Ancient Martian Rocks and Their Secrets, Gamma Ray Observatory Greenlit, and Ariane 6 Takes Flight: S28E32

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 28 Episode 32, full broadcast on the 14th of March 2025. Coming up on SpaceTime, Martian minerals hinting at the possibility of ancient life on the Red Planet, the Ward's most powerful Gamma Ray Observatory gets the green light, and Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket begins operations. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime. Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:44] NASA's Mars Perseverance rovers discovered a strange rock on the Red Planet's Jezero crater rim that usually only forms in warm, wet environments that support life. The findings, reported in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, follows a detailed study by the six-wheeled car-sized mobile laboratory of some oddly pale rocks lying on the Martian surface. The rocks are composed of unusually high levels of aluminum associated with the mineral kaolinite.

[00:01:10] The study's lead author, Roger Wiens from Purdue University, says that on Earth, this mineral usually only forms in very warm and wet environments, where there's intense rainfall and warm climate, or in hydrothermal systems, such as hot springs. And Wiens points out that both these environments are ideal conditions for life as we know it. The minerals are actually what's left behind when rocks been in flowing water for eons.

[00:01:35] Over time, the warm water leaches away all the elements except those that are really insoluble, leaving behind what was found on Mars. Now on Earth, it's found in sedimentary deposits resulting from ancient soils and coastlines and intense hydrothermal environments. The mineral is quite soft and typically only forms in environments that are warm, wet, and hospitable to some forms of microbial life. On Mars, the rocks are white but not as soft, possibly due to other processes that may have hardened them.

[00:02:04] Perseverance mission managers remember observing lots of small pale pebbles on the Martian surface on the very first day the rover landed, but they were too busy working on other things to check these rocks out in detail. Eventually, scientists observed some larger rocks of similar colour lying on the surface that weren't part of the bedrock beneath the rover's wheels. Now geologists call these rocks float rocks because they're, well, floating above the bedrock, they're out of place and away from where they formed.

[00:02:30] More than 4,000 of these white rocks and pebbles have been found scattered across the Martian surface. Once the rover's supercam laser analysed the rocks, the scientists realised they were enigmas, very different from anything seen on Mars before. Mission managers then proceeded to analyse the rocks more deeply, looking for insights into their composition and structure, finding that many were kaolinites. These rocks were also found in certain spinel, likely aluminum spinel, which can form in either an ignis or metamorphic environment

[00:02:59] and can also be found as remnants of sedimentary rocks. Weans and colleagues are unsure what's happened here, whether the spinel formed from the kaolinite or the kaolinite formed around the spinel. Weans points out the big questions about Mars are all about water, how much water was there, how long the water lasted, and given how cold and dry Mars is now, where did all that water go? As a mineral, kaolinite has lots of water bound up in its structure.

[00:03:27] So it's possible that a lot of water is still there on Mars, bound up in the minerals. Although scientists haven't seen these rocks in situ in the bedrock with the rover, and they're not sure exactly where they came from, orbiting satellites have detected kaolinite-rich rocks in Jezero Crater's rim. So investigating these rocks in place will help scientists test hypotheses on how the rocks formed, how they relate to the Red Planet's ancient environment, and how they relate to habitability in the Martian past.

[00:03:56] This is space-time. Still to come, the world's most powerful gamma-ray observatory gets the green light, and Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket finally begins operations. All that and more still to come on space-time.

[00:04:25] Europe's just given the go-ahead for work to begin on building the world's most powerful gamma-ray observatory. The European Commission has now established the framework for building the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory. That will enable the observatory's construction to advance rapidly and provide a framework for distributing its data with the United States, Brazil and Australia as consortium partners. The consortium spokesperson Dave Keater from the University of Utah says gamma-ray astronomy didn't even exist before 1989

[00:04:54] when the first extraterrestrial gamma-ray source was detected. Over the past 39 years, astronomers have gone from detecting just one source to seeing several hundred, and with the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, that should increase to thousands. Keater says that over the last decade alone, scientists have discovered that these high-energy gamma rays are present in many types of very energetic astronomical phenomenon, but researchers still don't know much about their origins.

[00:05:21] He says the stars you see in the sky follow a predictable, rather uneventful existence for most of their lives. They burn hydrogen for a long time, converting it to helium, and eventually, when the big ones run out of fuel, they explode a supernovae. Keater says gamma-ray telescopes are looking at what comes after a star exhausts its life. And it turns out these high-energy gamma rays have massive consequences for the fate of our galaxy, in terms of how stars are formed, how galaxies evolve, in fact where they evolve,

[00:05:50] and what other hidden energies and matter could be out there, which are right now determining whether the universe will forever expand or ultimately collapse. The Akita's research group led the design and construction of key hardware for the medium-sized telescopes in the array, integrating technology he previously developed for Veritas, a very energetic radiation imaging telescope array system. Before the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, Veritas was the world's most sensitive very high-energy gamma-ray telescope.

[00:06:19] It could detect brief flashes of blue Cherenkov radiation created as gamma rays hit the Earth's atmosphere. Veritas operated for nearly two decades at the Whipple Observatory in Arizona. Over that time, he had designed and built crucial technology at the University of Utah. And the new array will be up to 20 times more sensitive than Veritas, and may even solve the mystery of where gamma rays originate. Kida says astronomers have actually seen much higher energy emissions than anybody ever anticipated,

[00:06:48] and from more diverse locations. But astronomers have really only started to scratch the surface of where this stuff comes from. And with the new sensitivity, they expect to even see the emission of gamma rays coinciding with gravitational waves and neutrinos. The new observatory array will see the construction of more than 60 telescopes across sites in Spain and Chile. On the northern site, a large-sized telescope prototype is already under commissioning,

[00:07:13] while three additional large-sized telescopes and one medium-sized telescope will be built over the next two years. Meanwhile, the southern site will see the first five small-sized telescopes and two mid-sized telescopes delivered by early next year. This report from the Cherenkov Telescope Array Consortium. With our eyes, we see only a tiny fraction of the light in the universe. To see more, we need instruments that can see light we can't. Like gamma rays.

[00:07:43] The result of subatomic particles accelerated in violent places like stellar explosions, or the jets discharged by supermassive black holes. Nothing generated on Earth comes close to the energy of the highest energy gamma rays. They can fly through the universe without getting scrambled by magnetic fields. We can't see them coming, but they travel directly towards us.

[00:08:10] But they never actually make it to the Earth's surface. They interact with the atmosphere, producing cascades of high-energy subatomic particles. These energetic particles move faster than the light in the air. And like a plane creates a sonic boom, they create a photonic boom. It's called Cherenkov Light. It's blue. And it's spectacular.

[00:08:38] But this happens in a billionth of a second. So we need powerful telescopes to see it. Like CTA, two arrays of telescopes, one in the Atacama Desert in Chile, and another atop the Spanish island of La Palma. The Cherenkov Light will flash and disappear. This faint glimmer can be collected by the telescope's mirrors

[00:09:05] and reflected into cameras, capturing a billion frames per second. The light will be captured by sensors able to detect a single photon and turn it into digital data. Data centers will store and process the information, so scientists can work with it. The telescopes are positioned to increase our chances of detecting Cherenkov Light. More telescopes gives us more information.

[00:09:34] By layering these images, we can estimate the energy of the gamma ray and pinpoint its direction in the sky. The data will be accessible to anyone, anywhere. So the discoveries are limitless. Precious information carried by invisible gamma rays, allowing us to see into the most unknown parts of the universe, to help unlock its secrets.

[00:10:10] This is space-time. Still to come, Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket finally begins operations, and later in the science report, a new study shows that massive glaciers may have paved the way for complex life to evolve on Earth. All that and more still to come, on Space Time.

[00:10:42] Europe has successfully launched its first commercial mission using the new Ariane 6 rocket. The flight from the European Space Agency's crew at Spaceport in French Guiana carried the French CSO-3 reconnaissance spy satellite. The mission marked a return to spaceflight for Ariane Space's heavy lift capabilities. They've been hampered by ongoing delays with the development of the Ariane 6, which was slated to become operational way back in 2020. Since the retirement of the workhorse Ariane 5 back in 2023,

[00:11:12] Europe's had little independent access to space, especially for heavy payloads. Compounding the problem were launch failures with ESA's Vega 3 rocket, forcing a two-year grounding which only ended last December, and bans on Ariane's Russian Soyuz flights by the west in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The twice-postponed launch also gave a symbolic boost to European efforts to expand its autonomy in space amid what appears to be a growing security risk with the United States. This is space-time.

[00:11:58] And time now to take another brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week with a science report. A new study has revealed how massive ancient glaciers acted like, well, giant bulldozers, reshaping the Earth's surface and possibly even paving the way for complex life to evolve. The findings, reported in the journal Geology, are based on a chemical analysis of crystals in ancient rocks by scientists at Curtin University. The authors discovered that as glaciers carved their way through the landscape,

[00:12:28] they scraped deep into the Earth's crust, in the process releasing minerals which then altered ocean chemistry. And that process had a profound impact on the planet's composition, creating the sorts of conditions that allowed complex life to evolve. Australia has a horrible history of failing to protect its native wildlife. Now, a new study has found that the few remaining koalas in the Sydney region

[00:12:53] are all facing an imminent risk of death because of habitat loss, environmental degradation and disease. New research by the University of Sydney has highlighted the unique dilemma being faced by Sydney's few remaining koala populations in the southwestern metropolitan area. These are among the very few koalas in the entire state that are still free of the chlamydia disease that has so severely diminished koala populations elsewhere on the east coast.

[00:13:19] However, an analysis of these koalas has shown how vulnerable they are to environmental threats and the outbreak of disease. The findings, reported in the journal Conservation Genetics, found the marsupials are also highly inbred with very low genetic diversity. Now, all combined, this means they're less likely to adapt to disease should it arrive on their doorstep. Scientists have found a naturally forming glass in the skull of a seemingly male human body

[00:13:46] found in Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town buried and preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79. The authors said that glass is likely made of the man's brain, which means the volcanic eruption must have caused an extremely rare chemical reaction. See, glass requires very specific conditions to form. And to turn a human brain into glass would have needed temperatures to hit at least 510 degrees Celsius and then cool rapidly. The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports,

[00:14:16] speculates that the gas and volcanic matter that buried Herculaneum likely wasn't hot enough to cause this. Which means there must have been a superheated ash cloud that hit the town before it was buried, which then dissipated rapidly. Well, it seems Australian Skeptics' Bent Spoon Award winner Ross Coulthard's latest UFO scoop has left a lot of people very disappointed. The Bent Spoon Awards presented annually to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudo-scientific piffle.

[00:14:44] The award-winning Coulthard has also won a walkly for his journalistic efforts, claims he had definitive proof of UFOs with a video of what he claims is a giant egg-shaped spacecraft. But Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics says his overhyped claims have left a lot of UFO true believers very disillusioned and upset. What he has done recently is amazingly hyped up a program that he was putting forward on the online news channel that he works for these days, which was calling a world-beating, that's his phrase as well,

[00:15:13] a world-beating whistleblower's revelation about hunting UFOs for the US military, and definitive proof, that's the quote, definitive proof of UFOs for the video. Now the video, first of all, looks like a giant egg, okay? It looks like it's being carried in on some sort of cradle on a long cable underneath a helicopter. And they quietly, gently lower it to the ground where it sort of moves a bit, it rolls a little bit. It's supposed to be night vision, green night vision. You really can't tell what the surface is being put down on. It looks a bit either like an unfortunate bathroom rug or a bit of grass or whatever.

[00:15:43] You can't tell. And you can't tell how big it is either. It's really hanging. It could be a bit of string holding it. It could be enormous cable. You never know. So this definitive proof goes for about 10 seconds of this film clip. And the world-beating whistleblower was a fellow who used to also work for the US military on retrieving these spaceships, but it was spacecraft. Not necessarily the same one in the video. It's a bit hard to tell. But he's now gone out on his own to present, do research on UFOs and present more definitive proof.

[00:16:11] The industry, the UFO reliever industry, were really disappointed. They said, you've got to be kidding. They weren't just sort of, some of them were saying, well, yeah, give us more detail. Most of them were saying, that's it. And, you know, a lot of UFO believers are pretty generous in what they accept as evidence. But in this case, they just said, Ross, you've set us back 20 years. This egg-shaped thing, getting close to Easter there, there isn't a confluence there, is there? Well, I'm not quite sure actually, because of course I'm not quite sure exactly when it was filmed. It might have been before Christmas. It might be a Christmas egg.

[00:16:39] But people keep making comments like, oh, I've got 12 of those in my fridge. And it's worth a fortune these days. With, apparently, yeah. This is one of those things that Ross Kulteier keeps putting forward. He also keeps putting forward that within 12 months, it's all going to be wide open. You're going to know everything. It's going to all be revealed. And he's been saying this for years, as has the UFO community, for at least 70 years. And so far it hasn't been revealed. But I thought it was going to be next year, or sometime soon. You know, now even Kulteier's not quite sure exactly which year it's going to be. But it's going to happen.

[00:17:07] So when he says world beating, the real question is exactly what is he beating? Yeah, that's right. Yes. Ha ha. But it's certainly not evidence, right? And it's certainly not evidence of UFOs. The people, the person he interviews in this program, and he interviews some others, they're all believers in UFOs. And most of them work with this one guy, this whistleblower. Therefore, you tend to think, hmm, you'd be good to get a few independent commentators in this. I don't know if I've ever seen him actually talk with someone who's not a believer in UFOs.

[00:17:36] Well, that's certainly what Walkley winners these days are renowned for, not necessarily on both sides of the story now. Yeah. Poor old Ross gets involved in some of these things, and he's very enthusiastic, obviously. But he probably needs to stand back a bit and say, is this true? That's Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics.

[00:17:53] And that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher,

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