Doomsday Dance: Ramses Mission and the Secrets of Apophis

This is Spacetime Series twenty eight, episode one hundred and fifty three, for broadcast on the twenty ninth of December twenty twenty five. Coming up on space Time, the Ramsey's mission to study the doomsday asteroid Apofas, solving the mysteries of existence, and the largest planetary nursery ever seen. All that had more Coming up on space Time. Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary. The European Space Agency has approved a new mission to study the doomsday asteroid Apofae. The Ramsey spacecraft will study the four hundred and fifty meter white space rock as it swoops down close to the Earth on April thirteenth, twenty twenty nine. Apofas will fly by Earth at a distance of just thirty two thousand kilometers, and that's closer than the orbits of many satellites. Apofice is often called the doomsday asteroid because early calculations back in twenty oh four warned of a two point seven percent chance of the asteroids slamming into the Earth. There were real fears that it was on an impacting orbit, but as more and more observations about the asteroid's orbit came in that possibility was eventually ruled out, So the good news is it wasn't going to crash into the planet in twenty twenty nine, but it was going to come awfully close. However, further calculations suggested that depending on how the Earth's gravitational pull effects ap Office during that close encounter, the asteroid would pass through a sort of well, I guess you'd call it a gravitational keyhole, about eight hundred meters in diameter, and if it went through the keyhole in the right way, it could be set up for a future impact on Earth exactly seven years later, on Easter Sunday, April the thirteenth, twenty thirty six. In fact, the possibility of an Earth impacting collision kept the threat at a level one on the Tourino impact scale until August twenty oh six. That's when enough observations of the asteroids orbit were available to rule out any likelihood of a collision. However, for a while there, Apofus did set the record as the highest rating ever on the Tarinos scale, and it's not worth getting too comfortable. It's estimated that an asteroid as big as a pofice comes close to the Earth every eight hundred years or so, and it's also estimated that an asteroid that size hits the Earth at least once every eighty thousand years on average. That means we're already overdue for the next impact. The RAMSEYS mission will be a joint venture between the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Expiration Agency JACKSA. It will launch in April twenty twenty eight, arriving at a p office in February twenty twenty nine, providing a unique optuny unity to study the effects of Earth's gravitational tidal forces on asteroids, in the process gaining new information necessary for future planetary defence. RAMSES will be equipped with a high resolution imager that will observe the shape and surface of the asteroid and characterize possible changes caused by its gravitational poll see. At that distance, Earth's immense gravity will slightly deform the asteroid, influence its rotation, and possibly even trigger small debris avalanches on the asteroid surface, exposing material in its interior to the surface which would otherwise have remained hidden. The imager will be able to analyze the reflectance of the surface of different wavelengths that determine its mineralogical and its chemical composition, as well as the physical properties of the rocks and dust exposed on the surface. The flyby will allow astronomers a chance to study this asteroid in great detail. The data obtained from the mission will be crucial to improving mechanisms for protecting Planet Earth from future asteroid in as well as to better understand the formation and evolution of these small celestial bodies. This report from iSER. TV Friday, the thirteenth of April twenty twenty nine will be Humankind's lucky day. A Poffice will safely pass Earth at a distance of less than thirty two thousand kilometers. An asteroid this large passes this close to Earth once every roughly seven thousand years, and the European Space Agency will have a front row seat. Meat Ramsey. ESA's Space Safety program is sending Ramseys to rendezvous with the Poffice and study the asteroid up close as it is pulled and stretched by Earth's gravity. Ramses will deploy too smaller spacecraft to help it record any changes to the asteroid's orbit, rotation, surface, and interior. With Ramseyes, ISA is capitalizing on a unique opportunity to learn how asteroids act as strong forces, and how we could push one off of a collision course if we are not so lucky. Next time, when the world looks up to see a poffice passing overhead, Ramses will be flying alongside, providing close up images and learning how to keep Earth safe. This is space time still to come. Scientists may finally have found an explanation for why the universe exists, and we look at the largest planetary nursery ever seen. All that are more still to come on space time. Scientists may finally have found an explanation for why the universe exists. See, the problem's always been equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created in the Big Bang thirteen point eight billion years ago, and the thing is matter and antimatter annihilate each other when they come into contact. So theoretically, the universe should have disappeared in a flash of blue gamma ray radiation moments after it formed, leaving behind nothing but a barren, empty, radioactive void. Yet here we are in a matter dominated universe. This phenomenon is known as the charge parity or CP violation, and it can't be explained by physics, at least not until now, physicists at CERN, the European organization for Nuclear Research, have been using the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, to observe a slight imbalance in the way matter and antimatter behave during high enagure collisions. The Large Hadron Collider is a massive atom smasher located in a twenty seven kilometer long circular tunnel near Geneva deep under the I guess with sporder. Packets of subatomic particles are accelerated around the collider in two tubes in opposite directions, traveling at some ninety nine point nine nine nine nine percent the speed of light. These particles can then be made to smash into each other at four massive detectors located in huge cathedral like cabins situated around the collider, where the impact debris and its decay constituents can be studied. Now are reporting The journal Nature claims that in an analysis of some eighty thousand decays of a particle known as the Lamba beauty baryon, scientists have discovered that its antimatter counterpart decays just a little bit differently, about two point five percent compared to its matter particle. Now, that two point five percent may not sound like much, but statistically it's a significant deviation, and the discovery itself has only a one in ten million chance of being a fluke, so a tiny imbalance in the universe when it came into being favored matter of antimatter, and that tiny microscopic difference was enough to allow all the stars, planets, galaxies life to emerge. It's not the first time CP violation had been detected, but the only previous detection was in mesons. In other words, this is the first time that such an asymmetry has been found in baryons. The findings are hugely significant because they bring scientists a step closer to understanding how everything we know about has survived and our universe has evolved. This is space time still to come, the largest birthplace of planets ever found, and later in the science report, the possible discovery of a new ancient human species. All that and more still to come on space time, Astronomers have observed the largest planetary nursery ever seen, located in a massive protoplanetary disc orbiting a distant young star. The findings, reported in the Astrophysical Journal are showing an incredibly chaotic and turbulent environment, with wisps of material stretching further above and below the disc the astronomers have ever expected. Even more strangely is the dichotomy of the filaments. They seem to be far more visible on one side of the disk than the other, and no one's quite sure why. The disc, cataloged as Iras twenty three zero seven seven plus sixty seven zero seven and nicknamed Dracula Chevito, is located a thousand light years away in the direction of the constellation Cepheus. Now kesh, you're wondering. A chevito is a Uruguayan sandwich of sliced beefsteak, mozzarella, ham, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and either black or green olives. Of course, Dracula could never really eaten one, because well, after all, vampires only consumed blood. Still, the name playfully reflects the heritage of the studies authors, one of whom is from Transylvanian Romania and the other from Uruguay, and in fact, the edge on view of this protoplanetary disc really does resemble a sort of hamburger, with a dark central lane flanked by glowing top and bottom layers of dust and gas. The observations were made using NASA's Hubble Space telescope. They mark a new milestone for Hubble, shedding light on how planets may form in extreme environments. This massive protoplanetary disc spans some six hundred and fifty billion kilometers. Now that's some forty times the diameter of our entire Solar system. Measured from the very outer edge of the Kaiper Belt, the disc obscures the young star at its center. Scientists think it's possibly either a hot massive star or maybe a pair of small sun like stars. And this enormous disc is not only the largest known planetary forming disk ever seen, it's also shaping up as the most unusual the studies. Lead author Christina Monsch from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, says the level of details seen in this image is rare in protoplanetary disc observations. It shows how planetary nurseries really can be far more active in chaotic than what's expected. Astronomers are seeing this disc nearly air john and its wispy upper and lower asymmetric layers are especially striking. Both Hubble and web space telescopes have imaged similar structures in other discs, but this new observation is providing an exceptional perspective, tracing its substructures in visible light in unprecedented detail, and that makes this system incredibly unique, a new laboratory for studying planetary formation and the environments where it can happen. The impressive height of these extended filaments wasn't the only thing that captured the attention of scientists. The new images also revealed that vertically imposing filament like features appear on just one side of the disk, or the other appears to have a sharp edge and no visible filaments. This peculiar lopsided structure suggests the dynamic processes like a recent infall of dust and gas, or interactions with its surroundings is shaping the disc. Astronomers already know that all planetary systems are formed from disks of gas and dust encircling young stars. Over time, through static electricity, gas and dust tends to clump together, eventually growing massive enough for gravity to take over and to create more and more material until the planet's formed. Finally, the gas and dust that doesn't go to making the planet, it crets under the star and so what we're seeing this new protoplanetary disk. They simply represent a scaled up version of our own early solar system, what it looked like four point six billion years ago, but with a massive disc estimated to be ten to thirty times that of Jupiter, ample material per forming modible gas giants, Monch says. In theory, this new system could host a vast planetary network. What planetary formation may differ in such massive environments. The underlying processes are thought to still be similar, but following these new observations, astronomers have more questions than answers. Luckily, these new images are a great starting point for understanding how planets form over time and in what sort of different environments they can evolve. This is space, time and time that To take a brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week with a science report, A new study has found that sleep apnea is linked to a forty percent higher chance of developing some sort of mental health problem. The findings are reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Is based on data from a long term aging study in Canada used to identify all the people who are likely to suffer from sleep apnea. Almost twenty eight thousand old Canadians were followed for an average of three years for the study, about seven thousand, five hundred of whom suffered from sleep apnea. Looking at various indicators of mental health problems, the authors found that sleep apnea was linked to about a forty percent higher chance of having a mental health problem at the beginning of the study and forty four percent higher chance of mental health problems by the end of the study. Paralontologists from La Trobe and Cambridge Universities have challenged the classification of one of the world's most complete human ancestral fossils, raising the possibility that it actually represents a new hominid or human species. The fossil, found in South Africa's famous Sturfontaine Caves in nineteen ninety eight, was dubbed Littlefoot, and had been widely believed to be a member of the Australopithecus genus, a lineage of ape like upright walkers that lived in Africa between three million and one point ninety five mision years ago. Littlefoot, known formally as STW five seven three, remains one of the most complete ancient hominids in the fossil record, but the new research reported in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology names littlefoot doesn't share the unique squeed of traits of other Australopithecus genus species, and that is raising the possibility that it may actually represent a you previously unidentified human relative, and that highlights the need for further careful evidence based taxonomomy. Doctors have reported the unusual case of a fit, healthy man in his fifties who ended up having a stroke in extremely high blood pressure after consuming an average of eight cans of energy drinks every day now that's some three times the recommended maximum daily intake of caffeine now. Once he was weaned off the beverage, the patient's blood pressure did eventually return to normal, but he didn't regain fulfiling on his left side. A fascinating study reported in the British Medical Journal suggests that any of You drinks may cause cutdiovascular disease and stroke, but importantly, this may also be reversible. A new study warns there's a growing number of people who are starting to doubt the science behind climate change because of misinformation propaganda campaigns spread by vested interests. The research carried out for The Times by you GUVN, the opinion consultancy firm Public First, compared twenty twenty five opinions on climate change with poles carried out back in twenty twenty one. They found that fifty percent of people now think concerns about climate change have been over exaggerated, and that compares to just twenty five percent four years ago. Back in twenty twenty one, sixteen percent of people believed warnings about climate change were not as real as scientists claimed. That's now gone up to twenty five percent today. And despite the science from countless studies, sixteen percent of people now think global warming is not the result of human activity. That's an increase of five percent over the past four years. Skeptics timendum, So survey shows that vest that interests propaganda really is working. Yes, we're seeing there seeing propaganda and general misinformation all other place, and it's definitely increasing the medium of choices. Obviously, social media. Social media is the railway track upon which this information drives us trained through everything. Whether it's vaccination, health issues, whether it's sony curates of wellness things, whether it's sort of conspiracy theories. Generally, and climate change is suffering as much as anything else. Now, there's a surveys that come out that The Times did one through Yugov fairly recently. They compared it with two surveys they repeut of four or five years, and they found that people who think the dangers of global warming has increased by more than fifty percent. That's the number of breads who think that way. Sixteen percent believes that warnings about climate change are not as real as scientists have said. That was in twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty five they're saying it's twenty five percent, so that's increasing as well. Similarly, sixteen percent think global warming is not the result of human activity, which is five to sent more than it was four years ago. So I mean, yes, the impact of misinformation and propaganda is having an effect, and that's why it flourishes. If it didn't have an effect, it would disappear. One of the problems is you have to look at the sources of the misinformation, and a lot of it comes from people with best at interest. One of the big proponents of anti climate change group which found to have had billions invested in fossil fuels, so I mean they have the vested interest in making sure that we don't drop fossil fuels by the way, So there's also the things that people are taking advantage of us, suggesting that reacting to climate change and changing your energy mix will increase the cost of energy, and people in straightened times will react badly to that. How big a problem is the fact that electricity prices have gone up so so much it's becoming a major cost burden for the average Australian consumer. Okay, climate change is real. In my pumble opinion, the way we're combating it is not appropriate. The use of renewables works to some degree, but they're not looking at the downstream problems associated with that. I have a problem with winterbine because a bird strike. As a lifelong members are speciate. That's an issue for me, But I don't have a problem with having all rus with solar panels on them. Yeah, we've got our reach and at zero. I think problem is how we're doing it. Electricity prices have gone up a huge amount over the last eight ten years or so. I think part of the problem is is that you have an aging fleet of power generation cullside power stations are getting old, they're getting less efficient, they're getting fewer of them, and certainly in Australia, when they privatized all the generation of electricity, there was a big increase in price. The suggestion was that because it was the private sector, they'd be more efficient and the price would go down. I know that from a personal point of view that this was the policy, because I wrote half of it myself the way back when, and that proved not to be the case. They've actually proved that as soon as you got it into the private sector hands, the price went up because they had a monopoly on the system. And also they started sort of what you call goal plating the infrastructure which might have been allowed to run down in the public sector, and that raised the price as well. So there's a whole range of different reasons. Aren't that old as the biggest power station in the country. It's not that seventies that's old, it's fifty years old. How long do you want these things to run? Yeah, anyway, there are issues with the infrastructure and the replacement factor the flow with their renewable energy. Although in Australia the generation of solar pair with rooftop solar pair has been enormous, just obviously taken off and as obviously have some reason for doing so. That's the skeptics timendum, and this is space Time, and that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through bites dot com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider, and from space Time with Stuart Gary dot com. Space Time's also broadcast through the National Science Foundation, on Science Own Radio and on both iHeartRadio and tune In Radio. And you can help to support our show by visiting the Spacetime Store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies, or by becoming a Spacetime Patron, which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of burnus audio content which doesn't go to air, access to our exclusive Facebook group, and other rewards. Just go to space Time with Stewart Gary dot com for full details. You've been listening to space Time with Stuart Gary. This has been another quality podcast production from bytes dot com.