S26E96: Hazardous Asteroids // Magnetic Meteorites // and Southeast Asia's Oldest Curry

AI Transcript

This is Space Time, Series 26 episode 96 for broadcast on the 11th of August 2023.
Coming up on Space Time.
And you till in the hunt for dangerous Earth-threatening asteroids has its first success.
Why some asteroids are able to generate magnetic fields?
And that mysterious piece of space junk that washed up on a western Australian beach?
Well, turns out it was Indian.
All that and more coming up.
And Space Time.
Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
A new asteroid discovery algorithm has identified its first potentially as an asteroid.
That is a space rock orbiting close enough to the Earth to be a concern.
The 200 meter wide asteroid designated 2022 SF-289 was discovered during a test drive of the algorithm,
which is designed to uncover near-ath asteroids for the Veracee Rubin Observatories upcoming 10 years
survey of the night sky.
Veracee Rubin will be looking for thousands of as-yet unknown near-ath asteroids.
Finding 2022 SF-289 confirms that the next generation algorithm known as HelioLink 3D can identify an era of asteroids
with fewer more dispersed observations than required by today's methods.
Rubin's scientists are in highance from the University of Washington to develop the algorithm
and in future may well have wound up saving the Earth,
says that by demonstrating the real world effectiveness of the software, Veracee Rubin will make us all safer.
The solar system is home to tens of millions of rocky bodies.
They range in size from small meteoroids the size of pebbles,
or even grains of sand, up to 12 planets the size of our moon.
Most of these bodies are distant, per se, but there are number which orbit close enough to Earth to be a worry,
and these are known as neos or near-ath objects.
The closest to these are those whose trajectory takes them close enough to Earth's orbit
to warrant special attention.
Scientists search for potentially hazardous asteroids using very specialized telescope systems
like the Atlas Survey run by the team at the University of Hawaii.
They do so by taking images of different parts of the sky at least four times every night.
The discoveries made when they noticed a point of light moving unambiguously in a straight line
over the series of images.
So far, astronomers have discovered some 2,350 potentially hazardous asteroids using this method,
but they estimate there will be at least as many more waiting to be discovered.
And from its peak in the Chilean andies, the Veracee Rubin Observatory is set to join the hunt for these objects in early 2025.
Rubin's observations will dramatically increase the discovery red potentially hazardous asteroids
by scanning the skies unprecedentedly quickly, with its 8.4 meter mirror and massive 3,200 megapixel camera.
Visiting spots on the sky twice every night, rather than the four times needed by present telescopes.
But with this novel observing cadence, researchers need a new type of discovery algorithms to reliably spot space rocks.
So Rubin's solar system software team at the University of Washington have been working to develop the codes.
Working with Smithsonian Senior Astero physicist and Harvard University Electra Matthew Holman, who in 2018 pioneered a new class of Heliocentric Asteroid Search Algorithms,
Hines, together with Ziegfried Egel from the University of Illinois, developed HelioLink 3D, a code that could find asteroids in Rubin's data set.
With Rubin still under construction, Hines and Egel wanted to test the HelioLink 3D to see if it could discover a new asteroid in existing data.
One with two few observations to be discovered by today's conventional algorithms.
The Atlas astronomers then offered their data set to test, and the Rubin team let loose Helio 3D quickly spotting their first potential hazardous asteroid, 2022 SF-289,
which was initially imaged by Atlas at a distance of 21 million kilometers from Earth.
Now in retrospect, Atlas had observed 2022 SF-289 three times on four separate nights, but never the wreck was at four times on a single night needed to be identified as a new Neo.
Other surveys had also missed 22 SF-289 because it was passing in front of the Ritz-Starfields of the Milky Way.
Now by knowing where to look, additional observations could be made using the Panstars and Catalina Sky surveys, which quickly confirmed the discovery.
So, what do we really know about this dangerous space rock? Well, 22 SF-289 is classified as an Apollo-type Neo or Neareth object. That's one whose orbit does cross that of the Earth.
Its 200 meter diameter is large enough to be classified as potentially hazardous.
Its closest approach brings it to within 226,000 kilometers of Earth's orbit, that's closer than the Moon.
But despite its proximity, projections indicate it poses no real danger of hitting the Earth, at least not in the foreseeable future.
This report from the National Science Foundation.
Earth, birthplace of every human who's ever lived, all our heroes, all our villains, all our homes, dwarfed by the space through which it flies, vulnerable and precious.
Our neighbors Mars and Venus remain tens of millions of miles away, even at closest approach.
But the trajectory of that of an asteroid called 2022 SF-289 comes much closer.
This isn't an impact, it misses Earth's orbit by 140,000 miles, over half the distance to the Moon.
That's a good thing, at roughly 600 feet in diameter, 2022 SF-289 could cause an explosion big enough to destroy several cities if it struck a populated region.
It won't impact Earth in the foreseeable future, it's just one of hundreds of potentially hazardous asteroids whose orbits are carefully calculated as part of NASA's effort to defend the Earth.
The remarkable story here is how this asteroid was discovered.
Amid the beautiful desolation of the Chilean Andes, the Vera Ruben Observatory is being built to perform humanity's most ambitious survey yet of the night sky.
Starting in 2025, Ruben will precisely measure billions of stars and galaxies and protect our planet by discovering thousands of near-Earth asteroids smaller telescopes can't detect.
To scan the widest possible areas of sky, Ruben asteroid discovery relies on a new algorithm called Heliolink 3D, which can combine data for multiple nights and find new asteroids with just two images per night, where current surveys need four.
Hoping to confirm this plan works in real life ran the new software on weeks of data from NASA's asteroid terrestrial impact last alert system, Atlas.
It took a long time existing software is very efficient and doesn't miss much, but the discovery of 2022 SF-289, the very first NEO ever discovered using Heliolink 3D is the proof that new software can help the ongoing surveys discover even more.
Additional analysis identified further initially unrecognized detections of 2022 SF-289 from other surveys. Heliolink 3D will enable Ruben to fulfill its promise of discovering and tracking thousands of new potentially hazardous asteroids by validating the ongoing global effort to defend our planetary home, the discovery of 2022 SF-289 should make us all feel safer.
This is space time. Still to come, why some asteroids are able to generate magnetic fields and scientists identify a mystery piece of space junk that washed up on a Western Australian beach.
All that and more still to come on space time.
A new study suggests that heat generated by collisions between a creating asteroid fragments could be enough to produce magnetic field traces in some metallic asteroids.
The findings reported in the journal proceedings the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS may have solved a long-standing puzzle and even shared light on the formation of magnetic geodynamos in the cause of planets.
planetary magnetism is key to understanding both the journal structure and evolution of many celestial bodies. The cause of the Earth, Mercury and two of Jupiter's moons, Ganymede and Ia for example, all generate detectable magnetic fields.
And there are also traces of ancient magnetism found on Mars and the Earth's moon as well. But there are also meteorites, small space rocks that have fallen to Earth that also contain hints of magnetism.
And that's always been a bit of a mystery.
Scientists say there are some iron meteorites which bear the remnants of an internally generated magnetic field and that shouldn't be possible.
Although iron meteorites are thought to represent the metallic cause of asteroids, these cause are not expected to have the highly specific internal characteristics necessary to simultaneously generate and record magnetism.
But a new study suggests that under the right conditions collisions between asteroids can lead to the formation of metallic asteroids that can generate a magnetic field and record that magnetism by their own materials.
Yale University scientist John T. Anne Chan and David Birkevitchy claim that small fragments of these asteroids with traces of magnetism in them could fall to Earth as meteorites.
The authors were conducting research on what a known as Rubblepile asteroids which he created when gravitational forces caused the fragments from an asteroid collision to reform into new combinations.
That work inspired J. Birkevitchy to consider the question of whether the Rubblepile phenomenon might be relevant to the generation of magnetic field.
The author's modeling suggests that after an asteroid collision it is possible for a new iron heavy asteroid to form with a cold Rubblepile in a core surrounded by a warmer liquid outer layer.
When the cold core begins to draw heat from the outer layer and lighter elements such as sulfur are released which initiates convection, this in turn could create a magnetic field.
Now according to their model this sort of dynamo could generate a magnetic field for several million years which would be long enough for its presence to be embedded in iron meteorites which could then be detected by scientists when they fall to Earth billions of years later.
Birkevitchy admits the idea of a Rubblepile core is a bit like dropping ice cubes into molten metal.
They can't be too big or too small but there is this ideal size that is just small enough to cool in space but also sink fast enough into the melted metal and pile up in the center to make an inter-core like the Earth at least for a little while.
This is space time.
Still to come, scientists have finally solved the mystery of a piece of space junk that washed up on a wisdom Australian beach and later in the science report archaeologists discover the remnants of what could be the world's earliest curry.
All that and more still to come.
On space time.
A mysterious object that washed up on a wisdom Australian beach last month is finally being confirmed as a piece of space junk from the spent Indian rocket.
The Barnacle and Crusted Pressure Tank washed up on a beach near Julian Bay, a remote coastal region two hours north of Perth.
Now the legacy media quickly speculated that this must be part of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.
That's the plan that disappeared back on March 8th 2014 while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
But astronomers and space scientists quickly identified the three meter tall to 1/2 meter wide tank as rocket debris, either a liquid oxygen or propellant fuel tank.
Now Acer, the Australian Space Agency, has confirmed this debris was part of the expended third stage of an Indian polar satellite launch vehicle, a PSLV.
And the local town council for the shy of Kuro say they'd like to keep the debris as a tourist attraction.
It set it up in a park somewhere. Of course this isn't the first time Australia's found itself a landing ground for space junk.
Almost exactly a year ago a shape farmer in New South Wales found the chart remains of parts of a Falcon 9 rocket in one of his paddocks.
And of course Westland Australia itself is no stranger to space junk, with the remains of NASA's Skylab Space Station crashing back to Earth in WA, 480 km east of Perth back in 1979.
This is space time.
[Music]
And time that attack another brief look at some of the other stories making using science this week with a science report.
A new study claims that back to back learning events are likely to become more frequent under future greenhouse gas emission scenarios.
The findings reported in the journal nature suggest a 33% increase in back to back learning events predicted under a high greenhouse gas emission scenario.
The findings reported in the journal nature suggest a 33% increase in back to back learning events can be predicted under a high greenhouse gas emissions forecast.
The study found that under the high emissions scenario the frequency of multi-year learning is increased from one of every 12.1 years, which we saw on average between 1919 to 1 of every 9.1 years, which is likely to be the regime from the year 2000 through the 2099.
And that means more rains for eastern Australia.
The authors say their findings of a probable future increase in multi-year learning of frequency strengthens calls for an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to alleviate the adverse impacts.
A new study has confirmed that switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet could help people at high risk of cardiovascular disease, to lower their cholesterol levels, their blood sugar levels,
and may even drop a few kilos. The research reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association pulled together 20 previous clinical trials, finding benefits from switching to a vegan or vegetarian diet for six months.
The author say more high quality trials will further help clarify the effects of healthy plant-based diets in people with cardiovascular disease.
The remnants of what's believed to have been southeast Asia's earliest curry dating back around 2000 years has been found at an archaeological dig site in Vietnam.
The discovery reported in the Journal Science Advances, challenged new light on the trade network of the time, as well as the role of spices in the daily lives of the ancient people of the day.
Yakiologists found traces of spices on the grinding slab and other stone tools buried two meters below the surface, which was dug up in 2018 at the site of an ancient Furnang Kingdom trading hub.
The analysis revealed several culinary spices that originated in different places around the world, including turmeric, ginger, finger root, sand ginger, gallangal, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon.
Well, it's fashion week, and if you're not sure what to wear for your big night out ghost hunting, we have the solution.
Well known fashion is to timendum from Australian skeptics has some important advice about what closer to die for if you want to be in the spirit of things beyond the grave.
You're laughing, this is serious stuffy. We often talk about ghost hunters and the equipment they need to carry in order to do their jobs and the important task that they need to undertake.
Things that go beep and things that go point and of course they also have to dress in a certain way.
So let's tackle this from the top.
I'm sorry.
Have to wear special black or cam gear because well let's face it, they don't want to be seen.
That's right. Let's go through it.
Okay, it's always confusing why they have to wear black or camouflage outfits because I don't know the ghosts are going to care, but apparently they do.
Apparently ghosts get worried if you're wearing sort of loud gear or shiny gear or reflective gear, the ghosts believe they're not get spooked.
Don't be very funny about the idea of a ghost getting spooked.
And they might not come out.
So I think this one suggestion of this website which is normally has a pretty good play and cheek approach to a lot of this stuff,
but you must wear reflective clothing. Cover it up with a dark cardigan or blazer so you don't see what's the purpose of the reflective.
No day glow gear.
No day glow gear, no tradey outfits that you just come off the building side with.
The same goes for jewelry and accessories. You don't want to have dangly earrings, dinkled, dangle bracelets or noisy necrosse, etc.
All these things are going to scare a ghost. So apparently the ghosts are scared of everything else, so why did they come out?
Yeah, if somebody is very practical because often you go ghost hunting at night, again I don't know why.
If you're going in a dark house, you can go in there at daylight and there should be ghosts as well.
I don't know why a ghost only comes out at night.
With the daylight you see what a...
When you come out and you see what a world people spend daylight and if you see at night time there's everything so vague anyway.
And that's when you start to believe in ghosts. That's when your evidence is sort of a bit shonky but anyway.
In the nighttime it gets cold, especially if you're at a cemetery with something like that, you're probably going to get pretty cold.
So there's suggesting one you've got to wear layers of clothing, that's very nice of them. That's a good idea.
You could use the right footwear, yeah, sensible shoes, etc. If you're walking shoes, hiking shoes, that's the little thing because you might trip over a tombstone or something like that.
You're going to wear protective gear, those recommend gloves, etc.
And masks, because you're going to an old house, and some sort of dust, and all sorts of fungi and all sorts of awful things that you might actually get sick from being in there.
So you know, gloves and masks and probably wear, as I say, appropriate attire, meaning non-reflective and that's the little stuff, don't wear white gloves.
One thing they say, avoid wearing any red items, but I'm not quite sure why. Don't wear red items when ghost hunting in an old graveyard.
I don't know if that's a religious thing or what, but it's a strange bit of advice. And they say bring a change of clothes because you might get pooped.
No, it actually makes you might get wet. And I think they're falling over in mud.
Oh, I'm going to say where did the moisture come from, but we won't get that.
I don't think they mean soiling yourself, right? But maybe they do.
I mean maybe they're just really fashion conscious.
I'm going to accept the raised hand. I don't, you know, I mean, that's going to be warm, etc, but don't get carried away.
So there are some dress restrictions that you should obey when going ghost hunting.
They don't mention of camouflage gear in this thing. So I'm not sure if they have an inner or an out.
Basically, the bag you clothes with a ghost, aren't you?
Well, the interesting thing is that all these paranormal teams, all wear the same clothes, you see. They've got this uniform.
And they often have a little logo on the shirt, etc, which is very impressive.
So, I've found so town paranormal hunters, they all wear the same stuff, and whether it's a black outfit or whether it's a camouflage gear.
It's a semi sort of paramilitary approach in some of these cases.
And most of these advise what to wear when ghost hunting is just the same as stuff you say what to wear when going cold night.
There they are. These ghost hunters are very practical.
That's Tim Minden from Austrian Inceptics.
[Music]
And that's the show for now.
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