
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 down. But in reality, the opposite seems
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 to have happened. The more precise the data got, the bigger the
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 gap grew. And it's become a major problem
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 in science's understanding of the universe and its evolution.
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 With more than a thousand papers published so far, all trying to
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 find a solution. But now new
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 observations using data from the James Webb Space
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 Telescope may well finally have solved the problem.
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 The study's lead author, Wendy Friedman from the University of
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 Chicago, says the new evidence from Webb suggests that
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 the standard model of the universe is holding up
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 now. It doesn't mean we won't find things in the future that are
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 inconsistent with the model. But for the moment at least, Hubble
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 constant doesn't seem to be a problem after all.
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 Okay, so what are we actually talking about here? Well, there
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 are currently two major approaches to calculating how
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 fast our universe is expanding. The first
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 measures the cosmic microwave background radiation.
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 That's the leftover heat from the Big Bang itself.
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 That radiation, now cooled down to 2.7
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 degrees above absolute zero, can still be found
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 today as the white noise you hear between stations
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 on old analogue radio and TVs.
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 And it tells astronomers what the conditions were like
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 380 years after the Big Bang, when the
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 universe cooled down enough for protons and electrons to
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 come together and form the first atoms.
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 The second approach is quite different. It measures
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 the universe's current rate of expansion using standard
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 candles such as type 1A supernovae, which can act
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 as cosmic distance markers because of the
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 conditions that cause them to go supernova. These stars always
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 explode with the same level of luminosity, regardless of
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 distance. So like a row of streetlights on
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 a road, you can tell how far away they are by their apparent
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 brightness using the inverse square law.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 So if we know the maximum brightness of these supernovae,
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 measuring their apparent luminosities allows us to
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 calculate their distance. And the further away something
00:03:20 --> 00:03:23 is from us, the faster it's moving. So additional
00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 observations tell us how fast the galaxy in which the
00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 supernova occurred is moving away from us.
00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 Friedmann has also pioneered two other methods that use what we know
00:03:31 --> 00:03:34 about two types of old stars, Red
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 giants and carbon stars. However, there are
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 many corrections that must be applied to these measurements before
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 a final distance can be declared. For example,
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 scientists first need to account for cosmic dust that
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 permeates the universe and it dims the light between us
00:03:48 --> 00:03:51 and these distant stars in the host galaxies.
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 And astronomers also need to check and correct for luminosity
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 differences that can arise over cosmic time.
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 Finally, subtle measurement uncertainties in the instrumentation
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 used to make these measurements also need to be identified
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 and corrected for. But with technological
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 advances, such as the launch of the much more powerful Webb
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 space telescope in 2021, scientists have now
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 been able to increasingly refine these measurements.
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 M. Friedman says astronomers have now more than
00:04:17 --> 00:04:19 doubled the sample of galaxies being used to calibrate
00:04:19 --> 00:04:22 supernovae. The statistical improvements from
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 this is significant and considerably strengthens the result.
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 And this is where we get to the nitty gritty. According to
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 Friedman's latest calculations, reported in the
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 Astrophysical Journal, and which incorporates data from both the
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 Hubble and Webb space telescopes, we can now give the Hubble
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 constant a value of 70.4 kilometres per
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 second per megaparsec, plus or minus 3%.
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 And that brings the value into statistical
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 agreement with recent measurements from the cosmic microwave
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 background radiation, which places the constant at
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 67.4 kilometres per second per
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 megaparsec. The thing you got to remember is that Webb
00:04:56 --> 00:04:59 has four times the resolution of Hubble and that allows it to
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 identify individual stars previously detected in
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 blurry groups. It's also about 10 times
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 as sensitive as Hubble, which provides higher precision and
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 the ability to find even fainter objects of interest.
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 Friedman says astrophysicists have been trying to come up with
00:05:14 --> 00:05:17 a theory that would have explained different rates of expansion
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 as the universe ages. And scientists, ah, are still trying
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 to find cracks in the standard model that describes the universe,
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 which could provide new clues about the nature of Two big
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 outstanding myster of the cosmos, namely
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 dark matter and dark energy. But at least for
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 now, the Hubble constant increasingly seems not to be
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 the place to look. This is space time.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 Still to come. New data suggest that Venus's crust
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 is surprisingly thin and locating the building blocks
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 of stellar formation. All that and more still to come
00:05:46 --> 00:05:47 on Spacet
00:05:58 --> 00:05:58 Foreign
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 suggests that the crust of the planet Venus is unusually
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 thin. And this new model of the Venusian crust has come up
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 with some surprises about the planet's geology.
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 Scientists always expected that the outermost layer of Venus's
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 crust would grow thicker and thicker over time, given its
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 apparent lack of forces that would drive the crust back into
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 the planet's interior. But the paper published
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 in the journal Nature Communications, proposes a crust
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 metamorphism process based on rock density and melting
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 melting cycles. Now, the Earth's crust is made
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 up of massive slabs that slowly move, forming
00:06:36 --> 00:06:38 folds and faults in a process known as plate
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 tectonics. Material rises from deep within
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 the mantle through convection until it reaches the surface.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 It then spreads out across the surface in these massive
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 plates. And when two plates collide, the
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 lighter plate slides on top of the denser one,
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 forcing the denser one downwards back into the mantle.
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 And this process, known as subduction, helps control the
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 thickness of Earth's crust. The rocks making up the
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 bottom plate, the heavier plate, also experience changes
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 caused by increasing pressure and temperature as the plate
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 continues to sink deeper and deeper back into the
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 mantle. These changes are known as
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 metamorphism and it's also one of the causes of
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 volcanic activity. in contrast,
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 Venus is a crust that's all in one piece. There's
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 simply no evidence of subduction caused by plate tectonics
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 as we see on Earth. Modelling determined that
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 Venus crust is about 40 kilometres thick on
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 average and, at very most, 65 kilometres thick.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 Now, by comparison, Earth's continental crust, that's the lighter
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 crust, is between 25 and 70 kilometres thick
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 and mostly composed of less dense, more felt like rocks such as
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 granite. However, in some places, such as the
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 Tibetan Plateau, the Altiplano and the eastern
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 Baltic Shield, the continental crust can be up to 80
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 kilometres thick. On the other hand, Earth's oceanic
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 crust is just five to 10 kilometres thick, composed
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 primarily of denser, heavier mafric rocks such as
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 basalt, diabase and grabo. one of the study's
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 authors, Justin Filberto from NASA's Johnson Space Centre in
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 Houston, Texas, says Venus crust appears to be
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 surprisingly thin given conditions on the planet.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 It turns out that according to this model, as the crust
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 grows thicker, the bottom of the crust becomes so dense that it
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 either breaks off and becomes part of the mantle or gets hot
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 enough to melt. So while Venus doesn't have
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 any moving plates, its crust does experience a form of
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 metamorphism. Now, if this new model is correct, the
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 findings would be an important step towards understanding geological
00:08:29 --> 00:08:31 processes and the evolution of the planet itself.
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 Fulberta says this breaking off and melting can
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 put water and elements back into the planet's interior,
00:08:37 --> 00:08:40 thereby helping drive volcanic activity.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 He says it gives scientists a new model for how
00:08:43 --> 00:08:46 material returns to the interior of Venus and another way
00:08:46 --> 00:08:48 to make lava, and spur volcanic eruptions.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 In a sense, it's sort of resetting the playing field
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 for how the geology, crust and atmosphere on Venus
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 all work together. Of course, the next step is to gather direct
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 data about Venus crust in order to test and refine these
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 models. And there are several upcoming missions about to
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 do just that. These include NASA's Davinci
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 and Veritas spacecraft and the European Space Agency's
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 Envision mission. And combined, they'll aim to study the
00:09:12 --> 00:09:15 planet's surface and atmosphere in far greater detail than
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 ever before. These efforts could help confirm
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 whether processes like metamorphism and recycling
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 are actively reshaping Venus crust today.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 And that could reveal how such activity may be tied to
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 volcanic and atmospheric evolution.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 Filberto says scientists don't actually know how much
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 volcanism is happening on Venus now. They assume
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 it's a lot. In fact, a lot of scientists believe Venus is
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 probably the most volcanic planet in the solar system. Only
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 the Jovian volcanic moon IO is more active.
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 But to know for sure, scientists need more data.
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 And that's where these missions come in. This is
00:09:49 --> 00:09:52 space time. Still to come, locating
00:09:52 --> 00:09:55 the building blocks of stellar formation, and later in the
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 Science report, confirmation of a new type of
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 plesiosaur. All that and more still to come
00:10:01 --> 00:10:02 on, space time.
00:10:18 --> 00:10:20 A new study has shown how stellar formation isn't just
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 based on how much gas there is in a galaxy, but also where that
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 gas is located. Astronomers made the new
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 observations by studying gas distribution in thousands
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 of galaxies as part of the Wallaby Survey.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 Wallaby is being undertaken by ascap, the
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder
00:10:37 --> 00:10:40 Telescope, located at the Murchison Radio Astronomy
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 Observatory in Outback, Western Australia.
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 The study's lead author, Siona Lee, from the University of
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 Astronomy Research, says the findings give new insights into
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 how stars are born from clouds of gas.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 She says while earlier surveys could only map gas
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 distribution, in a few Hundred galaxies. The Wallaby survey
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 successfully mapped atomic hydrogen gas in a significantly
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 larger sample. Atomic hydrogen refers to an
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 isolated hydrogen atom consisting of a single proton
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 nucleus orbited by a single electron. now typically,
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 hydrogen exists in molecular form as diatomic
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 molecules comprising two atoms. But under the
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 right conditions, such as high temperatures or during
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 some chemical reactions, these molecules can be split up into
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 individual atoms, resulting in atomic hydrogen.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 The new findings reported in the publications of the
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 Astronomical Society of Australia show that having more gas in
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 a galaxy doesn't automatically mean it's going to be creating
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 more stars. Instead, galaxies that are
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 forming stars usually have higher concentrations of gas
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 in areas where stars reside. Lee says
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 she was excited to see a correlation between star formation
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 and exactly where the hydrogen gas is located.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 The higher resolution observations available through ASCAP's
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 36 parabolic disharray allowed Li and colleagues
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 to measure the location and density of atomic hydrogen for an,
00:11:57 --> 00:12:00 unprecedented number of galaxies. Understanding
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 how stars form requires astronomers to measure the atomic
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 gas in the areas where stars are actually forming, rather than simply
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 considering the total gas content of the galaxy, which also
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 includes the unused gas in outer regions of the galaxy.
00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 The research showed that being able to conduct more detailed radio
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 observations is key to helping scientists understand
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 how galaxies grow and change over time. The
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 authors looked at radio waves and visible light from nearby
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 galaxies to determine the amount of gas in the parts of the
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 galaxy where the stars are being born. And this was
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 important for figuring out just how much gas is really
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 supporting the creation of new stars.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 Katarina Miljkovic : Wallaby Survey is an ongoing whole
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 sky survey which observes atomic
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 hydrogen gas of like over
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 200 galaxies eventually
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 in all southern hemisphere.
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 Stuart Gary: And you're using the ASCAP Australian Square
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 Kilometre Ray Pathfinder telescopes.
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 Katarina Miljkovic : Yeah, its advantage is a large field of view
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 so it can observe large field of sky
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 in a short time. So Wallaby
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 takes an advantage of it, so it
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 observes whole sky in quite a short
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 time with a, relatively good resolution.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 Stuart Gary: And this resolution has allowed you to look at the
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 gas inside different galaxies and study these
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 nebulae closely and look at how that leads to
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 star formation. What have you found?
00:13:20 --> 00:13:23 Katarina Miljkovic : So we analysed the distribution of atomic
00:13:23 --> 00:13:25 hydrogen gas for one, thousand galaxies used
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 from Wallaby survey. And we compared
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 atomic hydrogen gas and the star forming
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 region and atomic hydrogen gas in the
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 outer part, which is star forming quiet
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 region, and then found that gas
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 in the star forming region is more related
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 to star formation in galaxies.
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 Stuart Gary: Now you talked about atomic hydrogen and when
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 atomic hydrogen gets with friends with other
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 atomic hydrogen atoms, then they over time
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 they can cool down. When they cool down, they slow
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 down and when they slow down they can bunch up
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 and eventually form a point of
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 intense gravity which causes the surrounding
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 gas to collapse. Is that what's going on?
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 Katarina Miljkovic : So basically there is atomic hydrogen
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 and then when it becomes cooled down and
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 it can come when there is a gravity, it
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 can combine and then it becomes more
00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 complex molecule like hydrogen molecule.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24 Atomic hydrogen gas is normally broadly
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 spread the gal in the galaxy. So and
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 inside there is a star near
00:14:30 --> 00:14:33 the centre there is a star forming region like
00:14:33 --> 00:14:35 concentrated that we observe as a
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 galaxy disc. And then in the outer part
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 atomic hydrogen gas is broadly
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 distributed and the atomic hydrogen gas
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 outside the optically thin stellar
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 disc, then it's too stable
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 to decollate and to form
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 stars. So what I focused on
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 is atomic hydrogen gas in the region
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 on the top of the lattice. So that's what I studied
00:15:01 --> 00:15:01 is what.
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 Stuart Gary: You'Re saying that you found atomic hydrogen
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 everywhere, all over a galaxy. But there are some
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 areas where it's more concentrated and stellar
00:15:09 --> 00:15:11 formations only happening in those areas.
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 Katarina Miljkovic : Yeah. So star formation is concentrated
00:15:14 --> 00:15:17 near the centre of the galaxy. So I
00:15:17 --> 00:15:20 focused on that part and
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 then found the gas density there
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 is essential for that galaxy to
00:15:26 --> 00:15:26 form stars.
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 Stuart Gary: And is this true of all galaxies or only
00:15:29 --> 00:15:32 spiral galaxies or what was the distribution like?
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 Katarina Miljkovic : So what ah, I'm targeting is whole kinds of
00:15:35 --> 00:15:37 galaxies and that's what is important. It's not
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 only certain type of galaxies but any
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 type of galaxies to form stars they need
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 gas and that gas have to be in the right
00:15:46 --> 00:15:47 place to form a star.
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 Stuart Gary: Did you find atomic hydrogen in sufficient quantities and
00:15:50 --> 00:15:53 densities to make stars in elliptical galaxies as
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 well or are they just old, dead and red?
00:15:56 --> 00:15:59 Katarina Miljkovic : Good question. So as you said
00:15:59 --> 00:16:02 elliptical galaxies that have, they have less
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 star formation but of course there is a star
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 formation and they have less
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 gas so it's hard to detect but
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 if we can observe it. So
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 right now using Oscar telescope
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 Hullaby is observing like many number
00:16:19 --> 00:16:21 of galaxies to study the evolution of
00:16:21 --> 00:16:24 galaxy evolution of the universe. But in the near
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 future there is going to be SKA telescope
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 which will even detect more faint and more
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 distant galaxies and it will
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 with much higher resolution. So these are
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 going to be very helpful to unveil
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 questions about galaxy evol the near
00:16:42 --> 00:16:42 future.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 Stuart Gary: That's Yona Lee from the University of Western Australia
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:51 And this is space, time
00:17:06 --> 00:17:07 and time out of.
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 Take a brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 week. With the Science report,
00:17:13 --> 00:17:16 Swedish and American scientists have found a link between
00:17:16 --> 00:17:18 autism spectrum disorder and a future risk of
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 developing Parkinson's disease. A report in
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 the Journal of the American Medical association looked at data
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 from over 2.2 million people, finding that
00:17:27 --> 00:17:30 Parkinson's occurred in just 0.02%
00:17:30 --> 00:17:33 of people who didn't have autism, but it occurred in
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 0.5% of people who did have the condition.
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 Now, while this kind of research can't prove that being on the spectrum
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 will directly affect your chances developing Parkinson's, the
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 authors say there might be a potential shared base
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 between neurodevelopmental disorders and Parkinson's
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 disease. A new study
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 claims that amber deposits found in ancient deep sea
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 mud samples in Japan may be one of the oldest known
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 records of a tsunami. The findings, published
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 in the journal Scientific Reports, shows that large
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 fossilised tree resin deposits discovered in a quarry on
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 Hokkaido island in northern Japan were swept out from
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 a forest to what was then an ocean by, one or more
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 tsunami between 116 and 114
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 million years ago. Looking closely at the amber,
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 the team found that some of it wasn't fully hardened at the
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 time it was caught up in the tsunami. And that suggests that
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 huge amounts of amber were being rapidly carried out from land
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 to the ocean by the backwash from one or more
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 tsunami events. The thing is, traces of
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 ancient tsunamis are hard to find. So
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 amber formed on land and then transported out into the sea
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 could provide a new way of identifying them.
00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 A small group of 85 million year old fossils,
00:18:43 --> 00:18:46 including the official fossil emblem of British Columbia,
00:18:46 --> 00:18:48 have now been scientifically described as a new type of
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 plesiosaur. A report in the Journal of
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54 Systematic Palaeontology claims the fossils, which were
00:18:54 --> 00:18:57 first discovered on Vancouver island back in 1988,
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 likely all came from one type of elasmosaur
00:18:59 --> 00:19:02 plesiosaur, which has now been named Truscosaurus
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 sandrae. The new classification includes the
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 description of 36 well preserved clavicle vertebrae,
00:19:08 --> 00:19:10 indicating at least 50 neck bones.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:13 Truscosaur lived during the age of the dinosaurs
00:19:13 --> 00:19:16 in the Cretaceous period. Palaeontologists say the
00:19:16 --> 00:19:19 long necked marine reptile reached lengths of 12 metres
00:19:19 --> 00:19:22 and featured sharp and heavy teeth, along with an
00:19:22 --> 00:19:25 odd mix of primitive and newer traits. And
00:19:25 --> 00:19:27 unlike other elasmosaur plesiosaurs, its unique
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 suite of adaptations enabled it to hunt prey from above.
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 It's in the back of most bathroom medicine cabinets, right next
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 to the calamine lotion and behind that old packet of band
00:19:38 --> 00:19:41 aids. We're talking about that Famous blue jar
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 of Vicks VapoRub. It's been with us for over
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 a century now as an ointment to rub on the body to
00:19:46 --> 00:19:49 relieve coughs, congestion and minor arthritic pains.
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 But Tim Mendham from Strange Sceptics says people are now
00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 claiming you should be rubbing it on your feet.
00:19:54 --> 00:19:57 Tim Mendham: Vicks vapour rub. We probably all had a whack of Vicks
00:19:57 --> 00:20:00 vapour rub on our chest at some stage, but, yeah, stick it on your desk.
00:20:00 --> 00:20:03 When you're a kid, you have a breathing problem and you know the fumes
00:20:03 --> 00:20:06 get up your nose, et cetera. it's camphor, it's
00:20:06 --> 00:20:09 eucalyptus oil, it's menthol and it's something called
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 petrolatum and it's an international product. All those things come
00:20:12 --> 00:20:15 from different places, including eucalyptus oil from Australia. And
00:20:15 --> 00:20:18 this was the formulation made you smelly. Stick it on your chest
00:20:18 --> 00:20:21 and do your pyjamas back up, et cetera, and you'll breathe it in
00:20:21 --> 00:20:23 all night and you'll have a clear nose and you'll be able to breathe
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 easily. Yeah. This is extended into other areas. Now it's
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 suggesting that you put it on your feet. And this is sort of like a
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 version of reflexology. You massage the foot and that will
00:20:32 --> 00:20:35 affect other parts of your body. Stick vapour rub on your feet
00:20:35 --> 00:20:37 and it will help you breathe better and sleep better.
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 Stuart Gary: there was this story going around a while ago. I don't know if
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 it's true because I've never tried it, but if you rub garlic on
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 your feet, you'll wind up getting garlic breath.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 Tim Mendham: Well, depends on how much you lick your feet, I suppose. Yeah,
00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 but I mean. Yeah, It's been told to me that vapour rub on your
00:20:51 --> 00:20:54 toenails and things can actually help fungus clear up. Fungus?
00:20:54 --> 00:20:55 Stuart Gary: Oh. Probably kill anything there.
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 Tim Mendham: Yeah, I know, I know, but I mean, I don't know if it's true, but the thing is about
00:20:58 --> 00:21:01 your breathe and it makes you having a good sleep. How does it work out? Why
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 not just stick it on your chest? Why not on your feet? And then
00:21:04 --> 00:21:07 you put your socks on on top of. So it's making your socks rather smelly and
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 oily. But it's not going to get into your bloodstream. Right. It doesn't get into
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 your bloodstream on your chest. It's something you breathe. But, I
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 mean, why the feet? It's a strange thing, but I'm sure there's
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 actually every other part of the body you can rub vapour of. It
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 hasn't actually been suggested that it actually can have problems
00:21:21 --> 00:21:23 associated with it. Yeah, skin irritation, headaches,
00:21:23 --> 00:21:26 dizziness, confusion and hallucinations if you
00:21:26 --> 00:21:29 use cancer, inappropriately. So it's not a
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32 totally benign product, but, you know, sits there in your
00:21:32 --> 00:21:35 medicine cabinet for 35 years. But, you know, hey, there's a lot of things in the
00:21:35 --> 00:21:37 back of your medicine cabinet you probably shouldn't need using.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:39 Stuart Gary: That's Tim Mendham from Australian Sceptics.
00:21:55 --> 00:21:58 And that's the show for now. Space Time
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00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 Tim Mendham: you've been listening to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 This has been another quality podcast production from
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