Our Guests This Week Professor Richard de Grijs from Macquarie University NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division Lori Glaze Dragonfly Principal Investigator Elizabeth Turtle Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy NASA Associate Administrator Nicky Fox Mars Perseverance Project Scientist Katie Stack-Morgan Mars Perseverance PIXL Instrument Principal Investigator Joel Hurowitz from Stony Brook University Our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn . The discounts and bonuses are incredible! And it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ If you’d like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member, you can do just that through The Big Bang editions on Patreon, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on the Support page on our website https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/support/ For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Stuart Gary: This is space Time Series 29, episode
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 124 for broadcast on 16 October
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 2026. Coming up on Space
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 Is Dark Matter real? The unique
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 supernova remnant with a corpse in its heart.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 And yet another clue in the search for life
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 on the red planet Mars. All that and
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 more coming up on, uh, Space Time.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 Stuart Gary: Welcome to Space Time with Stuart
00:00:26 --> 00:00:26 G.
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 Stuart Gary: A new study has raised more questions about
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 the existence of that mysterious substance
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 called dark matter. Scientists have no
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 idea what dark, uh, matter actually is.
00:00:53 --> 00:00:55 They think it exists because they can see its
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 gravitational effect on galaxies holding them
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 together as they rotate. In fact,
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 calculations suggest up to 80% of all the
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 mass in the universe is dark matter. The new
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 findings, reported in the journal Physical
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 Review D, are, uh, focusing on the Bullet
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 Cluster, which has so far been considered one
00:01:12 --> 00:01:13 of the strongest pieces of evidence for the
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 existence of dark matter. But according to a
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 new analysis of data from NASA's Webb Space
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 Telescope, the observations of the Bullet
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 Cluster are also consistent with an
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 alternative explanation that doesn't involve
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 dark matter at all, namely modified Newtonian
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 dynamics or model. This alternative
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 hypothesis to dark matter was first proposed
00:01:33 --> 00:01:35 by Israeli physicist Mordechai milgram back
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 in 1983. It suggests that the
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 laws of gravity and inertia depart from
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 standard Newtonian physics when objects
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 experience very low accelerations, which
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 happens in the outer regions of galaxies, the
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 same places dark matter was first identified.
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 So what about the Bullet cluster? Well around
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 4 billion years ago, there was a huge
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 collision in space. Two massive
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 galaxy clusters, each containing hundreds of
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 galaxies, crashed into each other at speeds
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 of over 2 kilometres per second.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 Galaxy clusters contain billions of
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 stars. The majority of their visible matter,
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 however, consists of interstellar gas and
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 dust. While the two gas clouds were passing
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 through each other, they were significantly
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 slowed down by frictional forces, which also
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 heated them up considerably. Using X ray
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 telescopes, the hot clouds can be easily seen
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 from Earth as two diffuse patches that lie
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 relatively close to one another. The galaxies
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 in the two clusters, however, were able to
00:02:33 --> 00:02:36 pass through each other unhindered. That's
00:02:36 --> 00:02:37 because the distance between the individual
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 stars in each of the galaxies so great, they
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 simply fly by one another. So the
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 collision resulted in the two galaxy clusters
00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 being separated from the interstellar gas
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 they were carrying with them. Cluster 1 is
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 now to the left of the left gas cloud, and
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 Cluster two is to the right of the right one.
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 Together, these four now separate structures
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 form what's known as the Bullet Cluster. And
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 it's, uh, earned a degree of fame among
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 astrophysicists as it's considered compelling
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 evidence for the existence of dark matter.
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 You see, images from the formation show that
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 galaxies behind the Bullet cluster appeared
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 distorted into crescent shapes due to
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 gravitational lensing. This refers to that
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 phenomenon first predicted by Albert
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 Einstein, in which the mass of a foreground
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 object can literally bend the light from a
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 more distant background object. Incredibly,
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 however, this deflection isn't especially
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 large in the region of the two luminous
00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 clouds of matter in the Bullet cluster, where
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 the greatest mass should be concentrated.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 Instead, the galaxy clusters to their left
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 and right exert a much stronger lensing
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 effect despite their lower mass. So it
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 appears that further mass must be hidden
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 there, which we're unable to see. One of
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 this new study's authors, Harville Krupa,
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 from the University of Bonn, says this
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 observation at so far be considered evidence
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 for the existence of dark matter. Uh, that's
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 because according to current theory, dark
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 matter exerts gravitational forces but does
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 not otherwise interact with normal matter. As
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 a result, unlike the gas clouds, it is not
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 slowed down by friction and is also not
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 separated from visible matter in the galaxy
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 clusters. However, technically, that's not
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 evidence that dark matter exists.
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 Modified Newtonian dynamics, or mond, has
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 been considered a fringe theory for years,
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 Largely because previously it had been
00:04:20 --> 00:04:21 assumed that it simply can't explain the
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 observations in the Bullet cluster. However,
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 this new study by Kruper et al. Shows that,
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 on the contrary, the Bullet cluster is
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 actually especially consistent with the MOND
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 scenario. That's because the new data from
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 Webb allows astronomers a better, more
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 precise calculation of the number of stars in
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 both of the clusters. It's now also known
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 that the Bullet cluster contains a large
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 number of heavy elements such as iron and
00:04:45 --> 00:04:46 oxygen.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 These are produced in the fusion processes
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 inside the star's core, but only in very
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 massive stars. It doesn't happen in smaller
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 stars like our Sun. And when these massive
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 stars eventually die, they don't become white
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 dwarfs like our sun. Will they become much
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 more massive objects? Neutron stars and black
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 holes? And just like dark matter, both
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 neutron stars and black holes exert huge
00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 gravitational forces. Krupa says the
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 remnants of the massive stars are taking on
00:05:13 --> 00:05:15 the role of dark matter to a certain extent,
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 at least in the mons scenario. Now, uh, even
00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 in the standard model, which assumes the
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 existence of dark matter, Its postulated
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 quantity would have to be significantly
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 reduced by about half. And so that makes the
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 Mons scenario much more plausible.
00:05:30 --> 00:05:31 This is space time.
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 Still to come, a unique supernova remnant
00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 with a corpse at its heart, and more clues in
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 the search of past life on the red planet
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 Mars. All that and more still to come. On
00:05:43 --> 00:05:44 space time,
00:05:50 --> 00:05:51 Astronomers have discovered that the only
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 known supernova remnant of its kind in the
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 Milky Way Galaxy has an unexpectedly
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 intricate structure, including chains of gas
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 knots resembling pearls on a string, each
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 wide enough to fit our entire solar system
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 inside it multiple times. The
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 findings reported in the Astrophysical
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 Journal show the ever expanding structure.
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 The remains of a massive stellar explosion
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 first witnessed by Japanese and Chinese
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 astronomers in the year 1181, is shaped like
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 a giant dandelion. Modern day
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 astronomers using the Gemini North Telescope
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 in Hawaii have now captured the most detailed
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 observations yet of this supernova remnant,
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 which has been catalogued as PA30 and is
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 located some 7 light years away.
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 It's one of only five known supernovae
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 recorded before the age of modern telescopes
00:06:38 --> 00:06:39 whose remnants are, ah, still unidentified.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:39 Katie Stack Morgan: Um,
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 Stuart Gary: the data on PA30 is revealing striking
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 new features of the aftermath of the blast
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 which destroyed the progenitor some 850 years
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 ago. The remnant has what appears to be
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 smooth firework like streaks. Adding to its
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 unusual character is a surviving zombie star
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 at its core. The stellar remnant of an
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 incomplete explosion. The
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 study's lead author Larry Carrazzo from the
00:07:05 --> 00:07:06 Institute of Science and Technology In
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 Austria says PA30 is the only known object
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 of this kind in the Milky Way. While
00:07:12 --> 00:07:13 astronomers have identified a few similar
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 objects in other galaxies, it remains the
00:07:16 --> 00:07:18 only one where our telescopes can see the
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 surviving remnant of this incomplete
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 explosion at its core. The Zombie star.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 This type of incomplete explosion is known as
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 a Type 1 axe supernova, a rare
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 class of stellar explosion. The Authors
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 believe that PA30 is the result of a
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 collision between two white dwarfs, the
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 stellar remains of a pair of sun like stars
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 that have lost their outer gaseous envelopes
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 after exhausting their nuclear fuel supplies
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 and exposing their stellar cores. The
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 authors analysed ionised sulphur emission
00:07:48 --> 00:07:50 lines in the red part of the visible spectrum
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 and doubly ionised oxygen emissions in the
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 blue green part. The sulphur observations
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 revealed roughly 10 times as many filamentary
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 features as previous images could resolve.
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 The data shows that PA30's filaments are
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 composed of tight chains of gas knots that
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 appear to have remarkably uniform sizes.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 The surviving zombie star appears to sit
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 almost perfectly in the nebula's centre.
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 This is space time. Still to come,
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 another clue in the search for life on the
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 red planet Mars. And later in the science
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 report, a new study warns that night owls
00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 are almost twice as likely as early birds to
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 retire early due to poor health. All
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 that and more still to come on, uh Space
00:08:32 --> 00:08:33 time.
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has discovered
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 nickel rich rocks in Jezero Crater's
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 Novetreva Valleys region, providing yet
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 another clue in the ongoing search for past
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 microbial life on the Red Planet. The
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 Erech river valleys is a 400 metre wide
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 ancient river channel that once carried water
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 and sediments into a lake in the crater. Uh,
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 located on the western edge of Jezero Crater,
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 it's one of four major valleys feeding into
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 the crater. The new findings reported in the
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 journal Nature Communications are providing
00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 fresh insights into the sorts of chemical
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 reactions that occurred on early Mars.
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 The authors used both a laser infrared
00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 spectrometer and an X ray spectrometer on the
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 Karsi Six Wheel Mobile Laboratory to examine
00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 126 sedimentary rocks and eight rock surfaces
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 in Nateva Valleys that uh, are thought to be
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 more than 3 billion years old. And they
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 detected nickel in 32 rock samples in
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 concentrations up to 1.1% of their weight,
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 which is the highest abundance ever observed
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 in Martian bedrock. And these nickel
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 deposits tended to co occur with iron
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 sulphide compounds and with sulphate minerals
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 produced from the breakdown of rocks such as
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 jarosite and achoganatite. The authors
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 found similarities between the composition
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 and shape of the nickel rich iron sulphide
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 Martian deposits and those of pyrite, an iron
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 m sulphide mineral in sedimentary rocks found
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 here on Earth. Uh, previous researchers
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 suggested that iron sulphides in sedimentary
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 rocks on Earth are uh, primarily formed from
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 microbial anaerobic respiration using
00:10:16 --> 00:10:18 sulphides in the presence of iron containing
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 minerals. And earlier observations at
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 Narutiva Valleys also detected iron
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 sulphides in the presence of organic carbon
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 compounds. It has been proposed that
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 these compounds could have been formed by
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 living organisms, although ah, the authors
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 admit they could also be the result of
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 geological chemical reactions. Still,
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 nickel is an essential component for enzymes
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 in many ancient archaeo and bacterial species
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 here on Earth. See it's required for some
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 chemical pathways used in energy production,
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 carbon fixation and organic matter
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 decomposition. The authors say the presence
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 of nickel rich rocks indicates that if living
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 microorganisms had been present on early
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 Mars, the nickel may have been available in a
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 form that they could have used. They
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 speculate the nickel may have originated from
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 the breakdown of igneous rocks or from a
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 nickel rich meteorite.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 Of course this isn't the first clue pointing
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 to at least the possibility of past life on
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 the Red Planet. The now infamous lipid
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 spots discovered on the shower of a falls
00:11:19 --> 00:11:21 formation are ah, still best explained as
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 products of organic matter which on Earth at
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 least are usually a byproduct of microbial
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 life. But that's, uh, Earth. What about the
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 exact same minerals on Mars? This report
00:11:31 --> 00:11:32 from NASA tv.
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 Sean Duffy: A year ago we thought we found what we
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 believe to be signs of microbial life
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 on the Mars surface. And so we put it out to
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 our scientific friends to pressure test it,
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 to analyse it and go, did we get this right?
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 Do we think this is signs of ancient life
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 on Mars? And after, uh, a year of
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 review they've come back and they said,
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 listen, we can't find another explanation. So
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 this very well could be the clearest sign of
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 life that we've ever found on Mars, which is
00:12:02 --> 00:12:03 incredibly exciting.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 Tim Mendham: Today we are really showing you how we are
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 kind of one step closer to answering
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 humanity's one of their most profound
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 questions, and that is, are we truly alone in
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 the universe? So last July, NASA's
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 Perseverance rover found a leopard
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 spotted rock at Mars. And
00:12:21 --> 00:12:22 scientists immediately knew it was
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 interesting. We hadn't seen anything like
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 that before on Mars and we talked about it
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 last summer. The moment we found it, we put
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 out the images for everybody to see and
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 everybody to share. And so they've done the
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 analysis on these leopard spots and we, you
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 know, we think they are potentially made by
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 some sort of ancient life. It's a
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 signature, uh, it's a sort of leftover
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 sign. It's not life itself and it certainly
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 could have been from ancient life and that
00:12:49 --> 00:12:50 would have been something that was there, uh,
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 billions of years ago. Nothing that's current
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 there. And you know, it could certainly, as
00:12:55 --> 00:12:56 we say, be made by ancient life.
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 And what that means is we look at everything
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 we know about life on Earth and this is the
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 kind of signature, uh, that we would see that
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 was made by something biological. In this
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 case, it's kind of the equivalent of seeing
00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 like leftover fossils, you know, leftovers
00:13:12 --> 00:13:14 from a meal and maybe that meal's been
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 excreted by a microbe. And that's what we're
00:13:17 --> 00:13:18 seeing in this sample.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 Katie Stack Morgan: I'll be providing some overall geologic
00:13:20 --> 00:13:23 context for the discovery of these leopard
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 species, uh, features. The Perseverance rover
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 landed in jezero crater in 2021. Jezero,
00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 uh, was selected because it's in a location
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 amongst the most ancient terrains on Mars,
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 exposing some of the oldest rocks anywhere
00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 in the solar system. And these really ancient
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 rocks provide us a window into a period of
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 time that's not particularly well represented
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 on our own planet Earth. But it's a time when
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 life was emergent on Earth. And could have
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 been on Mars as well. The rovers spent
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 several months exploring this area,
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 ultimately pushing to the edge the northern
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 ed of the channel where the Bright angel
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 formation met the margin unit.
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 And it's here at the contact, this edge of
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 the river valley, that the rover explored a
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 special target called Chiava Falls. In order
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 to really understand what makes this
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 particular outcrop so special, we have to get
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 our noses to the outcrop, or in this case,
00:14:13 --> 00:14:16 the rover's arm up close and personal to take
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 a look at all the details of these rocks.
00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 Joel Horowitz: And what we saw in this rock were these
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 layers of very fine grained,
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 rusty red mudstone. These
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 textural features told us that something
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 really interesting had happened in these
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 rocks. Some set of chemical reactions
00:14:33 --> 00:14:36 occurred. The set of spectra that are called
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 Raman spectra, and there's a lot of
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 information on these graphs. But the key
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 thing to take note of is the fact that what
00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 we see in these spectra is something called a
00:14:45 --> 00:14:48 G band. The G band for us is a
00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 smoking gun indicator for the presence of
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 organic matter in this mud. And what's
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 exciting about these finds, this sort of
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 combination of mud and organic
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 matter that has reacted to produce these
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 minerals and these textures, is that when we
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 see features like this in sediment on Earth,
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 these minerals are, uh, often the byproduct
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 of microbial metabolisms that are consuming
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 organic matter and making these minerals as a
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 result of those reactions. So what we need to
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 do from here is to continue to do additional
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 research in laboratory settings here on Earth
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 and ultimately bring the sample that we
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 collected from this rock back home to Earth
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 so that we can make the final determination
00:15:31 --> 00:15:33 for what process actually gave rise to these
00:15:34 --> 00:15:35 fantastic textures.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 Stuart Gary: And in that report from NASA TV, we heard
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 from U.S. transportation Secretary Sean
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 Duffy, NASA Associate Administrator Nikki
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 Fox, Mars Perseverance Rover Project
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 Scientist Katie Stack Morgan, and Mars
00:15:47 --> 00:15:48 Perseverance Pixel Instrument Principal
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 Investigator Joel Horovitz from Stony Brook
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 University. Diversity this is space, time.
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 And time. Though to take another brief look
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 at some of the other stories making news in
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 Science this week with a Science report.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 A new study has warned that night owls are
00:16:17 --> 00:16:19 almost twice as likely as early birds to
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 retire early from work due to poor health,
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 regardless of their income or education.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 The findings reported in the British Medical
00:16:27 --> 00:16:29 Journal are, uh, based on Data from over
00:16:29 --> 00:16:32 5 Finnish people aged around 46
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 about what time of day they felt most awake.
00:16:35 --> 00:16:38 Follow ups over the next 12 years showed that
00:16:38 --> 00:16:40 night owls were more likely to get a
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 disability pension early. Now, as these are
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 only granted in Finland after severe and long
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 term health decline. The authors conclude
00:16:46 --> 00:16:49 that poorer health of night owls can cause
00:16:49 --> 00:16:51 them to lose core years and of their careers.
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 Scientists are warning that the barely
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 studied Wilkes subglacial basin of East
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 Antarctica, uh, contains enough ice to cause
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 global sea levels to rise by more than four
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 metres. The findings, reported in the journal
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 Nature Review's Earth and Environment, warn
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 that this area is also the least explored and
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 understood part of the frozen continent and
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 consequently needs urgent study. This
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 largely unexplored region is situated almost
00:17:17 --> 00:17:19 entirely within, um, Australia's Antarctic
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 territory territory and it's showing signs of
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 having retreated substantially during past
00:17:24 --> 00:17:25 periods of global warming.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 Researchers are warning that after compiling
00:17:28 --> 00:17:29 everything they currently know about the
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 Wilkes subglacial basin, there are still huge
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 gaps in their knowledge and understanding of
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 the area. And they warn that without further
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 study they won't know the types of conditions
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 that could trigger large scale melting in the
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 future. A new study
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 claims magenta coloured solar panels that are
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 partly transparent could generate renewable
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 electricity while at the same time letting
00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 through enough light to grow crops underneath
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 them. Um, the findings, published in the
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 journal Cell Reports Physical Science, shows
00:17:57 --> 00:17:59 that unlike normal solar panels, these
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 magenta ones let through some blue and red
00:18:01 --> 00:18:04 light, which is what plants need to grow. The
00:18:04 --> 00:18:06 authors say broccoli grown under them took 25
00:18:06 --> 00:18:08 days longer to finish growing than those
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 grown in full sunlight, but still retained
00:18:10 --> 00:18:12 similar amounts of nutrients like calcium.
00:18:13 --> 00:18:14 However, they also found that the same
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 broccoli had lower levels of important
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 micronutrients like iron and zinc.
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 A new type of clock could push precision
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 timekeeping to a new level. A report in the
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 journal Nature claims teams from Europe and
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 China have independently built the world's
00:18:29 --> 00:18:32 first nuclear clocks that could eventually be
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 more accurate and more precise than the best
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 atomic clocks used today. Nuclear
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 clocks use a nuclear transition or energy
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 jump of protons or neutrons inside the atomic
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 nucleus, usually the low energy isomeric
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 transition in thorium 229.
00:18:47 --> 00:18:49 On the other hand, atomic clocks use electron
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 transitions in atoms such as cesium,
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54 strontium or ytterbium as their frequency
00:18:54 --> 00:18:54 reference.
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 Researchers say that the technology could
00:18:57 --> 00:18:58 eventually make it possible to measure
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 incredibly small changes, giving scientists
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 the powerful new tool to test fundamental
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 physics, including dark matter.
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 Anti vaxxers have started a new campaign
00:19:08 --> 00:19:10 trying to stop parents from allowing their
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12 newborns to be given a vitamin K shot.
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15 Vitamin K is usually administered at the same
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 time as hepatitis B vaccinations
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 Sceptics Tim Mendham says vitamin K shot is
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 safe and it saves the lives of babies, so
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 it's not even a discussion.
00:19:25 --> 00:19:26 Tim Mendham: Vitamin K Shots are given basically as soon
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 as you're born. It's given at the same time
00:19:28 --> 00:19:31 as a HEPV vaccine or treatment. It stops
00:19:31 --> 00:19:33 babies bleeding to death, almost making that
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35 haemophiliac. There's two sorts of vitamin K.
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 One comes from plants, especially leafy green
00:19:37 --> 00:19:39 vegetables. Another comes from animal sourced
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 food, especially poultry and eggs, which
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 babies don't eat. And apparently babies don't
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 get vitamin K through the placenta or through
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 mother's milk. So that's why they give a shot
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 of vitamin K to newborn babies. If they don't
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 have that, a lot of babies will have bleeding
00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 either, uh, internally, externally on the
00:19:57 --> 00:19:59 brain. And there are babies that die. If you
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 don't give vitamin K shots to babies, a lot
00:20:02 --> 00:20:04 more babies will die because of it and
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06 they'll bleed to death or they'll bleed into
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 their brain. It's a fairly innocuous
00:20:08 --> 00:20:10 treatment for a fairly serious condition.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:11 It's something that should be done. But
00:20:11 --> 00:20:13 again, the anti vaxxers are saying that they
00:20:13 --> 00:20:15 shouldn't let it happen, that vaccination is
00:20:15 --> 00:20:18 inherently bad and that no one ever died of
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 these diseases. Well, they do so until babies
00:20:20 --> 00:20:22 start eating regular foods, which is usually
00:20:22 --> 00:20:23 about when they're half a year old, something
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 like that. And until their normal intestinal
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 bacteria begin making vitamin K, they need it
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 as a supplement, as a preventative. Probably
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 the most frustrating thing the sceptics in
00:20:33 --> 00:20:34 the world will deal with. I know we had a
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 survey once of what's the most important
00:20:36 --> 00:20:38 issues and worldwide it was the anti Vax
00:20:38 --> 00:20:40 method. Worldwide, you ask any sceptic what's
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 the biggest issue. It's not Loch Ness or
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 flying saucers or Flat Earthers or things
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46 like that. It's vaccination, anti Vax. That's
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 the serious end of the sceptical world. Will
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 we ever get rid of anti Vaxxers? Probably
00:20:50 --> 00:20:51 not, unfortunately. Wouldn't it be nice?
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 Stuart Gary: That's the sceptics, Timms Mendham. And this
00:20:53 --> 00:20:54 is Space Time.
00:21:10 --> 00:21:13 And that's the show for now. Space Time is
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 through bytes.com, soundcloud,
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 YouTube, your favourite podcast download
00:21:20 --> 00:21:21 provider, and from
00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 spacetimewithstuartgarry.com
00:21:24 --> 00:21:26 Space Times, also broadcast through the
00:21:26 --> 00:21:28 National Science foundation on Science Zone
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 Radio and on both iHeartradio and
00:21:31 --> 00:21:34 TuneIn radio. And you can help to support our
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 show by visiting the Space Time store for a
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 range of promotional merchandising goodies,
00:21:39 --> 00:21:41 or by becoming a Space Time patron, which
00:21:41 --> 00:21:43 gives you access to triple episode commercial
00:21:43 --> 00:21:46 free versions of the show as well as lots of
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 bonus audio content which doesn't go to air,
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 access to our exclusive Facebook group, and
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 other rewards. Just go to
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 spacetimewithstuartgarry.com for full
00:21:55 --> 00:21:56 details.
00:21:56 --> 00:21:58 Stuart Gary: You've been listening to Space Time with
00:21:58 --> 00:22:01 Stuart Gary. This has been another quality
00:22:01 --> 00:22:03 podcast production from bytes.com.