Dark Matter Breakthrough, Jupiter's Magnetic Mysteries, and NASA's Newest Eye: S27E146

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 146, for broadcast on the 4th of December 2024.

[00:00:06] Coming up on SpaceTime, how an ebile supernova could end the search for dark matter, magnetic

[00:00:12] tornadoes stirring up the haze at Jupiter's poles, and the world's biggest digital camera

[00:00:18] arrives at NASA's Goddard.

[00:00:20] All that and more coming up on SpaceTime.

[00:00:24] Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:44] Astronomers are waiting for a nearby supernova that could finally end the search for the

[00:00:49] universe's mysterious dark matter. The nature of dark matter has eluded astronomers for more than 90

[00:00:55] years, ever since the realisation that 85% of all the matter in the universe wasn't visible through

[00:01:01] our telescopes. The most likely dark matter candidate today are tiny subatomic particles,

[00:01:07] hypothetical particles known as axions. And researchers around the world are desperately

[00:01:12] trying to find them. Now, a new report in the journal Physical Review Letters argues that these axions

[00:01:18] could be discovered within seconds of the detection of gamma rays from a nearby supernova explosion.

[00:01:24] You see, according to the theory, axions, if they exist, would be produced in copious quantities

[00:01:29] during the first 10 seconds following a core-collapse supernova explosion involving a massive star

[00:01:35] turning into a neutron star. And those axions would then escape, but be transformed into high-energy

[00:01:40] gamma rays by the star's intense magnetic field. Such a detection is possible today only if the lone

[00:01:48] gamma-ray space telescope in orbit above the Earth right now, that's the Fermi gamma-ray space

[00:01:52] telescope, is pointing in the right direction when the supernova happens. Now, given the telescope's

[00:01:58] field of view, that's about a one in ten chance. Yet a single detection of gamma rays would be enough to

[00:02:04] pinpoint the mass of the axion, and in particular the so-called QCD axion, thereby eliminating a huge range

[00:02:12] of theoretical masses, including mass ranges now being scoured in experiments on Earth. On the other hand,

[00:02:18] the lack of a detection would eliminate a large range of potential masses for the axion, in the process making

[00:02:24] most current dark matter searches irrelevant. The problem is that for gamma rays to be bright enough to be detected,

[00:02:30] a supernova would need to be really close by. That means within our own Milky Way galaxy, or one of its

[00:02:36] nearby satellite galaxies. And stars there only explode on average once every few decades. In fact, the last

[00:02:43] time one of these nearby supernovae happened was 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Amazingly, at that

[00:02:50] time, the now-defunct gamma-ray telescope, the solar maximum mission, was pointing in the supernova's

[00:02:56] direction. But it wasn't sensitive enough to be able to detect the predicted intensity of those

[00:03:01] gamma rays. The study's lead author, Benjamin Safdie from the University of California, Berkeley, says that

[00:03:07] if we were to see a supernova like 1987A with a modern gamma-ray telescope, we should be able to detect

[00:03:12] or rule out this QCD axion across much of its parameter space. And all that would happen within the first ten seconds.

[00:03:20] Problem is, astronomers are really nervous because when this long overdue supernova does pop off in the

[00:03:26] nearby universe, they won't be ready to see any gamma rays produced by axions. So scientists are now

[00:03:32] talking with colleagues who build gamma-ray telescopes to judge the feasibility of launching one, or really

[00:03:37] a fleet of such telescopes, to cover 100% of the sky 24-7, thereby being assured of catching any gamma-ray

[00:03:43] burst. They've even proposed a name for their full-sky gamma-ray satellite constellation, the Galactic Axion

[00:03:50] Instrument for Supernova, or GALAXIS for short. Safdie says all of his team members on this

[00:03:55] project are pretty stressed out because there's always the chance of there being the next supernova

[00:04:00] before they have the right instrumentation to study it. And it would be a real shame if a supernova went

[00:04:05] off tomorrow and they missed the opportunity to detect the axions because there might not be

[00:04:10] another one for another 50 years. Searches for dark matter originally focused on faint,

[00:04:16] massive, compact halo objects, or machos, theoretically sprinkled throughout our universe and the cosmos.

[00:04:21] But when that didn't materialize, physicists began to look for elementary subatomic particles,

[00:04:27] which theoretically are all around us and should be detectable in earthbound laboratories.

[00:04:32] But these so-called weakly interacting massive objects, or WIMPs, also failed to show up.

[00:04:38] That's why the current best candidate for dark matter is the axion, a particle that fits nicely

[00:04:43] within the standard model of particle physics and solves several other outstanding puzzles in physics as

[00:04:48] well. Axions also fall neatly out of string theory, the hypothesis about the underlying geometry of the

[00:04:54] universe. And they might even be able to unify gravity, which explains interactions on the cosmic

[00:05:00] scale through relativity theory and the theory of quantum mechanics, which describes the subatomic

[00:05:05] universe. The strongest candidate for an axion is a so-called QCD axion, named after the reigning

[00:05:12] theory on the strong nuclear force, quantum chromodynamics. Now, QCD axions would theoretically

[00:05:18] interact with all matter, though weakly, through the four forces of nature – gravity, electromagnetism,

[00:05:24] the strong nuclear force which holds atoms together, and the weak nuclear force, which explains the

[00:05:29] breakup of atoms through processes like radioactive decay. One consequence of all that is that in a strong

[00:05:35] magnetic field, an axion should occasionally turn into an electromagnetic wave or photon. Now we should also

[00:05:41] point out that the axion is distinctly different from another lightweight, weakly interacting particle,

[00:05:46] the neutrino, which only interacts through gravity in the weak nuclear force and totally ignores the

[00:05:51] electromagnetic force. Lab experiments employing compact cavities, which are sort of similar to a

[00:05:57] tuning fork, should resonate and amplify the faint electromagnetic field or photon produced if a

[00:06:02] low-mass axion transforms in the presence of a strong magnetic field. Now, alternatively,

[00:06:08] astrophysicists have proposed looking for axions produced inside neutron stars immediately after a

[00:06:13] core-collapse supernova like 1987A. Until now, however, they've focused primarily on detecting

[00:06:19] gamma rays from these axions' slow transformation into photons in the magnetic fields of galaxies.

[00:06:25] Safdie and colleagues realised, however, that this process isn't very efficient at producing gamma rays,

[00:06:30] at least not enough of them to be detected from Earth. So instead, they're exploring the

[00:06:35] production of gamma rays by axions in the strong magnetic fields around the very star which generates

[00:06:41] the axions. Supercomputer simulations showed that this process creates a burst of gamma rays that is

[00:06:47] dependent on the mass of the axion, and this burst should occur simultaneously with a burst of neutrinos

[00:06:52] from inside the hot neutron star. But the burst of axions only lasts a mere 10 seconds after the neutron star

[00:06:59] forms. After that, the production rate drops dramatically, and that's hours before the outer layers of the

[00:07:05] star explode. Neutron stars have a lot of things going for them. They're extremely hot objects.

[00:07:11] They also host strong magnetic fields. In fact, the strongest magnetic fields in our universe are

[00:07:17] found around neutron stars known as magnetars, which have magnetic fields tens of billions of times stronger

[00:07:22] than anything that can be produced in a laboratory. And that would help convert these axions into observable

[00:07:28] signals. Two years ago, Safdie and colleagues put the best upper limit on the mass of the QCD axion

[00:07:35] at around 16 million electron volts, and that's about 32 times less than the mass of an electron.

[00:07:41] That was based on the cooling rate of neutron stars, which would cool faster if axions were produced

[00:07:46] alongside neutrinos inside these hot compact bodies. The new study not only describes the

[00:07:51] production of gamma rays following core collapse of a neutron star, but also uses the non-detection of

[00:07:57] gamma rays from the 1987A supernova to put the best constraints yet on the mass of axion-like

[00:08:02] particles, which differ from QCD axions in that they don't interact through the strong nuclear force.

[00:08:08] They predict that a gamma ray detection would allow them to identify the QCD axion's mass if

[00:08:14] it's above 50 micro electron volts, or about one ten billionth the mass of an electron.

[00:08:19] And it would take just a single detection to refocus existing experiments to confirm the mass of the axion.

[00:08:24] While a fleet of dedicated gamma ray telescopes remains the best option for detecting gamma rays

[00:08:30] from a nearby supernova, a lucky break with Fermi would be even better.

[00:08:35] Safdie says the best-case scenario for axions is Fermi catching a supernova.

[00:08:39] It's just that the chances of that occurring are really small.

[00:08:43] But if Fermi saw it, scientists would be able to measure its mass.

[00:08:47] They'd be able to measure its interacting strength.

[00:08:50] They'd be able to determine everything they need to know about the axion.

[00:08:54] And they'd be incredibly confident in the signal and what it means,

[00:08:57] because there's no ordinary matter which could create such an event.

[00:09:00] Here's hoping.

[00:09:02] This is space-time.

[00:09:04] Still to come, magnetic tornadoes stirring up the haze of Jupiter's poles,

[00:09:09] and the biggest digital camera ever made arrives at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

[00:09:14] All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:09:32] A new study has shown unusual magnetically driven vortexes at Jupiter's poles,

[00:09:37] which may be generating Earth-sized concentrations of hydrocarbon haze.

[00:09:42] While Jupiter's great red spot has been a constant feature of the Jovian landscape for centuries now,

[00:09:48] astronomers have discovered equally large spots at the planets' north and south poles

[00:09:52] that appear to be seemingly random.

[00:09:54] These Earth-sized ovals, which are only visible at ultraviolet wavelengths,

[00:09:59] are embedded in layers of stratospheric haze that cap the planet's poles.

[00:10:03] The dark ovals, when seen, are almost always located just below the bright auroral zones at each pole,

[00:10:09] which are akin to Earth's northern and southern lights, the aurora borealis and aurora astralis.

[00:10:14] A report in the journal Nature Astronomy claims that these spots absorb more ultraviolet radiation

[00:10:19] than the surrounding areas.

[00:10:21] And that's what's making them appear dark on images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

[00:10:26] In early images of the gas giant taken by Hubble between 2015 and 2022,

[00:10:31] a dark ultraviolet radiation oval appeared 75% of the time at the south pole,

[00:10:36] while similar dark ovals appeared in one in eight images taken of the north pole.

[00:10:41] These ultraviolet ovals are hinting at unusual processes taking place in Jupiter's strong magnetic field,

[00:10:47] which propagates down to the poles and deeper into the atmosphere,

[00:10:50] far deeper than the magnetic processes producing aurora on Earth.

[00:10:54] Dark ultraviolet ovals were first detected by Hubble in the late 1990s at the north and south

[00:10:59] poles of Jupiter, and subsequently the north pole by the Cassini spacecraft,

[00:11:03] which flew by Jupiter in the year 2000.

[00:11:06] But back then they drew little attention.

[00:11:08] But when University of California Berkeley undergraduate Troy Sberta conducted a systematic study

[00:11:13] of recent images obtained by Hubble, he found they were a common feature at the south pole,

[00:11:18] counting eight southern ultraviolet dark ovals between 1994 and 2022.

[00:11:24] Most Hubble images had been captured as part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy or OPAL project,

[00:11:29] directed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

[00:11:33] Using Hubble, OPAL astronomers make yearly observations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune,

[00:11:38] in order to better understand their atmospheric dynamics and evolution over time.

[00:11:44] Sberta and colleagues theorised that the dark ovals are likely stirred from above

[00:11:48] by a vortex created when the planet's magnetic field lines experience friction in two very distinct locations.

[00:11:54] In the ionosphere, where astronomers have previously detected spinning motions using ground-based telescopes,

[00:12:00] and in the sheet of hot ionised plasma around Jupiter, which is shed by its volcanic moon, Io.

[00:12:06] The vortex spins fastest in the ionosphere, progressively weakening as it reaches each deeper layer.

[00:12:13] Like a tornado touching down on dusty ground, the deepest extent of the vortex stirs up the hazy

[00:12:18] atmosphere to create dense spots. Now it's not clear if the mixing dredges up more haze from below,

[00:12:24] or whether it's actually generating new haze. Based on the observations, the authors suspect that

[00:12:30] these ovals are formed over the course of roughly a month or so, but they dissipate in just two weeks.

[00:12:35] And the haze in the dark ovals is 50 times thicker than the typical concentration.

[00:12:40] That suggests it likely forms due to the swirling vortex's dynamics,

[00:12:44] rather than chemical reactions triggered by high-energy particles in the upper atmosphere.

[00:12:49] The observations also showed that the timing and location of these energetic particles

[00:12:53] don't correlate with the appearance of the dark ovals.

[00:12:56] What the findings do show is how atmospheric dynamics in the solar system's biggest planets

[00:13:01] differs so widely from what we know here on Earth.

[00:13:05] This is space-time.

[00:13:06] Still to come, the ward's biggest digital camera arrives at NASA Goddard for installation of

[00:13:12] the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. And later in the science report, paleontologists studying

[00:13:17] dinosaur faeces to better understand how they came to dominate the world.

[00:13:21] All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:13:26] The primary instrument for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has just been delivered to the

[00:13:46] agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

[00:13:49] Called the wide-field instrument, it's the largest and most sophisticated camera ever built.

[00:13:55] It'll survey the cosmos from the outskirts of our solar system all the way out to the edge of the

[00:14:00] observable universe some 13.8 billion light years away.

[00:14:04] The camera's large field of view, sharp resolution and sensitivity from visible to

[00:14:09] near-infrared wavelengths will give the Nancy Grace Roman Observatory an unrivaled deep panoramic

[00:14:14] view of the universe. Scanning much larger portions of the sky than astronomers can with

[00:14:20] NASA's Hubble Space Telescope or for that matter with the Webb Space Observatory,

[00:14:24] it'll open up new avenues of cosmic exploration.

[00:14:26] See, Roman is designed to study dark energy, that mysterious cosmic force thought to accelerate

[00:14:33] the expansion of the universe. It'll also study dark matter, that invisible substance which

[00:14:38] only interacts gravitationally with normal matter. And it will explore exoplanets,

[00:14:43] worlds beyond our solar system. Now to achieve these many main goals,

[00:14:48] the mission will precisely measure hundreds of millions of galaxies, providing a unique dataset

[00:14:53] for astronomers and the potential for a flood of results on a vast array of science.

[00:14:58] Roman is one of two surplus keyhole spy satellites donated to NASA by the National Reconnaissance

[00:15:04] Office. The NRO didn't need them anymore because its own technology had moved on, and so because

[00:15:09] Hubble was based on the same keyhole design, but looked out into space rather than down towards

[00:15:14] the Earth's surface as keyhole does, they were offered to NASA. After Roman launches in May 2027,

[00:15:20] each of the wide-field instrument's 300 million pixel images will capture a patch of the sky bigger

[00:15:25] than the apparent size of the full moon. The instrument's large field of view will enable

[00:15:31] astronomers to undertake research that would otherwise take hundreds of years to complete using other

[00:15:35] telescopes. By observing from space, Roman's camera will be very sensitive to infrared light from

[00:15:42] far across the cosmos. This ancient cosmic light will help scientists address some of the biggest

[00:15:47] cosmic mysteries such as how the universe evolved to its present state. This report from NASA TV.

[00:15:54] The wide-field instrument is the heart of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. It is what allows the

[00:16:00] Roman Space Telescope to take pictures with the same detail as Hubble, but covering an area 100 times larger.

[00:16:07] Despite this incredible power, the basic design is the same as telescopes around the world.

[00:16:12] The light enters through Roman's 2.4-meter aperture and is reflected and focused by the curved main mirror,

[00:16:19] which is also the largest mirror in the telescope. This light is reflected and focused once more by the

[00:16:26] secondary mirror. More elements tighten the beam and strip it of stray light rays before it passes through

[00:16:32] the filter wheel. This wheel has a variety of filters that allow different wavelengths of light to pass through.

[00:16:38] It spins from one to another depending on what the researcher is looking for. Finally, the focused and

[00:16:45] filtered light reaches the focal plane, where it creates an image on the detectors. These detectors use

[00:16:51] the photoelectric effect to convert photons into an electrical signal that is then decoded into an image.

[00:16:58] In Roman's case, there are 18 detectors, allowing it to create 300 million pixel images of large patches of the sky.

[00:17:06] The large number of detectors and pixels gives Roman its wide field of view. The size of the mirror and the

[00:17:14] precision of its optics gives Roman its fine imaging. This combination of image size and detail has never

[00:17:21] been possible on a space-based telescope before and will make the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope an

[00:17:27] indispensable tool in the future. This is space time. And time now to take another brief look at some of

[00:17:49] the other stories making news in science this week with a science report. A new study claims the more time

[00:17:54] spent sitting, reclining or lying down during the day may increase your risk of heart disease and death,

[00:18:00] even if you're otherwise active. The findings reported in the journal JCC contradicted research published last

[00:18:07] month, which found little difference between people standing or sitting for the majority of their time

[00:18:12] at work. The new study found that more than roughly 10 and a half hours of sedentary behaviour per day

[00:18:18] was linked with future heart failure and death from heart attacks, even among people meeting other

[00:18:23] recommended levels of activity and exercise. The study looked at data from fitness trackers that captured

[00:18:28] movement over seven days for 89,530 British people. It then followed up on their heart health for an

[00:18:35] average of eight years. The authors found that once sedentary time exceeded 10.6 hours a day, the risk of

[00:18:42] heart failure and death from a heart attack rose significantly, which they suggest indicates a

[00:18:47] threshold for these risks. Now as any ichthyologist will tell you, sharks are the vacuum cleaners of the

[00:18:54] ocean. They help keep the seas clean by consuming dead and dying animals. Now a new study has shown that

[00:19:01] the sharks most affected by fishing are the same ones most needed to maintain healthy oceans. A report in

[00:19:08] the journal Science warns that big sharks help maintain balance through their eating habits and their sheer

[00:19:13] sizes enough to scare away prey that could over consume seagrass and other plant life needed for

[00:19:19] healthy oceans. Sharks can also help shape and maintain balance from bottom up. That means a variety of

[00:19:25] sharks in a variety of sizes are needed. Yet their many and diverse contributions are all under threat

[00:19:31] from overfishing, from climate change, from habitat loss, from energy mining, shipping activities and more,

[00:19:38] all of which is caused by people. Over 500 samples of coprolites, that is fossilized dinosaur feces,

[00:19:46] together with dino vomit, have helped paleontologists determine how dinosaurs came to dominate the world.

[00:19:52] Their report in the journal Nature analyzed dino dejective material. It created three-dimensional

[00:19:58] images of their internal structure and compared this with existing data in the fossil record to work

[00:20:04] out the identity, feeding behavior and relative size and prevalence of the creatures that produced them.

[00:20:10] From this, paleontologists were able to create food webs which tracked the rise of dinosaurs over time.

[00:20:15] They found that the meat and plant eating or omnivorous ancestors of early dinosaurs took over from other

[00:20:21] four-legged beasts and then evolved into the first carnivorous and herbivorous dinosaurs towards the end of the

[00:20:27] Triassic era. Increased volcanic activity may then have led to more diverse ranges of plants to feed on.

[00:20:33] That allowed for the emergence of larger and more diverse herbivore species.

[00:20:38] And this in turn led to the evolution of larger carnivorous dinosaurs from the beginning of the

[00:20:43] Jurassic period and completed the transition to dinosaur domination.

[00:20:48] Well, with all the lithium battery fires we're hearing about of late, a bit of good news is that

[00:20:53] the next generation of safer lithium batteries may well be on their way.

[00:20:57] With the details, we're joined by technology editor Alex Sahar of Royte from techadvice.life.

[00:21:02] We do hear about EV and e-scooter and even in the old days Nokia phone batteries would

[00:21:07] more or less explode but that's because there were fake ones and the EV ones and especially the

[00:21:12] e-scooter ones that get bounced around, you know, people ride them hard and with some of the EVs there

[00:21:16] are things on the road that can strike the underside of a car and pierce a battery.

[00:21:21] There are now rules in a number of hotels that won't let you park an EV undercover because of the

[00:21:26] fear of the lithium batteries catching a light.

[00:21:29] Look, I read that China, a number of cities in China had just implemented the same rules and it is

[00:21:34] a genuine concern because we have had fires that have happened in an EV that have been burnt a

[00:21:40] number of cars around them or in the UK burnt down an entire car park in one of the airports.

[00:21:43] Yes.

[00:21:44] So there is battery technology, one of them is called lithium titanate used by the military

[00:21:49] and NASA for decades but it was quite expensive but this can operate at much lower, at much colder

[00:21:54] and hotter temperatures than lithium ion. It cannot have a runaway thermal reaction like lithium

[00:21:59] ion can so if it gets damaged it doesn't just start burning which is very handy in a military situation.

[00:22:04] And one of the benefits of this technology is that it can be recharged up to 50,000 times like

[00:22:09] for many, many years, like more than one decade without the memory effect. So normally a laptop

[00:22:15] battery lasts a good couple of years and then suddenly it's not giving you anywhere near as

[00:22:19] much battery life as it did before. But with this lithium titanate technology which is going to be

[00:22:23] commercialized by Toshiba already working on getting this in the new year into home appliances like

[00:22:29] those blowers and whippersnippers and those sorts of things. But these batteries will last for a

[00:22:33] decade or two and will retain the vast majority of their chargeable capacity, will operate in colder

[00:22:39] and hotter temperatures and the most important thing of all, they recharge in about 20 minutes.

[00:22:42] So this is the next generation of battery technology that we've been waiting for. There's a famous

[00:22:47] saying from William Gibson, the author of Neuromancer that says, the future has already been invented,

[00:22:52] it just hasn't been widely distributed yet. And this is the case for many things. I mean,

[00:22:56] chat GPT version 5 with artificial general intelligence is more or less supposedly working

[00:23:01] in the labs in open AI, but it just hasn't been delivered to the public yet. The iPhone was in

[00:23:06] prototype form in 2004, three years before it came to the public. And at that time it was more of an

[00:23:11] iPad size before it was shrunken down. So many of the things we'll take for granted in a few years are

[00:23:16] already in the labs, already working, but they're just not ready to be commercialized at scale yet.

[00:23:20] And these lithium titanate batteries, and there are other competing batteries as well,

[00:23:23] solid state type technology batteries that don't have any liquids at all, are all being worked on.

[00:23:28] When I was working at the ABC, I did a story on how to store your laptop when you don't use it for

[00:23:33] a while. And the idea was you take your lithium battery pack out and keep that in a dark, dry place

[00:23:38] away from the laptop. And that way it lasts for ages.

[00:23:42] Yeah, well, very hard to do that these days when the batteries are built into devices.

[00:23:45] Yes. And that's the problem. What do you do if you have a perfectly good laptop or a perfectly

[00:23:49] good cell phone, for example, but you can't physically take the battery out of it anymore?

[00:23:53] Does it become a dangerous time bomb ticking, waiting to explode? Or are they relatively safe

[00:23:58] if stored in a dry place?

[00:24:00] Generally speaking, they're safe. You're supposed to keep them at sort of 50 to 80%

[00:24:04] charge. Don't have them stored for a long time at 100% and definitely do not have them

[00:24:08] stored at zero or below because it can stop the battery from being able to be charged whatsoever.

[00:24:13] So they are safe, just that if you store them uncharged, they may not charge in the future.

[00:24:19] That's correct. So you should make sure that they have at least 50% charge. And look,

[00:24:23] the danger with modern devices is overcharging. There was a story in the news in the last week

[00:24:28] or so of a family whose iPad was plugged in charging normally and it just exploded. Now,

[00:24:33] battery technology is generally quite safe, especially in phones and tablets, but you never

[00:24:38] know what manufacturing defect there is. I mean, there was a manufacturing defect with the Samsung

[00:24:42] Note 7. It caused every airline in the world to say, you're not bringing those on planes. And so we

[00:24:47] have had battery scares, genuinely big ones in the past. But if batteries were a real problem,

[00:24:53] then they'd be exploding all over the place. And that clearly isn't happening. But we are seeing a

[00:24:57] big jump in these e-scooter and EV battery fires. And that's why various apartment blocks and cities

[00:25:03] in China and other places are saying, look, have all the EVs you want, but not downstairs. So we are in

[00:25:07] desperate need of battery technology like this lithium titanate that will not have a runaway

[00:25:13] explosion if damaged, recharges in 20 minutes and lasts for a decade, two or longer before needing

[00:25:18] to be replaced. I mean, that is like the holy grail of battery technology. If you can recharge your

[00:25:22] battery in 20 minutes, whether it's your phone or a car to full, suddenly having the battery only lasts

[00:25:27] for a few hours or a few hundred kilometers doesn't make any difference because you can recharge it so

[00:25:31] quickly. And this is the sci-fi tech that we need that we still don't have available at scale,

[00:25:37] but it is definitely coming. And I think by the end of the decade, there'll be plenty more of these

[00:25:41] batteries and lithium iron will be slowly phased out. That's Alex Sahar of Roy from techadvice.life.

[00:26:02] And that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple

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[00:26:53] spacetimewithstuartgarry.com for full details. You've been listening to Space Time with Stuart

[00:26:59] Gary. This has been another quality podcast production from Bytes.com.

[00:27:06] Thank you.

[00:27:06] Thank you.