Decoding Martian Life Clues, The Odd Behavior of Ophi Stars, and NASA's Artemis 2 Progress

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 28 Episode 59, full broadcast on the 16th of May 2025. Coming up on SpaceTime, possible Martian biosignatures continuing to perplex scientists, a strange family of stars desperate to leave home, and the Artemis 2 Orion moon capsule delivered to NASA. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime. Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:43] Scientists are continuing to examine the fascinating possible detection of biosignatures on Shiaia Falls rock samples collected by NASA's Mars Perseverance rover in the Red Planet's Jezero crater almost a year ago. The discoveries continue to intrigue researchers who have never seen anything like it on Mars before. The vein-filled arrowhead-shaped rock contains fascinating traits that may bear on the question of whether Mars was once home to microscopic life in the distant past billions of years ago,

[00:01:12] at a time when the area contained running water. Analysis by instruments aboard the Karsai 6-wheeled rover indicate the rock possesses chemical signatures and structures that do fit the definition of a possible indicator of ancient life. Of course, other explanations for the observed features are being considered by the science team, and future research steps will be required if we determine whether or not ancient life is a valid explanation. The rock is the rover's 22nd rock core sample.

[00:01:41] It was collected back on July 21st as the rover explored the northern edge of Nuretva Valleys, an ancient river valley measuring some 400 metres wide that was carved out by water rushing into Jezero crater long ago. Multiple scans of Shiaiava Falls by the rover's Sherlock instrument indicate that it does contain organic compounds. Now, whilst such carbon-based molecules are considered to be the building blocks of life, they can be formed by non-biological processes. Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley from Caltech says

[00:02:11] Shaiava Falls is the most puzzling, complex and potentially important rock ever investigated by the rover. On one hand, it's the first compelling detection of organic material, distinctive colourful spots indicative of chemical reactions that microbial life could use as an energy source. And it's also clear evidence that water, necessary for life as we know it, once passed through the rock. On the other hand, scientists still are unable to determine exactly how this metre-wide rock was formed,

[00:02:38] and to what extent nearby rocks may have heated Shaiava Falls and contributed to these features. In its ongoing search for signs of ancient microbial life, the Perseverance mission has focused on rocks that may have been created or modified long ago by the presence of water, and that's why they're honed in on Shaiava Falls. Running the length of the rock are large white calcium sulphate veins. And between these veins are bands of material whose reddish colour suggest the presence of hematite,

[00:03:07] one of the minerals that gives Mars its distinctive rusty hue. But when Perseverance took a closer look at these rusty regions, it found dozens of irregularly shaped millimetre-sized off-white splotches, each ringed with black material akin to leopard spots. Perseverance pixel instrument was then able to determine that these black halos contain both iron and phosphate. Now on Earth, these types of features are often associated with a fossilised record of microbes living in the subsurface.

[00:03:34] But of course they could also occur when chemical reactions involving hematite turn the rock from red to white. And those reactions can release iron and phosphate, possibly causing the black halos to form. Reactions of this type can be an energy source for microbes, and that explains the association between these features and microbes in an Earth setting. In one scenario Perseverance's science team are now considering, Shaiava Falls was initially deposited as mud with organic compounds mixed in.

[00:04:02] They eventually were cemented into rock. Later, a second episode of fluid flow penetrated the fissures in the rock, enabling mineral deposits that created large white calcium sulphate veins and resulting in the spots. While both the organic matter and the leopard spots are of great interest, they aren't the only aspects of the Shaiava Falls rock confounding scientists. They're also surprised to find that these veins were filled with millimetre-sized crystals of olivine. That's a mineral that forms from magma.

[00:04:29] The olivine might have been related to rocks that will form further upstream, on the rim of the river valley, and that may well have been produced by crystallisation of magma. If that's the case, scientists have another question to answer. Could the olivine and sulphate have been introduced into the rock in unhabitably high temperatures, thereby creating an abiotic chemical reaction that resulted in the leopard spots? To fully understand what really happened in that Martian river valley at Jezero crater billions of years ago, scientists will need to bring a Shaiava Falls rock sample back to Earth.

[00:05:00] That way can be studied with more powerful instruments which are available in laboratories. Perseverance's mission is to search for signs of past microbial life on the red planet. This report from NASA TV. Mars is the closest place that we can reach with robotic exploration, that we think had a really good chance of having ancient life. The Jezero crater is a very interesting place. It's a crater that once held a lake.

[00:05:28] There are a lot of craters on the surface of Mars that could have once hosted ancient lakes, but not every crater that we think had a lake actually preserves evidence that that lake was there. It had an inflow channel and it had an outflow channel. That means it was filled, the crater was filled with water. In Jezero we have probably one of the most beautifully preserved delta deposits on Mars in that crater.

[00:05:52] This is a wonderful place to live for microorganisms and it is also a wonderful place for those microorganisms to be preserved so that we can find them now so many billions of years later. There is no other place on Mars that has the unique combination of a lake setting, a beautifully preserved delta and the diverse mineralogy that we have in Jezero crater. So it's truly a special landing site.

[00:06:15] The major goal of the Perseverance mission is to investigate astrobiology on Mars and in particular to address the question of whether life ever existed on Mars. The Perseverance rover starts with a design that's very similar to Curiosity, but we've added to it a whole new set of science instruments. And these science instruments were purposefully selected to help us in the search for biosignatures.

[00:06:41] One of the major upgrades that Perseverance has from Curiosity is that it's able to self-drive for a distance of up to 200 meters per day. As the rover is driving, it's literally building the map of the road it's driving on on Mars. Scientists for years have told us that to really unlock the secrets of Mars, we have to bring samples

[00:07:04] from Mars back to Earth. So what Mars 2020 is going to do is to drill samples, put them in small tubes, we're going to seal it in its own individual tube. We set them on the surface to provide a target for the second two missions, which hopefully we'll get in development in the next several years and could potentially get the samples back to Earth by 2031. Perseverance is a very, very profound first step

[00:07:32] in both our understanding of our place in the universe and a stepping stone towards human exploration on Mars. And in that report from NASA TV, we heard from Perseverance Deputy Project Scientist Ken Farley from Caltech and Perseverance Deputy Project Scientist Katie Stack Morgan. This is Space Time.

[00:07:58] Still to come, the odd family of stars desperately seeking to leave home and the Artemis II Orion moon capsule finally delivered to NASA in preparation for next year's man-moon mission. All that and more still to come on Space Time. Okay, let's take a break from our show with a word from our sponsor, Insta360. Get ready to capture the universe like never before with Insta360, the undisputed champions of 360-degree

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[00:09:45] standard package purchase, head to the store, insta360.com and use the promo code SPACETIME, available for the first 30 standard package purchases only. That's insta360.com and use the promo code SPACETIME. And for more information, check out the links in our show notes. And now,

[00:10:04] it's back to our show. Astronomers have discovered a strange cluster of more than a thousand stars acting in a really unusual way, and no one knows why. Stars in the Milky Way tend to form in families,

[00:10:29] with similar stars all springing to life in roughly the same place at roughly the same time. These stars then later head out into the wider galaxy, usually in pairs or triplets, sometimes, as is the case with our son, as a solo traveller. While smaller stellar groups can completely dissipate, siblings from larger families are often held together by their mutual gravitational attraction, and therefore, they continue to move through space as a single group. Now using data from the European Space Agency's

[00:10:58] Gaia mission, astronomers have identified a close cluster of over a thousand young stars, which they've named Ophion, which are not sticking together, but instead rapidly dispersing. The study's lead author, Dylan Hewson from Western Washington University, says Ophion is filled with stars that are set to rush out across the galaxy in a totally haphazard, uncoordinated way. And that's far from what's expected from a cluster so big. And what's more, it'll all happen in a fraction of the time it would

[00:11:25] usually take for such a large family to scatter. It's like no other stellar family he's ever seen before. The discovery reported in the Astrophysical Journal was made using observations from Gaia's third data release. The authors developed a new model to explore Gaia's vast, unrivalled trove of spectroscopic data, specifically searching for young stars less than 20 million years old. And it was during this

[00:11:49] study that Ophion shone out. But the question remains, why is Ophion behaving so unusually? Now astronomers have come up with several possible options. See, the cluster resides around 650 light years away, and it's near some other massive young stellar groups and energetic events within, and interactions between these colossal neighbours may well have influenced Ophion throughout the years. There are also signs that stars may have exploded here in the past, and these supernovae bursts may have swept

[00:12:18] material away from Ophion, causing its stars to move more rapidly apart from each other and onto their current radical paths. Whatever the real reason, this discovery changes how scientists think about stellar groups, and also how to find them. Previous methods identified families by clustering similar moving stars together, but Ophion would have slipped through that net. This is space-time. Still to come, NASA's Artemis II Orion moon capsule finally delivered, ready for its manned mission to the

[00:12:47] moon, and later in the science report, warnings that parents using phones and tablets around their kids may be affecting their children's health. All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:13:14] The return of humans to the moon is a step closer, with the Orion capsule to be used for the manned Artemis II lunar mission officially handed over to NASA. The spacecraft, which was built by Lockheed Martin, has finalised assembly and testing, and it's now been transferred to NASA's Space Exploration Ground Systems team. Orion is NASA's most advanced human-rated spacecraft, and it's been specially designed for deep space exploration.

[00:13:39] While Artemis I undertook an unmanned mission to the moon and back again, Artemis II will carry a crew of four on a 10-day flight. That will circle the moon and travel 7,400 kilometres beyond lunar orbit for eventually returning to Earth. Building on the lessons of Artemis I, the Orion used for Artemis II has been equipped with new life support systems, user interfaces, voice communications, thermal and

[00:14:03] waste control, a fitness device, and a fully integrated launch abort system. The new technologies on board the spacecraft also include a partial squirt of docking sensors and a prototype laser communications unit for testing high-speed data transfer. NASA's Exploration Ground Systems team will now handle final launch preparations. The spacecraft will then be transferred from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at the Kennedy Space Center to the nearby processing facilities.

[00:14:30] That's where propellants, oxygen and water will be loaded. The launch abort system and its protective fairings will also be installed there. Orion will then be moved to NASA's iconic Vehicle Assembly building, and finally lifted its position on top of its giant Space Launch System's SLS Heavy Lift rocket. Artemis II's launch is currently slated for early next year, and it will be used to validate Orion's performance in space with a crew, testing guidance, navigation, communications and mission operations.

[00:15:00] The flight also includes a rendezvous exercise with the SLS upper stage. That's a key dress rehearsal for the historic Artemis III manned lunar landing mission, a 30-day flight currently slated for mid-2027. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin's continuing construction of its Orion spacecraft for both the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions at the Kennedy Space Center. And the Artemis V spacecraft's pressure vessel is now in

[00:15:24] the early stages of manufacture in NASA's assembly facility at New Orleans in Louisiana. Work will then move forward towards the future Artemis VI, VII and VIII spacecraft. This is space time.

[00:15:52] And time now to take another brief look at some of the other stories making news insights this week, with a science report. A new study claims that parents who use technology such as phones and tablets around their kids may be having a negative impact on their children's health and development. The findings reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association pulled together data from 21 separate studies involving some 15,000 people finding that young kids of parents who use technology

[00:16:19] around them a lot had poorer cognition and psychosocial outcomes. However, the study also found that while the effects were real and present, they were classified as being fairly small. A man who injected himself with snake venom 856 times has helped to create an antivenin for all snake bites. A report of the journal Cell says that over a period of 18 years, the man developed a cocktail of antibodies which have been used in combination with the drug of Aresplitib to

[00:16:47] protect against snake bites from 19 different species, including Australia's deadly eastern brown snakes, inland taipans and tiger snakes. The study says the man had independently chosen to inject himself with snake venom from a variety of different snakes and in doing so generated a range of antibodies in his body which could neutralize a range of snake venoms. The cocktail of antibodies together with the drug gave full protection against 13 of the 19 snakes and partial protection against the remaining six.

[00:17:17] A new study claims growing peas and potatoes could help feed a city in times of a global catastrophe which disrupted fuel supplies and restricted food transport. The findings reported in the journal PLOS ONE admit that while it's a radical pivot to urban and near-urban agriculture, it nevertheless could offer a solution to a growing threat. The authors were modelling a case study showing that planting of home gardens and parks in peas could provide 20 percent of the food needed to supply a city the size of

[00:17:46] say, Palmerston North in New Zealand. And areas near the city could also grow potatoes to supply the remainder along with biofuel crops to run farming equipment. While there would be many challenges affecting how it all works in practice, the authors recommend that cities focus on protecting and rezoning nearby agricultural land and set up expertise and infrastructure for urban and near-urban farming. A landmark court ruling in Spain has reaffirmed that Gestalt therapy lacks scientific validity and

[00:18:15] operates in ways that resemble sectarian structures. The decision dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Spanish Association of Gestalt Therapy which sought financial compensation and retraction of a critical report on Gestalt therapy. Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptic says instead the court ordered the association be responsible for paying all costs. Okay Gestalt therapy is something that's come out of the psychoanalytic movement. It basically says that psychoanalysis without the past, you know how

[00:18:44] sort of psychotherapists would come in and say think about your past, think about terrible things that happened to your traumas in the past. Gestalt therapy is a response to that and suggesting no don't go to the past, let's look at the here and now, what are your problems now? And basically it has been derided as a bit of a motivational type course. You sit there in a therapy session either one-on-one with a therapist or it might be a group session all around in a circle etc and you talk about all your problems of what you like etc so it's a bit of digging into your soul and the problem is that

[00:19:11] there are issues with a lot of psychoanalytical and psychotherapeutic techniques that come along. Are they scientific right? How much evidence is there for them? The refreshed memory idea that you have this trauma in your youth which you have successfully covered up but the remnants of that causes all sort of psychological problems in your later life and you have to go through a psychotherapy session, you'd lie down, you'd go into a hypnotic state and you relive that thing. It does not exist. It's actually been proved to be very very dodgy, this hidden memory theory

[00:19:37] because basically most people who've been through a traumatic experience only remember it too well. So hiding it would be a nice thing but they don't. But it's a handy excuse for trying to explain strange behavior. This Gasol therapy says no not in the past, let's look at you now. Okay obviously there's a disagreement over Freudian psychotherapy. Look at you now, the trouble is is it true? Is there any science behind it? Is it just a nice thing to do? To talk about yourself and rewild your feelings and try and find some sort of reasons why you are

[00:20:03] acting the way you are or why you're unhappy. It is a bit cultish. The problem is that in some cases the patient gets very attached in whatever way to the therapist. They rely on the therapist. This happens in standard psychotherapy anyway. With a group it can be a bit sort of self-generating. So is it scientific? So someone in Spain wrote a report on Gestalt therapy. They suggested no, there ain't no science here. It's all just that something developed over the years has become very influential. You get universities and things picking it up, not just studying it but using it,

[00:20:33] applying it. This report said no. The Gestalt therapy group in Spain said, hang on, that's libelous to us. We're going to sue you because you said what we're doing is unscientific. They took it to court and the court came down and said, yep, it's unscientific and the Gestalt group has to now pay costs. And as someone pointed out, if you were really in a real science, you'd argue without. You'd debate it. And I'm sure they probably have been debating Gestalt therapy for a while. It certainly is a lot of stuff out there saying it's great, it's wonderful, written by the Gestalt therapy people by and large. But if

[00:21:02] you're a real science, you would put it in the scientific arena when you say, here's the evidence, you give me the counter evidence, let's argue it out, rather than just go take you to court for libel. So they had a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, especially with a Gestalt therapist when they were classed as being unscientific. And if you look at it, there's a lot of information about it. There's a lot of scientific trimmings about it. It's science-y words. Any theory like this Gestalt does drag up a lot of science-y sort of explanations. But is it science, or is it just a lot of words? Well, the Spanish court said no, it's not science.

[00:21:31] That's Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics. And that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts, iTunes,

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