(00:00:47) Have astronomers finally seen the universe’s first stars
(00:04:06) Hidden secrets about the Moon and the asteroid Vesta
(00:10:45) Euclid peers deep into a stellar nursery full of baby stars
(00:16:05) The Science Report
(00:18:09) Skeptics guide to flat earthers falling flat on their face again
In this episode of SpaceTime, we uncover groundbreaking findings that could reshape our understanding of the universe's early stars, the Moon's hidden secrets, and the asteroid Vesta's internal structure.
First Stars Detected
Astronomers may have finally glimpsed the universe's first stars, known as Population 3 stars, thanks to observations from NASA's Webb Space Telescope. These luminous giants, formed just 200 million years after the Big Bang, are believed to have ended the cosmic dark ages and initiated the epoch of reionisation. The episode delves into the significance of these findings, which suggest that these stars were formed in small clusters and exhibit extremely low metallicity, challenging previous theories about the early universe.
Secrets of the Moon Revealed
Two NASA studies have provided fascinating insights into the Moon's internal structure through advanced gravity modelling. By analysing data from the GRAIL mission, researchers have created the most detailed gravitational map of the Moon to date, revealing variations linked to tidal deformation. This research offers clues about the Moon's geological history and volcanic activity, particularly highlighting differences between the near and far sides of the Moon.
New Insights into Asteroid Vesta
In a parallel study, scientists examined the asteroid Vesta's structure using data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Contrary to earlier beliefs of a layered interior, new measurements suggest Vesta may have a more uniform composition, with only a small core, if any. This revelation challenges long-held assumptions about the formation and evolution of this ancient asteroid.
Euclid Space Telescope's Stellar Nursery Observations
The European Space Agency's Euclid Space Telescope has peered into the dark cloud LDN 1641, uncovering a vibrant stellar nursery filled with young stars. This segment discusses the significance of Euclid's observations, which not only aid in fine-tuning the telescope's capabilities but also contribute to our understanding of star formation and the cosmos.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Astrophysical Journal Letters
Nature
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Stuart Gary: This is space Time Series 28, episode
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 134 for broadcast on 14
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 November 2025. Coming up on
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 Space, have astronomers
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 finally seen the universe's first, uh, stars?
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 Discovering hidden secrets about our moon and
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 the asteroid Vesta. And Europe's Euclid
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 spacecraft peers deep into a stellar nursery
00:00:21 --> 00:00:24 full of baby stars. All that and
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 more coming up on Space Time.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 Voice Over Guy: Welcome to Space Time with Stuart
00:00:31 --> 00:00:31 Gary.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 Stuart Gary: Astronomers, uh, believe they may have
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 finally detected some of the very first stars
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 to shine in the universe. A report in the
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 Astrophysical Journal Letters claims
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 observations by NASA's Webb Space Telescope
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 has detected what appear to be Population 3
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 stars in an ancient galaxy catalogued as Lap
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 1 b, which was a background galaxy
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 gravitationally lensed by a foreground galaxy
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 cluster known as Max J0416.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 Population 3 stars were the very first
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 stars to form in the universe, ending the
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 cosmic dark ages and triggering the epoch of
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 reionisation. That's when radiation
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 from these first stars began to ionise the
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 opaque gas that filled the early cosmos,
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 turning the universe transparent and making
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 it look the way it does today. These
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 population 3 stars were extremely
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 luminous, massive blue stars composed almost
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 entirely of nothing but pure hydrogen and
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 helium, with maybe trace amounts of lithium
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 thrown in. The stars were made out of only
00:01:48 --> 00:01:49 these elements because they were the only
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 elements created in the Big Bang 13.8 billion
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 years ago. See, all the other elements
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 in the universe were manufactured through
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 nuclear fusion processes during the lives and
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 deaths of these first uh, stars. The new
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 Webb observations suggest that these
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 Population 3 stars were formed around 200
00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 million years after the Big Bang.
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 Big hot stars live fast and die young.
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 They're the James Deans of the astrophysical
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 world. And because they live fast and die
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 young, um, they're extremely rare. One of the
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 holy grails behind the development of the
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 Webb Space Telescope was the possibility of
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 getting a glimpse of the faint light shining
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 from these distant, most ancient of all
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 stars. Previous detections
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 of Population three star candidates have
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 always been ruled out because they didn't
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 meet the primary theoretical predictions of
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 what their formation and properties should
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 look like. See, in order to be a Population
00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 three star, it would need to have been formed
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 in small clusters of dark matter halos. It
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 would need to be extremely massive and it
00:02:51 --> 00:02:53 would need to have virtually metallicity.
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 Astronomers regard all elements other than
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 the hydrogen and helium made in the Big Bang
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 as metals. And the stars in
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 lap 1b appear to meet all these
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 requirements. The Population 3 stellar
00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 system was detected in a dark matter halo
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 with a group around 50 million solar masses
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 and the stars themselves each appear to be
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 quite massive, ranging from ten to a thousand
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 times the mass of our sun. Also, they were
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 clustered together in small groups, totaling
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 a few thousand solar masses. And
00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 finally, their spectral signatures suggested
00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 the gas surrounding lap 1B is of
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 extremely low metallicity. It's not
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 quite case closed yet, but the results are
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 incredibly tantalising. This is space
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 time still to come. Discovering
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 hidden secrets about our moon and the
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 asteroid Vesta and Euclid peers deep into
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 a stellar nursery full of baby stars.
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 All that and more still to come on, um, space
00:03:52 --> 00:03:52 time.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 Two separate NASA studies have revealed some
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 fascinating hidden secrets. And about the
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 Earth's Moon and the main built asteroid
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 Vesta. Uh, the findings, reported in the
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 journal Nature, are both based on spacecraft
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 gravity data achieved simply by orbiting
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 these ancient worlds. Although the Moon and
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 the asteroid Vesta are very different, the
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 works resulted in groundbreaking insights
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 about planetary structures. In the lunar
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 study, the authors developed a new gravity
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 model of the Moon that included tiny
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 variations in the celestial body's gravity
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 during its elliptical orbit around the Earth.
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 These fluctuations cause the Moon to flex
00:04:44 --> 00:04:45 ever so slightly due to, uh, Earth's
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 gravitational tidal force. It's a process
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 called tidal deformation, and it provides
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 crucial insights into the Moon's deep
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 internal structure. Using their model, the
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 study's authors produced the most detailed
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 lunar gravitational map ever recorded,
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 providing future missions with an improved
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 way of calculating locations and time on the
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 Moon. They accomplish this by analysing
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 data on the motion of NASA's GRAIL Gravity
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission. Its
00:05:13 --> 00:05:15 two spacecraft, known as Ebb and Flow,
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 orbited the moon between December 2011
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 and December 2012. The
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 other study focused on the asteroid Vesta, a
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 frozen rocky world in the main asteroid built
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 between Mars and Jupiter. Using NASA's
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 Deep Space Network radiometric data, as well
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 as imaging data from NASA's dawn spacecraft,
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 which orbited the asteroid between July 2011
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 and September 2012. The authors found that
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 instead of having distinct layers as
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 expected, Vesta's internal structure may be
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 much more uniform, with at most a small
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 iron core or possibly no core at all.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 Both studies were led by Ryan park from
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 California. Park and colleagues used NASA's
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 supercomputers to build a detailed map of how
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 gravity varies across each body. From
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 that, they could better understand what the
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 Moon and Vesta were made of and how planetary
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 bodies across our solar system system formed.
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 Park says gravity is a unique and fundamental
00:06:14 --> 00:06:17 property of a planetary body, and it can be
00:06:17 --> 00:06:19 used to explore its deep interior. The
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 technique doesn't require any data from the
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 surface. Astronomers just need to track the
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 motion of the spacecraft Very precisely As it
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 orbits a planet in order to get a global view
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 of what's going on inside. The
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 lunar study looked at gravitational changes
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 in the Moon's near and far sides. The Moon's
00:06:38 --> 00:06:40 nearside is dominated by vast plains known as
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 mare, Formed by molten rock that cooled and
00:06:43 --> 00:06:46 solidified billions of years ago. The lunar
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 far side is far more rugged, with very few
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 plains. Some theories suggest that intense
00:06:52 --> 00:06:54 volcanism on the near side of the moon Likely
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 caused these differences. That process
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 would have caused radioactive heat generated
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 elements to accumulate Deep inside the
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 lunar nearside's mantle. And the new
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 study offers the strongest evidence yet that
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 this is likely the case. The authors found
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 the moon's near side Is flexing more than the
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 far side, Meaning there's something
00:07:14 --> 00:07:16 fundamentally different about the internal
00:07:16 --> 00:07:18 structure of the moon's near side Compared to
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 the far side. When comparing the results with
00:07:21 --> 00:07:24 other models, Park's team found a, uh, small
00:07:24 --> 00:07:26 but greater than expected difference in how
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 much the two hemispheres deform. The
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 most likely explanation for this Is that the
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 knee side Has a warm mantle region,
00:07:34 --> 00:07:35 Indicating the presence of heat generating
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 radioactive elements, which is evidence for
00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 volcanic activity that shaped the moon's near
00:07:40 --> 00:07:42 side 2 to 3 billion years ago.
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 The authors then applied a similar approach
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 to their study Of Vesta's rotational
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 properties in order to learn more about this
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 asteroid's interior. The technique is
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 sensitive to any changes in the gravitational
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 field Of a body in space, Whether that
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 gravitational field changes over time, like
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 the tidal flexing of the moon, or through
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 space. Like a wobbling asteroid,
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 Vesta wobbles as it spins. That allowed the
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 authors to measure what's known as its moment
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 of inertia, A characteristic that's highly
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 sensitive to the internal structure of a
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 body. You can see changes in inertia when you
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 look at an ice skater spinning with their
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 arms held outwards. As they pull their arms
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 in, bringing more mass towards their centre
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 of gravity, Their inertia decreases and their
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 spin speeds up. By measuring
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 Vesta's moment of inertia, Scientists gained
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 a, uh, detailed understanding of the
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 distribution of mass inside the asteroid.
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 Now, if its inertia was low, it would mean
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 there was a concentration of mass towards its
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 centre. But if it's high, that mass would
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 be far more evenly distributed throughout the
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 entire asteroid. Previous studies had
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 suggested that over long periods of time,
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 Vesta would have gradually formed an onion
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 like layer and a dense core, A process
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 known as differentiation. But the new
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 Inertia measurements suggest instead that
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 Vesta is far more homogeneous, with its mass
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 distributed evenly throughout and only a ah
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 small core of dense material, if any, at its
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 centre. Gravity slowly pulls the heaviest
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 elements towards a planet's core over time.
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 That's how the Earth ended up with a dense
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 core of liquid iron. And while Vesta
00:09:18 --> 00:09:19 had long been considered a differentiated
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 asteroid, a more homogeneous structure
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 suggested it may not have fully formed layers
00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 or it may have simply formed added debris
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 from another planetary body following a
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 massive impact. In 2016,
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 Parke used the same data types as the VISTA
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 study to focus on Dawn's second target, the
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 dwarf planet Ceres. And the results there did
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 suggest a partially differentiated interior.
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 Park and colleagues more recently applied the
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 same technique to Jupiter's volcanic moon IO
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 using data gathered by NASA's Juno and
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 Galileo spacecraft during their flybys of the
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 Jovian satellite as well as from ground based
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 observ. By measuring how IO's
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 gravity changes as it orbits Jupiter, which
00:10:01 --> 00:10:03 exerts a powerful gravitational tidal force,
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 they revealed that this volcanic moon is
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 unlikely to possess a global magma ocean.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 This is space time still to come.
00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 The European Space Agency's Euclid Space
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 Telescope peers deep inside a stellar nursery
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 full of baby stars and later in the
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 science report claims a natural sweetener
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 derived from the stevia plant could help
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 improve hair loss treatment. All that and
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 more still to come on um, space time.
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 The European Space Agency's Euclid Space
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 Telescope has peed through a dusty veil of
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 the mysterious interstellar gas and dust
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 nebula in The Dark Cloud LDN
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 1641, in the process
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 revealing a spectacular stellar nursery
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 filled with a multitude of shimmering baby
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 stars. LDN 1641
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 is around 1300 light years away in the
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 constellation Orion. It's in a sprawling
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 complex of dusty gas clouds where new stars
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 are being formed. In visible light, this
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 region of the sky appears mostly dark, with
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 just a few stars dotting what seems to be a
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 primarily empty background. But by
00:11:25 --> 00:11:27 imaging the cloud with Euclid's infrared
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 eyes, a fascinating panorama of star birth
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 uh, is being exposed. The new study
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 shows that the nebula is teeming with very
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 young hot stars. Some of these objects
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 embedded in the dusty surroundings are
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 violently spewing out material. A uh, sign of
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 stars being formed. These outflows
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 appear as magenta coloured spots and coils.
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 Euclid was observing this region of the sky
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 to fine tune its pointing ability.
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 For the guiding tests, mission managers
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 required a field of view where only a few
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 stars would be detectable in visible light.
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 And this portion of LDN 1641
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 proved to be the most suitable area for
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 study. The tests were successful and they
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 helped ensure that Euclid can point reliably
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 and very precisely in any desired direction.
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 This ability is key to delivering extremely
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 sharp astronomical images of large patches of
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 the sky at a very rapid pace. In fact, the
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 data for this image was collected in just
00:12:24 --> 00:12:26 under five hours of observation time.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 Euclid is surveying the sky to create what
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 will be the most extensive three dimensional
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 map of the extra galactic universe ever
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 undertaken. Its main objective is to
00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 enable scientists to pin down the mysterious
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 nature of dark matter and dark energy. But
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 the mission will also deliver a treasure
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 trove of observations of interesting regions
00:12:46 --> 00:12:48 in our own galaxy, just like LDN
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 1641, as well as countless detailed
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 images of other galaxies, offering new
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 avenues of investigation in many different
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 fields of astronomy. This report from
00:12:58 --> 00:12:59 esa TV.
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 Alex Zaharov-Reutt: In 1915, Albert Einstein
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 astonished the world with his general theory
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 of relativity. It described
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 the behaviour of the entire universe based
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 on the matter and energy contained within it.
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 The theory sparked the modern discipline of
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 cosmology and the hope that we would finally
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 understand how the universe came to be.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 But in recent times, the effort to define
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 what the universe is made of has given us a
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 very big surprise. Visible
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 stars and galaxies make up less than
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 5% of the universe's total matter and
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 energy. Beneath this visible
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 layer is a mysterious celestial realm
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 consisting of shadowy particles and um,
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 unknown energy fields. For decades,
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 astronomers have puzzled at their nature,
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 calling these elusive substances dark
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 matter and dark energy.
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 ESA's Euclid mission will go in search of the
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 answer to the fundamental what
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 is the universe made of? A
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 European designed mission, Euclid is built
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 and operated by ESA with contributions from
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 the International Euclid Consortium and
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 NASA. ESA selected Thales Alenia
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 Space to lead on building Euclid with Airbus
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 Defence in Space providing the telescope and
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 payload module. The telescope and
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 scientific instruments form the heart of the
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 mission. Together they will observe
00:14:30 --> 00:14:33 billions of galaxies over more than one third
00:14:33 --> 00:14:35 of the sky. Producing record
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 quantities of data. Euclid will enable
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 scientists to draw a precise map of the
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 universe across space and time.
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 This will allow researchers to investigate
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 the effects of dark matter and dark energy on
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 the apparent shape of galaxies and on their
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 motion and distribution over immense
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 distances. In turn, this will
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 help reveal the true nature of dark matter
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 and dark energy. The spacecraft and data
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 communications controlled from ESA's European
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt.
00:15:09 --> 00:15:11 To cope with the vast amounts of data euclid
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 will acquire, ESA's Edge Track Network of
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 deep space antennas has been upgraded.
00:15:17 --> 00:15:19 These data will be analysed by the Euclid
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 Consortium, a group of more than 2
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 scientists from more than 3300 institutes
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 across Europe, the U.S. canada and
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 Japan. Understanding the
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 elusive nature of the universe has drawn
00:15:33 --> 00:15:35 astronomers throughout history. It
00:15:35 --> 00:15:37 remains one of the most challenging
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 investigations in m modern science. The
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 Euclid mission is a quest into the unknown.
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 A mission to shine a light on the dark
00:15:46 --> 00:15:47 side of the universe.
00:15:48 --> 00:15:49 Stuart Gary: This is space, time
00:16:06 --> 00:16:08 and time. Um, now to take another brief look
00:16:08 --> 00:16:09 at some of the other stories making news in
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11 Science this week with a science report.
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 A new study has found a link between a
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 person's IQ at the age of 18 and their risk
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 of developing alcohol use disorder. A
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 report in the Journal of the American Medical
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 association looked at around 600 people
00:16:25 --> 00:16:26 from the Swedish military m conscription
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 registry booster, which includes an IQ
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 assessment, and then followed up with these
00:16:31 --> 00:16:33 people over an average of more than 60 years
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 using a technique called Mendelian
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 randomization, which uses genetics to allow
00:16:38 --> 00:16:40 scientists to determine whether one thing
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 causes another rather than them simply being
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 linked. The authors found a causal
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 association between lower cognitive
00:16:46 --> 00:16:48 performance and the risk of alcohol use
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 disorder, whereas the inverse was found for
00:16:51 --> 00:16:52 people with higher IQs.
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 Scientists have developed a new type of
00:16:56 --> 00:16:58 bamboo based plastic which they claim is
00:16:58 --> 00:17:00 strong enough to be used for industrial
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 purposes but still able to biodegrade in the
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 soil within 50 days. The research
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 reported in the journal Nature
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 Communications, claims the product was able
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 to match or outperform, uh, traditional
00:17:11 --> 00:17:12 plastics when it came to shapeability,
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 mechanical stability and withstanding
00:17:15 --> 00:17:17 temperatures. The authors say organic based
00:17:17 --> 00:17:19 plastics like these are often unable to
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 handle tough conditions, making them
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 unsuitable for areas such as infrastructure.
00:17:24 --> 00:17:26 But their plastic is made by breaking down
00:17:26 --> 00:17:29 bamboo cellulose using an alcohol solvent and
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 then modifying the cellulose as a tough
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 plastic material. A
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 new study has shown that Stevinoside, a
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 natural sweetener derived from the Stevina
00:17:39 --> 00:17:40 plant, could help improve hair loss
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 treatments. The findings reported in the
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 journal Advanced Hair Care Materials are
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 based on research with Alpecia subjects.
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 The authors gave subjects a, uh, dissolving
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 patch formulation of stervisoside combined
00:17:53 --> 00:17:55 with minoxidil, a hair loss treatment that's
00:17:55 --> 00:17:57 appro that dissolves and absorbs into the
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 skin very poorly. The authors found the patch
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 helped effectively promote hair follicles to
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 grow new hair. And they say this could be a
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 promising step towards more effective
00:18:07 --> 00:18:08 treatments for baldness.
00:18:09 --> 00:18:12 Well, it seems flat earthers are at it again.
00:18:12 --> 00:18:14 This time they claim to have direct evidence
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 from NASA's own files that the earth is
00:18:17 --> 00:18:19 flat and that the agency's been Hiding the
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 truth from the American people all along. Of
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 course, in reality the document they're
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 looking at was simply pointing out the fact
00:18:26 --> 00:18:28 that when aircraft velocity is being
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 calculated, you don't include things like the
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 speed of Earth's rotation, how fast the
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 planet's orbiting around the sun, how quickly
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 the solar system circling the centre of the
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 Milky Way galaxy, or for that matter, how
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 fast the Milky Way galaxy is moving through
00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 the universe and space time. But why
00:18:43 --> 00:18:46 let the facts get in the way of a good story?
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 Tim Mendham from Australian Sceptics says the
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 gotcha moment falls a little flat when you're
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 smart enough to understand the full context
00:18:53 --> 00:18:54 behind the paper.
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 Tim Mendham: I'm sure some of the NASA finally revealed
00:18:56 --> 00:18:59 the truth. Let's slip that the Earth is flat,
00:18:59 --> 00:19:02 non rotating. No doubt. Got the sack.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 No, what it is, it's pretty ordinary when you
00:19:05 --> 00:19:06 get down to it. A lot of these things are,
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 uh, someone was looking at documentation on
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 NASA's site, so it's hardly secret. And they
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 found the reports that in various, uh,
00:19:13 --> 00:19:16 assessments that were done mainly of aircraft
00:19:16 --> 00:19:19 landings, aircraft flight, rockets in space,
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 even a helicopter, uh, they did their
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 assessments on the basis that the
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 Earth being flat and non rotating. Right. As
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 to like the effects of variable wind speeds
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 and aircraft trajectory and this sort of
00:19:31 --> 00:19:33 stuff they were using as flat because
00:19:33 --> 00:19:34 basically there's no difference.
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 Stuart Gary: Yes, because you're part of the frame, you're
00:19:36 --> 00:19:36 part of the picture.
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 Tim Mendham: That's right, yeah. I mean from the
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 perspective of the flight, it might as well
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 be flat. Right. Because of the size of the
00:19:43 --> 00:19:45 earth, etc. The distances you're talking
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 about. But this with the phrase in there,
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 they're talking about describing it as if it
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 was flat and non rotating because really it
00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 won't make a lot of difference to their
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 calculations and the size and time periods
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 they're talking about. So they do it just for
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00 the sake of measurements, not because they
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 think the Earth is flat and is non rotating,
00:20:02 --> 00:20:04 but some unnecessarily. You found a few words
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 in here and then you pull those out, out of
00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 context and then you say, see NASA, uh, top
00:20:09 --> 00:20:11 secret information published on their website
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 for anyone to read that it's flat and it's
00:20:14 --> 00:20:16 non rotating. Sorry, um, share with you the
00:20:16 --> 00:20:16 words.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 Stuart Gary: You want and leave the rest out.
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 Tim Mendham: Yeah, I mean someone from NASA said that any
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 aircraft, even a supersonic jet fighter, does
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25 not fly anywhere near a speed where the
00:20:25 --> 00:20:27 curvature of the Earth has to be accounted in
00:20:27 --> 00:20:30 trajectory analysis. So only when you're
00:20:30 --> 00:20:32 talking about achieving uh, orbit does the
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 curvature come into play. Okay, it can become
00:20:35 --> 00:20:37 significant, whatever. For all intents and
00:20:37 --> 00:20:39 purposes, aeroplanes in flight can be treated
00:20:39 --> 00:20:41 as flying over a flat domain. So no, not
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 secret. They haven't made a blunder. They
00:20:43 --> 00:20:44 haven't sort of secretly revealed this
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46 information. It wasn't secret, had perfectly
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 good reason for doing it. And apart from
00:20:48 --> 00:20:49 that, it's a non story.
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 Stuart Gary: That's Tim Mendham from Australian Sceptics.
00:21:07 --> 00:21:10 And that's the show for now. Space Time is
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00:21:54 --> 00:21:55 Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to Space Time with
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