SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 57 AI Transcript

[00:00:00] This is spacetime series 24 episode 57, four broadcast on the 21st of May, 2021. Coming up on space-time plans for a lunar crater radio telescope to aluminate the cosmic dark ages. And you learn a map are ready for the return of humans to the surface of the moon and getting ready for this month. Super moon lunar eclipse.

All that and more coming up. I'm space-time welcome to space time with Stuart, Gary.

NASA. We're looking at the idea of building a giant radio telescope in a crater on the far side of the moon. If approved the project would hope astronomists probe the cosmic dark ages, a [00:01:00] period lasting for a few hundred million years after the big bang 13.82 billion years ago until the first stars began to shine.

The telescopes primary objective will be to measure the long wavelength radio waves generated by gas that would have filled the universe during the cosmic dark ages. Joseph Lazio from NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California says while there were no stars, there was ample hydrogen during the universe has dark ages and that hydrogen would eventually serve as the raw material for those first stars with a sufficiently large radio telescope off earth, astronomers could track the processes that would eventually lead to the formation of the first stars and maybe even find clues about the nature of dark matter.

Ready a telescopes on earth. Can't probe this mysterious period in cosmic history because the 10 made a long wavelength radio waves stretched by the cosmic expansion from this period are reflected by a layer of ions and electrons at the top of the atmosphere in the [00:02:00] region known as the ionosphere.

Another problem, a random radio emissions from human activity, interfering with and drowning out the faintest signals. But there is no atmosphere to reflect these signals on the moon and positioning such a telescope on the far side would allow the moon itself to block out Earth's radio chatter. And that makes the lunar Pharcyde prime real estate to carry out an unprecedented study of the early universe.

But to be sensitive to long radio wavelengths, the create a radio telescope would need to be huge. The idea would be the create a parabolic dish antenna, more than a kilometer wide in a crater around three kilometers across now, by comparison, the biggest dish radio telescopes on earth, like the 500 made app.

It just vertical telescope in China and the now to find 305 meter wide Arecibo observatory in Puerto Rico were built inside natural bowl, like depressions in the landscape to provide a supporting structure. This class of radio [00:03:00] telescope uses thousands of reflecting panels to spare that inside the depression to make the entire dishes parabolic surface reflective to radio waves, a receiver then hangs mid is above the dish from a series of suspension cables, anchored by towers at the dishes, perimeter, and receiving radio waves.

Bouncing off the curved surface below. But despite its size and complexity, giant dishes like that in China and Arecibo, weren't sensitive enough to radio wavelengths longer than about 4.3 meters. This new lunar project would eliminate the need to transport prohibitively, heavy materials to the moon surface, and it would utilize robots to automate the construction process.

Instead of using thousands of reflective panels, the focus incoming radio waves, the lunar crater radio telescope would be made out of thin wire mesh in the center of the crater. One spacecraft would deliver the mesh and a separate land that would deposit the GX rovers, which will be used to build up the dish over several days or weeks.

[00:04:00] Two axle is a robotic concept. Being developed by JPL. Each robot is basically composed of two single axle rovers that can undock from each other, but stay connected by a tether. One half would act as an anchor at the rim of the crater or the other appeals down to the actual building and connecting the wires, applying the tension, and then lifting the Ys to suspend the antenna.

One of the biggest challenges. However, we'll be working out how to maintain the dishes parabolic shape and the precise spacing between the wires. The mesh needs to be both strong and flexible. It also lightweight enough to be transported and it needs to be able to withstand the extreme temperature changes on the moon's surface from as low as minus 173 degrees Celsius at night to a scorching 127 degrees Celsius in daylight.

And it needs to be able to handle all this without warping or failing. Also while the lunar Pharcyde is radio quiet for now that could change in the future. China space agency [00:05:00] already has a mission exploring the lunar fast side, and they have plans to further develop the lunar surface for mining, which could impact possible radio astronomy projects.

So there are a lot of hurdles to overcome. And for the next two years, the projects team will continue working to identify the various challenges which the project will have to meet. We'll keep you informed. This is space time still the com and you learn a map ready for the return of humans to the lunar surface and getting ready for this month.

Super moon lunar, eclipse. All you need to know all that and much more store to calm on space.

Scientists have put together a detailed new geologic map of the lunar South pole region in order to help astronauts are expected to be [00:06:00] walking there within the next three and a half years. A report in the planetary science journal claims the new map of the Schrodinger basin region include significant geological features in the area and at least three potential lunar Rover paths to guide future exploration missions.

Located near the lunar South pole Schrodinger basin is the second youngest impact basin on the moon and includes many diverse crustal features and rock types, which are important for understanding the moon's geological history, the impact event, which formed and your basin uplifted rock lithologies from deep below the lunar surface.

Therefore stating these exposed rocks up close, or provide important insights into lunar, geology, and evolution. The new map was created by Ellen's of Linsky and colleagues from the lunar and planetary Institute in 2007, the national research council outlined scientific objectives and goals for future lunar missions, including exploration of the South pole, akin basin the oldest and deepest impact basin [00:07:00] on the moon.

And because the Schrodinger basin is located within the South pole Akon basin, it presents a unique opportunity to study rocks that possibly originated deep below the surface. Many of these rock types are exposed at the surface in multi kilometer, long rock outcrops in shred inches, peak ring, and entering of uplifted rocks that formed within the basin as part of a rebound from the impact of it itself.

Sampling rocks within the Paik ring provides high scientific potential for further understanding the context of shred inches. Lithologies. Along with the map itself, research has also created three potential paths for rovers to travel through the Schrodinger basin in order to collect high priority rock samples.

NASA's item is three. Mission is slated to take two astronauts to the lunar surface. In 2024, the mission will feature a crew for launching the trans lunar orbit aboard NASA's new Origen spacecraft matted on the agency's new heavy lift SOS rocket. [00:08:00] Uh, Ryan will take the crew to the gateway space station, which will be located in CIS lunar space.

Gateway will act as a sort of staging post permissions going down to the lunar surface. Two of the items, three crew members will then board a space X star ship, which will be pre-positioned at gateway, which will then be used to shallowly astronauts down to the lunar surface and provide a base of operations while they're down there before returning them to gateway with a once again, transfer into the Iranian capsule for the journey back to earth.

This is space time, still the calm, getting ready for this month. Super moon lunar, eclipse, and China launches more remote sensing, satellites, all that, and more still to come on. Unspaced.

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you're listening to space, time, space, time with Stuart Gary, if you're in Australia, parts of the Western United States, Western south America or Southeast Asia, you'll get to witness a supermoon total lunar eclipse on may the 26th. A turtle. Lunar eclipse happens when the sun earth and moon all align with the moon passing completely through the earth stock shadow Umbra blocking out sunlight from the wreckly reaching the lunar surface.

Instead the sunlight first passes through and these refracted [00:11:00] by the Earth's atmosphere, nothing in Railey, scattering leaving only the longer red wave length to reach the surface of the moon. Now, depending on how different types of dust particles and clouds in earth atmosphere affect the light Buena surface will glow anywhere from pink to blood red.

The celestial spectacular begins at 1847 Australian Eastern standard time. That's eight 47 in the morning. Greenwich meantime reaching totality by 21, 11 Eastern in the evening or 11, 11:00 AM. GMT. But it's a short total lunar eclipse this time round, last thing, any around a quarter of an hour, that's due to the orbital mechanics involved, but adding to the spectacle.

And again, because of the orbital mechanics involved will be the fact that it's occurring during a so-called supermoon meaning a full moon, which is at or near paradise. It's closest over the position to the earth. Now, as we mentioned in last month's tutorial on average, the moon orbits around 384,400 kilometers away from the [00:12:00] earth.

But the moon's orbit around the earth, isn't circular, but rather slightly elliptical. One part of the orbit will be a bit closer to the earth. Around 357,000 kilometers. That's known as para G and another part of the orbit will be a bit further away around 406,000 kilometers. That's Apogee. Now what all this means is that technically a pair of G full moon will appear up to 40% larger and 30% wider than an Apogee full moon.

Although in reality, you wouldn't have noticed the difference if we hadn't told you, and this month, super moon will be in itsy-bitsy bit bigger. That's a scientifical term. That's because it'll be 158 kilometers closer to the earth and April's event. Although you still won't be able to pick the difference, at least not without using astronomical measuring equipment.

This month's Australian sky and telescope magazine has a special guide to the event. So joining us now to talk about it. It's the magazine's editor. Jonathan Nalli. I was like trips to the moon, of course, is the safe one to [00:13:00] see you can go out and have a look at it, eclipses of the sound of the dangerous ones, where you shouldn't be looking at the sun, but it flips to the moon.

If you've got a clear snow, I get out and have a look and astronomy has been waiting for a while for a total eclipse. It's something that's been almost ran about two years. Since the last week we last had a total literary flips. We've had some pretty poor partial eclipses. In that time, but this one's going to be a total on may the 26th.

Remember that date may the 26th, but totality will not last long this time. Sometimes it can last for a couple of hours or so this time it's only going to be 18 minutes. 18 minutes. So from an Australian Eastern standard time, it's going to be from nine, 10:00 PM to 9:28 PM. On may the 26th, that's in Australia and Eastern standard time to work that out for your own Toms.

I just bought a usual sort of conversion to the partial phase of the eclipse will begin at 7:45 PM. So you'd be able to see it starting then for the little chunk taken out of the moon. And then it'll get to totality at 10 past nine. Come out of totality and half past nine, and then you'll see the partial phases.

It goes from totality back towards normal men. So this is [00:14:00] going to be the only total lunar tips visible from Australasia. This year, the whole eclipse will be visible from New Zealand and Australia is Eastern states. So south Australia and the Northern territory, the early part of the, uh, the, what we call the penumbral phase, the early part of the eclipse will already be underway by the time evening.

Twilight comes around well from Western Australia is what we call the humble phase. We'll still be underway as Twilight is ending. So it depends on where you are in the country. How much you will say the moon might go a little bit red during totality, but not as red as it can be when the moon goes through right through the center of a stock, a part of the shadow this time, the moon is going to be completely immersed in the darker part of the shadow.

The Umbra. But sort of right on the edge. So it's not going to be right in the middle where the red rays of light bend through its atmosphere and then find their way onto the moon. And as I said, of course, lunar eclipses completely safe to watch and you don't need a telescope or anything like that. Just get out and have a look.

Solar kitchens is the dangerous one. So stay clear of those. Now, lunar eclipses always come within two weeks before or after a solar eclipse. Don't they? Yeah. You [00:15:00] get, you get a solar eclipse and a luminary clip. I paid. Bye. Um, it makes a pot, but the visible Germany, different parts of the world. So if you see this title, lunar eclipse is Tom.

You're not going to say the salary flips necessarily. And the next solar eclipse by the way, will be an annular eclipse on June the 10th and best seen from Northern Greenland parts of Baffin bay, Eastern Hudson bay, Northern Russia. And, uh, there'll be a ring of fire there for you, for you to say, be very nice thinking of the white snow and the, the ring of fire.

The circle there, lunar eclipse is that the totality of a lunar eclipse. You just have to be on the right half of the earth. You just have to be aware it's you're on the side of the earth. It's pointed towards the moon. Whereas the state totality solar eclipse, you've got to be on a very narrow strip because the shadow of the moon task by the sun forms just a very narrow strip.

It can be on the kilometers wide. Across the face of the earth. So you've got to be an executive right spot, which is why people who get the eclipse bug over the solar eclipse bug, do travel all over the [00:16:00] world to win wonderful places, to see the next one. Whereas the lunar eclipse, as long as you're on the right half of the world at the time, and you've got a clear sky go out and have a look.

That's Jonathan, Nalli the editor of Australian sky and telescope magazine. And don't forget if you're having trouble getting your copy of Australian sky and telescope magazine from your usual retailer because of the current lockdown and travel restrictions, and always get a print or digital subscription and have the magazine delivered directly to your letterbox or inbox.

Subscribing is easy. Just go to sky and telescope.com.edu that sky telescope.com.edu. And you'll never be left in the dark again. This is space time still the com China launching even more remote sensing satellites. And later in the science report, another seven people were suspected of suffering blood clots, coerced by the AstraZeneca vaccine, all at a much more, still a cam on space.

[00:17:00] China has launched more remote sensing satellites into orbit. The satellites were part of a constellation of nine spacecraft launched into orbit, brought along Matt six rocket from the tire and satellite lawn center in Northern China Shanxi province. The mission included the column one and column four, remote sensing satellites.

They're each equipped with side aperture radars to obtain microwave ground images of surface features under all weather conditions, day and night. Beijing claims the probes are designed to monitor construction, agriculture, forestry, and land survey projects around east China's Chandon province. However, the spacecraft will also be used by the people's liberation army to monitor China's enemies and keep an eye on its assets.

Other satellites launched as part of the same mission, attesting new space platform technologies, primarily for data acquisition, [00:18:00] communications and remote sensing. This is space, time

and Tom at a once again, take a brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week with a science report, there's more bad news for Oxford AstraZeneca, vaccine recipients with seven people suffering blood clots after taking the jab. If confirmed, it brings the Australian title to 18.

And unlike earlier indication suggesting the danger was mostly for those under 50, the lettuce victims include a 74 year old man, a 51 year old woman from Victoria, a 66 year old man from Queensland, a 64 year old woman from Western Australia and a 70 year old man from Tasmania authorities stress. The likelihood of getting a blood clot from the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is still extremely rare.

There have been just 18 cases out of nearly 3 million [00:19:00] injections, the new ones, Australian results follow a lot study of 280,000 adults from Denmark and Norway, which also looked at the risk of blood clots from the AstraZeneca does a report in the British medical journal, found 59 blood clots in the veins compared with the 30 that were expected.

And it included a higher than expected rate the blood clots in the veins of the brain and a cerebral venous thrombosis. The new data highlights concerns that the AstraZeneca adeno virus vaccine is also a potential issue for older people, not just those under 50 suggesting that they're in reality, may in fact be no difference in risk factors based on age and reinforcing the need for additional research to better understand this condition and its mechanisms.

For Australians, the federal government's answer has been to order 25 million doses of the Madonna MRN, a vaccine to supplement the existing 40 million doses of the Pfizer MRN. A vaccine now being administered Australia is also continuing [00:20:00] vaccination with the AstraZeneca adeno virus vaccine of which 54 million doses were ordered.

And there are also 51 million doses of the, yet to be approved. Nerva VAX jab planned. So in turtle, that's 170 million vaccine doses with current plans, seeing the population getting two jabs three months apart, followed by a booster sometime next year to deal with the new variants of the COVID-19 virus.

And possibly every year after that, just like the annual flu shot. Almost three and a half million people have now been killed by the COVID-19 virus with another 160 million infected since the deadly disease first emerged from war and China and were spread around around the world. And you stay shows that vegetarians at Peter have healthy levels of biomarkers that can help prevent illnesses like cancer and heart disease.

The findings reported to the European Congress on obesity, uh, based on the study of 4,100 vegetarians and 166,000 [00:21:00] meat eaters. However, while the vegetarians had a better overall biomarker profile, they were more likely to have lower levels of some beneficial biomarkers, such as vitamin D and calcium.

The authors say this observational study can't prove what causes the healthier profile. But the nutritional differences between meat eaters and vegetarians may be part of the explanation. Scientists have discovered there are at least four distinct species of giraffe. The findings were reported in the journal, current biology, uh, based on the sequencing with genomes of 50 giraffe representing all traditionally recognized, subspecies the results strengthened previous findings of limited gene flow among giraffes in different parts of Africa.

And so recently duress were widely recognized as one single species with several subspecies, but the new genetic analysis supports the idea of four distinct species branching out into seven sub species. These include the Northern giraffe with [00:22:00] subspecies, the coffin, the Nubian, and the West African giraffe.

Then there's the mass side giraffe, which includes the Wang or Thornycroft drafts subspecies. The third species are the Southern giraffe, which includes the Angolan and South African giraffe is sub species. And finally, there's the fourth species known as the articulated giraffe. It's believed the four separately evolving lineages diverged about 230,000 to 370,000 years ago.

Giraffe populations have declined sharply over the past century due to human activity with just 117,000 giraffes now left in the wild. Scientists are looking at developing an oxygen rich liquid enema, which could be administered through the rectum to those who don't have access to ventilators or artificial lungs because of the critical shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The idea reported in the journal med comes from a team of researchers who were studying Marine animals that employ a rectum breathing system. In what might [00:23:00] be a slightly horrific dystopian future. The researcher said that this method could provide a viable means of giving oxygen to people in respiratory distress.

Iran is the lettuce nation to be targeted by shanks does promoting phony killers for COVID-19. Tim Mendham from Australian skeptic says those pushing this shit as scientific treatments are warning people against COVID-19 vaccines. Claiming that they'll turn you well. I mean, Iran, you will recall that when COVID first broke out with one of the places where it hit.

Hot, first of all, no one was quite sure. How, how did he, because they have statistics that they put out were pretty poor unreliable. In many cases, they probably didn't know how many cases they had, but it gave rise and potential as it has done everywhere for, to be suggested. And in, in Ryan's case, because there's a strong underpinning to everything they do of religion.

Yes. In some cases, it's the religious authorities that are actually promoting these quite curious. Some of them might not be or religious or religious leaders themselves. One person said before going to [00:24:00] sleep, put a cotton ball soaked in violet oil, into your anus, which then it's going to cue you from, uh, But he had this person had that have 200,000 followers online.

And that person also said, they'd be aware of coronavirus vaccines, because they'll turn you guys. And we have similar things here. Quite frankly. We only have the usual cracks and things often will crop up, but they tend not to come from the religious side of things. Some of them,

if you're talking fringe. Well mainstream, I, most of the mainstream, mainstream, Christian, whatever, do support coronavirus vaccines, and do understand where that is a real thing. But sipping hot camel, you run is probably not going to help. And that's another one of the cures. That's all sorts of things. Of course, there's also suggestions that has had a long history of, uh, Western influence of the nicest way or control generally over the years, especially.

Pre second world war. And some people believe that coronavirus will say for a colonial conspiracy dreamed up by [00:25:00] Zionists and the briefing to actually destroy the Islamic Republic. It's funny. They've got to get the Jews involved that there, no matter what happens to them, I have to. Yeah.

Par for the course, you know, it's what they do. But these sort of things to their science, especially shooting in medicine in these particular cases are rampant as they are in many cases, but they have also had the imprimatur religion element to it. That's Tim Mendham from Australian skeptics.

and that's the show for now? The space-time is available every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through apple podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcasts, podcasts, Spotify, a cast, Amazon music bites.com. SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcasts download [00:26:00] provider and from space-time with Stuart, gary.com. Space times also broadcast through the national science foundation on science own radio and on both iHeart, radio and tune in radio.

Yeah. And you can help to support our show by visiting space-time stole for a range of promotional merchandise, I think goodies or by becoming a space-time patron, which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of Burness audio content, which doesn't go away access to our exclusive Facebook group and other rewards.

Just go to space time with Stuart, gary.com for full details. And if you want more space time, please check out our blog where you'll find all the stuff we couldn't fit in the show, as well as heaps of images, new stories, loads, videos, and things on the web. I find interesting or amusing, just go to space-time with Stuart, gary.tumbler.com.

That's all one word and that's tumbler without the aide. You can also follow us through at Stuart Gary on Twitter at space-time with Stuart Gary [00:27:00] on Instagram. Through us FaceTime YouTube channel and on Facebook, just go to facebook.com forward slash space time with Stuart, Gary and space-time is brought to you in collaboration with Australian sky and telescope magazine.

Your window on the universe. You've been listening to space-time with Stewart, Gary. This has been another quality podcast production from bitesz.com.

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