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In this episode of SpaceTime, we explore some fascinating recent developments in our understanding of Earth and beyond.
Earth Experiences Its Shortest Day
On July 9, Earth recorded one of its shortest days, with a rotation 1.51 milliseconds shorter than the average. We discuss how various factors, including gravitational influences from the Moon and Sun, tectonic movements, and even human activities, affect Earth's rotation. This episode also highlights the implications of these changes on our timekeeping systems and the necessity of leap seconds to maintain accuracy in clocks and navigation systems.
Gilmour Space's Ares 1 Rocket Launch Preparations
Gilmour Space is gearing up for the maiden test flight of its Ares 1 orbital rocket after previous launch attempts were postponed due to technical glitches and weather conditions. We delve into the rocket's design, which includes a unique hybrid propulsion system, and discuss the significance of this launch as Australia’s first all-Australian designed and built launch vehicle since the 1970s.
Revising Earth's Geological Timeline
A groundbreaking study suggests that Earth's first solid crust formed from a magma ocean around 4.5 billion years ago, shortly after a massive impact event that created the Moon. This research challenges long-held beliefs about the formation of continents and the onset of plate tectonics, indicating that the chemical signatures of continental crust may have originated much earlier than previously thought. We explore the implications of this study for our understanding of Earth's early geological history and the evolution of life.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Nature Journal
https://www.nature.com/nature
NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Stuart Gary: Coming up on Space Time, planet Earth
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 experiences its shortest day. Gilmour,
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 Space now looking at a launch date this week for the
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 maiden test flight of its new Eris 1 orbital
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 rocket and a new study rewriting
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 Earth's geological timeline. All that and
00:00:17 --> 00:00:19 more coming up on Space Time.
00:00:21 --> 00:00:24 Stuart Gary: Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 Stuart Gary: You may not have noticed it, but July 9 was one
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 of the shortest days ever recorded in modern times.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 The Earth's rotation was some 1.51
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 milliseconds shorter than the planet's current average
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 rotational period of 23 hours, 56
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 minutes and 4 seconds. What's more,
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 July 22 and August 5 will also see
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 the planet rotating faster than normal around, ah, its
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 axis. A day on planet Earth
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 is technically known as a sidereal or stellar day.
00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 It's the amount of time it takes for the Earth to make one
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 full rotation on its axis with respect to the
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 celestial background, that is, the distant stars
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 that appear to be fixed in the sky. But
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 Earth's rotation isn't constant.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 It's influenced by various factors, such as the gravitational
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 pull of the sun and Moon, changes in Earth's magnetic
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 field, how mass is distributed around the planet, and
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 tectonic movements such as earthquakes. For example, the
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which hit Japan,
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 shortened the length of the day by 1.8
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 microseconds. Mind you, overall, the planet's
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 rotation has gradually been slowing down ever since its
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 creation 4.6 billion years ago.
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 Geologic evidence shows an average Earth day was just
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 19 hours long between about 1 and 2 billion years
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 ago, most likely due to the Moon being a lot closer
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 to the Earth, resulting, uh, in a stronger gravitational pull
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 than it currently has. That stronger
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 pull caused the planet to spin faster on its axis
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 due to the Moon's gravitational tidal forces.
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 Since its creation, the Moon's gradually been moving away
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 from the Earth at a rate of about 3cm a
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 year. And so the Earth's days are gradually getting
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 longer. In 2020, scientists
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 found that the Earth was spinning more quickly than at any point
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 since records began in the 1970s.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 And they recorded the Earth's shortest ever measured day on,
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 uh, July 5, 2024, when it was
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 1.66 millisecon than the
00:02:33 --> 00:02:36 current average for the planet on July 9
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 just passed, as well as July 22 and August
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 5. Coming up, the Moon will be at its furthest
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 distance, or apogee, from the Earth's equator.
00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 And that changes the impact its gravitational pull has
00:02:47 --> 00:02:50 on the planet's axis. While these gravitational
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 tidal effects are expected, research by NASA
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 suggests that human activity Is also contributing to the
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 change through the movement of ice in groundwater linked
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 to climate change. And that's increased the length of
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 an Earth day By an average of 1.33
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 milliseconds per century between the year 2000
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 and 2018. These
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 tiny microsecond amounts don't seem like much.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 But over the years, these variations add up,
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 and that places clocks out of sync with the planet's
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 actual position in space. The change in the
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 length of a day matters because it affects the accuracy
00:03:25 --> 00:03:27 of things like atomic clocks, Satellite navigation
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 systems and telecommunications, all of which
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 require extreme pre. That's why the
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 adds or subtracts leap seconds every now and then,
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 Usually on the last day of June or the last day of
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 December. For uh, example, when the leap seconds added.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 The last was on December 31, 2016. The
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 official clock went from 23:59 and
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 59 seconds GMT through to
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 23:59 and 60 seconds GMT
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 before finally ticking over to midnight. In
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 all, 27 leap seconds have been added since
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 1972. The next is
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 expected in December 2029.
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 This space time still to come.
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 Gilmour Space now looking at a launch date this
00:04:12 --> 00:04:15 week for the maiden test flight of its new Eris 1
00:04:15 --> 00:04:18 orbital rocket and a new study
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 rewriting Earth's geological timeline. All that
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 and more still to come on, um, Space.
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 Gilmore Space is now looking at a launch date this week for
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 the maiden flight of the company's new Eris 1
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 orbital rocket. Plans to launch earlier this month
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 were scrubbed due to high winds at the Bowen
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 spaceport on the tropical Queensland Pacific coast.
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 The company says the pools will give mission managers a uh,
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 longer, more flexible launch window and give the team a
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 chance to rest after an intense few weeks of testing and
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 preparations. The new launch schedule follows
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 earlier technical glitches with ground support equipment at
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 the launch site and an unusual anomaly during final
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 launch preparations when the rocket's payload fairing
00:05:14 --> 00:05:17 suddenly jettisoned during a vehicle shutdown, the
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 shells crashing down to the ground. That
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 issue happened before any fuel was loaded into the launch
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 vehicle. No one was injured in the incident and no
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 equipment was damaged other than the fairings themselves.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 They've since been replaced. An investigation
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 into that incident found the payload fairing jettison system
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 was triggered during the shutdown following pre flight
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 checks. The fairing separation system had been
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 pressurized with gas. But when power was cut off to the
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 rocket's second stage, it triggered an unexpected power
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 surge caused by an electrical feedback from downstream
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 systems, and that triggered the fairing's
00:05:51 --> 00:05:53 explosive bolts to prematurely fire.
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 Mission managers have now installed additional safeguards to
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 prevent the same thing happening again. The uh,
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 25 meter tall Eris is a three stage
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 rocket designed to launch payloads up to 300
00:06:05 --> 00:06:08 kg into low earth orbit. The core stage
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 is equipped with four of Gilmour's hybrid series rocket
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 motors which use a mixture of solid rocket fuel,
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 pellets and cryogenic liquid oxygen. This
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 gives a degree of throttle control, something that can't be
00:06:19 --> 00:06:21 achieved with pure solid fuel rockets.
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 Eris's second stage uses a single cirrus
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 motor while the upper or third stage is powered by
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 a Phoenix liquid fuelled rocket engine.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 While Australia has launched satellites into orbit before from
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 the Woomera rocket range in Outback South Australia, this
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 will be the first launch since the 1970s and the
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 first using an all Australian design and built launch
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 vehicle. If successful, Eris would be the
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 world's first hybrid rocket to achieve orbit.
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 This is space time still to come.
00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 Rewriting Earth's geological timeline and later in
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 the science report, researchers have finally
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 classified people into different autism spectrum
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 categories based on individual traits and
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 genetics. All that and more still to come on
00:07:05 --> 00:07:06 um, space time.
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 A new study has found that planet uh, Earth's first solid
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 crust probably formed out of the magma ocean
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 around four and a half billion years ago.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 That's not long after Theia, a Mars sized
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 protoplanet, crashed into the early proto Earth, melting
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 the two bodies together and ejecting material into
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 orbit which eventually formed the moon. The new
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 findings, reported in the journal Nature, changes
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 science's understanding of Earth's early geological history
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 and it challenges beliefs about how the continents
00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 formed and when plate tectonics first began.
00:07:53 --> 00:07:56 The new research also suggests that this first
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 crust probably had chemical features remarkably
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 similar to what we see in the continental crust today.
00:08:02 --> 00:08:05 And that means the distinctive chemical signature of the
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 continents was established at the very beginning of Earth's
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 history. The study's lead author Simon
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 Turner from Macquarie University says the discovery has
00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 major implications for how science thinks about Earth's
00:08:16 --> 00:08:19 uh, earliest epoch. Scientists have long
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 thought that tectonic plates needed to dive beneath
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 each other in order to create the chemical fingerprints
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 seen in continental crust today. But
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 Turner says this new research shows that this signature
00:08:31 --> 00:08:33 existed in Earth's uh, very first protocrust,
00:08:33 --> 00:08:36 meaning those early theories now need to be re
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 examined. For decades, scientists
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 have tried to identify when plate tectonics first
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 began because that was important for providing the
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 conditions which allowed the earliest evolution of life
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 to begin. The chemical signature of rocks
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 formed in subduction zones where one plate slips beneath
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 Another is distinctive in its low quantity of the
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 element niobium. Turner and colleagues
00:08:58 --> 00:09:01 hypothesized that finding the age of the earliest
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 low niobium rocks was the key to identifying
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 when plate tectonics first began. But while
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 previous research had tried to track that date down, the
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 results were somewhat inconsistent. So
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 Turner and colleagues created new mathematical models
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 simulating early Earth conditions when the planet's
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 core was still forming and a magma ocean of molten
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 rock still covered the planet's surface. The
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 author's calculations showed the protocrust Earth's
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 earliest crust formed during the Hadean Eon between
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 4 and 4.5 billion years ago, and would have
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 naturally developed the same chemical signatures found in today's
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 continents without needing plate tectonics to create
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 them. The initial results from this model show
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 that under the reducing conditions of early Earth, the element
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 niobium would become siderophilic, that is,
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 attracted to metals sinking through the global
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 magma ocean into the Earth's core.
00:09:52 --> 00:09:55 Turner realized there might well be a connection between
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 early core formation, high siderophile element
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 patterns, and the infamous negative niobium
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 anomaly observed in the continental crust.
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 The distinctive signature of the continental crust
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 matched a probable signature of material extracted from the
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 mantle after core formation, but before
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 meteorites began bombarding the early Earth. And
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 that helps solve the mystery of why this particular
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 chemical signature appears to nearly all continental rocks,
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 regardless of age. Turner and colleagues found
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 that the chemical signatures seen in the continental crust were
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 created in Earth's earliest period, regardless of how the
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 planet's surface was behaving. Turner says the early
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 crust was reshaped and made richer in silica, uh, thanks to
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 a combination of meteor impacts, chunks of crust
00:10:37 --> 00:10:40 peeling off, and the beginning of tectonic plate
00:10:40 --> 00:10:43 movements. The thinking is the first crust
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 likely broke into pieces that became thicker in some
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 areas, forming the beginning of continents. And
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 as these pieces moved sideways, the molten magma
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 between them created the basaltic crust, similar to what
00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 we see in the ocean floors today. The late
00:10:57 --> 00:11:00 heavy meteor bombardment during this early period caused
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 extensive disruption in recycling of the crust.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 Turner suggests that plate tectonics may well have
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 worked in fits and starts triggered by meteor
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 impacts until about 3.8 billion years ago, when the
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 meteor bombardment decreased dramatically as the early
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 solar system's chaos gave way to more ordinary
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 deadly orbits. And after that, plate
00:11:20 --> 00:11:23 tectonics fell into a continuous, self sustaining
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 pattern. Turner says the discovery
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 completely changes science's understanding of Earth's
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 earliest geological processes.
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 Stuart Gary: Well, it's, it's an interesting thing in that
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 it's never really been directly
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 addressed. So we obviously have
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 our, uh, existing archive of rocks on
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 the planet, and you run out of them in,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 um, the arcane era. So we don't really know
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 what was around before then. So what we did
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 was to try and model what that composition
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 would have been using sensible
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 starting assumptions. And it turns out
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 that the composition we think of that
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 earliest crust would have been very similar to
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 today's crust. Now, that perhaps
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 is a big enough surprise in itself, but
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 it has a very important ramification.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 And that is one of the biggest questions,
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 well, in science, actually, I think it's listed in the top
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 10 is when did plate tectonics start?
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 Because Earth, uh, as far as we know at the moment,
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 is the only planet, at least in the solar system,
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 that has plate tectonics. And so a big
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 question because that's linked to how the continents
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 form and move about, and life and the
00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 evolution of the oceans and the atmosphere
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 when that process started has been
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 of great interest for a very long time.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 What struck me, or us, as unusual
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 was that all the attempts to try and answer
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 that question kept coming up with different answers.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 So there seemed to be something wrong there.
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 And we think because the method used
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 was to try and look for the oldest
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 rocks, which had a subduction signature.
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 So that's the signature of magmas produced at
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 island arcs where one plate beneath
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 another, and to see when that first appeared
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 in the rock record. But if the continental crust
00:13:17 --> 00:13:20 always had its current composition, then you can't
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 use that method to determine when plate
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 tectonics started. It undoes that approach.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 So that was perhaps the biggest conclusion of
00:13:29 --> 00:13:30 the results of our study.
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 Stuart Gary: When you look at the Earth's crust today, there are some
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 areas in South Africa, around Hudson Bay in
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 Canada, and even in the Pilbara of Western Australia, where
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 we find some really old crusts.
00:13:42 --> 00:13:42 Stuart Gary: Correct.
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 Stuart Gary: How different are they from, well, what we'd see
00:13:45 --> 00:13:46 under your feet at Epping.
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 Stuart Gary: Right. Um, so it turns out that
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 they're not that different at all. So there are some subtle
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 differences between. So all the samples
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 you've cited come from the Archaean, ah,
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 era. And average Archaean, uh, crust is not
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 that different to average modern
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 continental crust. And what wasn't known,
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 but we have now modeled, is what the
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 crusts in the Hadean era was. So
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 the Hadean era came before the
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 Archean. So it was the Earth's original
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 crust that formed from a magma ocean when
00:14:19 --> 00:14:22 the Earth was still molten. Actually turns out to
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 be very, very similar to all those examples
00:14:25 --> 00:14:26 you've just mentioned.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:28 Stuart Gary: Of course, the Other big question here is you're talking about
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 4.5 billion years ago.
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 That's roughly the time that the Theia impact would have
00:14:34 --> 00:14:34 happened.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 Stuart Gary: That's right. So the Earth was
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 formed by accretion, uh, of, uh, astero.
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 The heat from accretion and early isotope
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 decay led to a magma ocean
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 forming. And from that the core
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 separated and the first crust was
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 formed. And you're absolutely correct. The Moon forming
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 impact was about the same time as
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 well. So it was clearly a very
00:15:00 --> 00:15:03 active and, if you like, chaotic period
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 of Earth's history. And that's probably one of the reasons
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 we have no rocks remaining from that era. So the
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 original protocrust would have been potentially
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 melted and certainly severely broken up
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 by impacts, meteorite
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 impacts, including the one that formed the Moon. So
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 that's probably why we don't have any rocks from that era, which
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 makes it very hard to say what was the composition of that
00:15:25 --> 00:15:28 earliest crust. And hence you have to use a
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 modeling approach such as the one we used.
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 Stuart Gary: And of course it doesn't end there, does it? Because the Late Heavy
00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 Bombardment continued to. Well, there are various
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 estimates, but roughly around 3.9 billion years
00:15:38 --> 00:15:39 ago.
00:15:39 --> 00:15:42 Stuart Gary: Correct. So even though we've provided an
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 estimate of the earliest crust, it would have been
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 constantly being remelted and
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 bombarded and broken up. So, um,
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 yes, it went through a very complex history.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 Stuart Gary: You were looking for particular chemical signatures in
00:15:56 --> 00:15:57 the crust, weren't you?
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 Stuart Gary: That's right. So I guess the hallmark
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 of plate tectonics, which is, for example,
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 today the seduction of the Pacific Plate beneath
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 the Australian plate, produces what
00:16:08 --> 00:16:11 we refer to as island arcs. So that's all the
00:16:11 --> 00:16:14 volcanoes along the Pacific Rim of Fire,
00:16:14 --> 00:16:17 including in New Zealand and Tonga, for
00:16:17 --> 00:16:19 example, the Marianas. And those rocks
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 have a very characteristic signature, the most
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 characteristic of which is depletion of the
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 element niobium with respect to
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 similarly behaved elements such as the
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 light rare Earth elements. And because that
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 signature appears today at island arcs, it
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 was assumed that that signature was therefore
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 created always by plate tectonics.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 What we show is that that signature can
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 be created in another way, and that is
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 by extraction of the core and a
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 protocrust at the same time in the earliest Earth. Uh,
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 so whilst that signature might be recycled at island
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 arcs, we suggest it was actually created in
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 a different way at the beginning of Earth's history.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:06 Stuart Gary: Is it a case of differentiation of the planet
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 itself taking place at the same time as all
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 these other things were happening and scientists simply not
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 looking at it from that point of view, and now they
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 realize that these things were all happening in unison.
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 Stuart Gary: Well, I think we know that there were a lot of things
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 happening at very similar times. Of course,
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 you can only estimate or date them to a
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 level of precision, which depends on the method. So they were
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 all closely related and a lot of them were happening
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 at the same time. But it was simply because we have no
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 rocks from that era that there's been
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 not much focus on what the crust might have looked
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 like. Um, and it is a bit surprising
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 that nobody had attempted what we attempted to actually
00:17:45 --> 00:17:46 undertake that modeling.
00:17:46 --> 00:17:47 Stuart Gary: How did you do the modeling?
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 Stuart Gary: So that's a little bit
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 technical. So it's a chemical approach whereby
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 we have equations that tell us if you
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 melt a rock, what composition melt
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 you'll get if it's only partially melted.
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 And you can make that modeling
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 more realistic by saying, well, let's melt
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 an asteroidal composition to a certain
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 extent and we're going to let the metal
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 drop out to form the Earth's core. We're going to
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 solidify or the residue will be the
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 Earth's mantle or prototype. And then if a little bit of
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 melt escapes and
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 solidifies, that then is the crust. So we have
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 a numerical way, knowing how different elements
00:18:29 --> 00:18:32 behave, of modeling that really quite
00:18:32 --> 00:18:33 accurately.
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 Stuart Gary: That's Professor Emeritus Simon Turner, uh, from
00:18:35 --> 00:18:38 Macquarie University. This is
00:18:38 --> 00:18:39 space, time
00:18:54 --> 00:18:55 and time.
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 Now to take a brief look at some of the other stories making news in Science
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 this week with a Science report. A new
00:19:01 --> 00:19:03 study has for the first time been able to classify
00:19:03 --> 00:19:06 people on the autism spectrum into four distinct
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 groups based both on their autism related traits
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 and also the underlying genetics. The
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 findings, reported in the journal Nature Genetics, analyzed more
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 than 150 people with autism and more than
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 200 of their family members. The study
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 found that each of the four autism subtypes had its own
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 biological signatures. The first group,
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 which constitutes about 37% of participants,
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 has been named the Social and Behavioural Challenges group.
00:19:33 --> 00:19:36 These individuals have many co occurring traits such
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 as adhd, anxiety disorders, depression
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 and challenges in social interactions with others.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 Some also tend to display restricted or repetitive
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 behaviors and uh, mood dysregulation.
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 However, these individuals do not show many developmental
00:19:50 --> 00:19:53 delays and they tend to hit their developmental milestones
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 at the same pace as neurotypical UH children.
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 The second group, known as mixed ASD with developmental
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 delay, is the inverse of the Social and Behavioural
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 Challenges group. While these individuals hit many
00:20:05 --> 00:20:07 of their milestones later in development than their peers without
00:20:07 --> 00:20:10 autism, they typically don't have the same kinds of
00:20:10 --> 00:20:13 issues with anxiety, depression, mood
00:20:13 --> 00:20:15 dysregulation, or disruptive behaviors.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:19 This group represents approximately 19% of those on
00:20:19 --> 00:20:22 the spectrum. The third group is known as the moderate
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 challengers category. It includes individuals who
00:20:25 --> 00:20:27 show challenges in the areas laid out in the social and
00:20:27 --> 00:20:30 behavioural group, but typically not all of them, and to
00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 lesser degrees. Also, this group does not show
00:20:33 --> 00:20:35 any developmental delays. Roughly
00:20:35 --> 00:20:38 34% of people on the spectrum fall into this
00:20:38 --> 00:20:41 category. The fourth and final category is the
00:20:41 --> 00:20:44 broadly affected group. It is characterized by
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 widespread challenges, including restricted and repetitive
00:20:47 --> 00:20:50 behaviors, social communication, developmental
00:20:50 --> 00:20:52 delays, mood dysregulation, anxiety
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 and depression. This is also the smallest of the
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 groups, accounting for around 10% of those on the
00:20:58 --> 00:21:01 spectrum. Importantly, the researchers stress
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 that these classes aren't a definitive comprehensive
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 grouping, but rather a place to start.
00:21:07 --> 00:21:10 Surprisingly, the authors found little or no overlap in
00:21:10 --> 00:21:12 the impacted pathways between the classes.
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 Remarkably, the authors also found not just when
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 genes were impacted by mutations, but also when they were
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 activated differed by class in the social and
00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 behavioural challenges class. Quite surprisingly, the impacted
00:21:24 --> 00:21:27 genes were already mostly active at birth, and this group
00:21:27 --> 00:21:30 also experienced very few developmental delays and
00:21:30 --> 00:21:32 the latest average age of diagnoses.
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 However, the opposite was true of the ASD and
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 developmental delayed class, where impacted genes were
00:21:39 --> 00:21:41 mostly activated prenatally.
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 Scientists have identified harmful bacteria,
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 viruses and parasites that have infected ancient
00:21:47 --> 00:21:50 humans going back 37 years.
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 A report in the journal Nature found that these nasty
00:21:53 --> 00:21:56 bugs from animals, which are collectively known as zoonotic
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59 pathogens, emerged around 6 years
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 ago, peaking about 5 years ago across Europe
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 and Asia, and that coincided with the
00:22:05 --> 00:22:08 widespread domestication of livestock. The authors
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 say that this transition profoundly affected human health
00:22:11 --> 00:22:14 and history throughout millennia, and it continues to
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 do so today. For
00:22:16 --> 00:22:19 decades, paleontologists have used fossil trackways
00:22:19 --> 00:22:22 to estimate the speed at which dinosaurs could run.
00:22:23 --> 00:22:25 But now a report in the journal Biology Letters has
00:22:25 --> 00:22:28 more accurately tested that idea, using guinea
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 fowl as a surrogate for a theropod dinosaur.
00:22:32 --> 00:22:35 Theropod dinosaurs are the ones that look like raptors or
00:22:35 --> 00:22:37 T Rexes. The authors measured
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 guineafowl walking and running, uh, over soft mud,
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 and they found that the speeds being calculated based on their
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 footprints didn't actually match what their real speeds were.
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 The authors say it may be that soft mud affects
00:22:49 --> 00:22:52 how birds took their strides. The thing
00:22:52 --> 00:22:55 is, tracks can only be left in soft ground such as mud,
00:22:55 --> 00:22:58 so it's unlikely that real dinosaur trackways would have been
00:22:58 --> 00:23:01 immune to these same effects. What it all means
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 is that current estimates for dinosaur speeds based
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 on trackway footprints are inaccurate and
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08 potentially very misleading.
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 A new study in the conversation has shown how
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 paranormal beliefs create a sort of sense of control,
00:23:15 --> 00:23:18 predictability and even comfort in uncertain
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 times. Surveys show that between about
00:23:21 --> 00:23:24 one third and half of people in the United States and Great
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26 Britain believe in things that mainstream science
00:23:26 --> 00:23:29 simply can't explain, like ghosts and
00:23:29 --> 00:23:32 psychic abilities. Tim Mendham from Australian
00:23:32 --> 00:23:35 Skeptics says a report in the journal plos One has found
00:23:35 --> 00:23:38 that people who feel powerless or uncertain are more
00:23:38 --> 00:23:41 likely to believe in the supernatural. He says
00:23:41 --> 00:23:43 that's probably because of the way human brains
00:23:43 --> 00:23:46 process uncertainty. When faced with
00:23:46 --> 00:23:49 events people cannot control, their minds tend to look for
00:23:49 --> 00:23:50 patterns and explanations.
00:23:51 --> 00:23:53 Tim Mendham: Why do people believe in certain things which are just
00:23:53 --> 00:23:56 obviously not a lot of substantive evidence, if any,
00:23:56 --> 00:23:59 to back up those beliefs. It comes down to a range of
00:23:59 --> 00:24:02 things. One is that people think life is boring and they need a bit more
00:24:02 --> 00:24:05 colour in their life, which is unicorns and that sort of stuff. I presume
00:24:05 --> 00:24:08 fantasy elements. Probably nothing greatly wrong with fantasy, except when you
00:24:08 --> 00:24:11 think it's real. The other thing is that quite the opposite, that you find
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 the world very stressful. Random things happen and people don't like
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 random things. And fair enough, you think, why did
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 that person have to die? Life is not always very
00:24:19 --> 00:24:22 pleasant and things can happen to nice people. So how do I
00:24:22 --> 00:24:25 cope with this? Is there some purpose, some reason
00:24:25 --> 00:24:28 behind it all? What's the meaning of life? But I mean,
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 yeah, random things do happen. I mean, life's a piece of. As
00:24:31 --> 00:24:33 the song goes, it's tough. You're trying to find why
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 and the answer is, sorry, there ain't no why, there is
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 no reason, it just happens. So, uh, people try and find a reason for it,
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 some pattern. People are always finding patterns in random images,
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 random words, sounds, etc. Pareidolia is
00:24:45 --> 00:24:48 called when you see the man in the moon or you see,
00:24:48 --> 00:24:51 ah, shape of a face in a bit of toast. People try and do the
00:24:51 --> 00:24:54 same thing with life. They try and find a pattern, they try and find a reason for it.
00:24:54 --> 00:24:57 And so people who are particularly feel that life is
00:24:57 --> 00:25:00 outside of their control, that they're victims, will try
00:25:00 --> 00:25:03 and find some reason to explain why do these things happen.
00:25:03 --> 00:25:05 And they can't accept that, sorry, it just happens. The
00:25:05 --> 00:25:08 alternative is people get into conspiracy theories which goes the
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 opposite way. In other words, there's a plot. And so the
00:25:11 --> 00:25:14 issue is that people who are uncertain can be prone to believing
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 conspiracy theories and strange beliefs, both
00:25:17 --> 00:25:18 spiritual and political.
00:25:18 --> 00:25:21 Stuart Gary: Of course, that's not to say that some conspiracy theories theories aren't
00:25:21 --> 00:25:21 real.
00:25:21 --> 00:25:24 Tim Mendham: Yeah, there are real conspiracy theories. That happen all the time. One of the
00:25:24 --> 00:25:27 issues we know about them and when, when they're revealed, it's very hard to keep
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 a secret these days. The conspiracy will be revealed
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 eventually. Um,
00:25:33 --> 00:25:36 I'm sure conspiracies happen, always have
00:25:36 --> 00:25:39 happened, always will. People tend to believe them because they
00:25:39 --> 00:25:40 just don't like the way the world is.
00:25:40 --> 00:25:43 Stuart Gary: That's Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 Scientists have discovered extended volcanism spewing
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 across the ancient lunar far side south pole region
00:25:53 --> 00:25:55 for at least 1.4 billion years.
00:25:56 --> 00:25:59 The findings, reported in the journal Nature, identified
00:25:59 --> 00:26:02 two very distinct volcanic phases on the lunar
00:26:02 --> 00:26:05 far side, reaching their peaks at 4.2 and
00:26:05 --> 00:26:08 2.8 billion years ago. The moon's
00:26:08 --> 00:26:10 near and far sides exhibit striking
00:26:10 --> 00:26:13 asymmetry from topography and crustal thicknesses
00:26:13 --> 00:26:16 through to volcanic activity. Yet the origins of
00:26:16 --> 00:26:18 these differences have long puzzled scientists.
00:26:19 --> 00:26:22 China's Chang' e 6 mission, which launched back in May
00:26:22 --> 00:26:25 2024, challenged this enigma by returning
00:26:25 --> 00:26:27 1935.3 grams of
00:26:27 --> 00:26:30 material from the lunar farside south pole Aitken
00:26:30 --> 00:26:33 Basin the South Pole Aitken Basin is the
00:26:33 --> 00:26:36 moon's largest, deepest and oldest known impact
00:26:36 --> 00:26:38 structure, measuring some 2
00:26:38 --> 00:26:41 kilometers in diameter. The samples returned
00:26:41 --> 00:26:44 by Chang' E6 arrived back on Earth in
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 June 2024. Previous studies
00:26:47 --> 00:26:50 had already indicated that the Aitken Basin was formed by a
00:26:50 --> 00:26:52 colossal impact some 4.25 billion years
00:26:52 --> 00:26:55 ago, and that would have released energy greater than
00:26:55 --> 00:26:58 a trillion atomic bombs. But the effects
00:26:58 --> 00:27:01 of this massive impact on lunar geology and thermal
00:27:01 --> 00:27:04 evolution was one of planetary science's greatest
00:27:04 --> 00:27:07 unsolved mysteries until recently. The
00:27:07 --> 00:27:10 new analysis of the samples shows volcanism erupting
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 across the basin in two distinct volcanic phases
00:27:12 --> 00:27:15 at 4.2 and at 2.8 billion years
00:27:15 --> 00:27:18 ago. And that suggests that volcanic
00:27:18 --> 00:27:21 activity must have persisted for at least 1.4 billion
00:27:21 --> 00:27:23 years, which is far, uh, longer than previously thought.
00:27:24 --> 00:27:26 And the new findings don't end there.
00:27:27 --> 00:27:30 Measurements of paleomagnetic intensity in basalt
00:27:30 --> 00:27:32 clasts revealed a rebound in the Moon's
00:27:32 --> 00:27:35 magnetic field roughly 2.8 billion years ago,
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 and that suggests that the lunar dynamo, which generates the
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42 Moon's magnetic fields fluctuated episodically rather
00:27:42 --> 00:27:45 than fading steadily away. The studies have
00:27:45 --> 00:27:48 also shown that the lunar far side mantle has significantly
00:27:48 --> 00:27:50 lower water content than the nearside mantle, and
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53 that indicates that volatile elements are unevenly
00:27:53 --> 00:27:56 distributed within the lunar interior, adding yet another
00:27:56 --> 00:27:59 aspect to the Moon's asymmetry. Finally, a
00:27:59 --> 00:28:02 geochemical analysis of lunar basalts indicated
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05 an ultra depleted mantle source likely
00:28:05 --> 00:28:08 Resulting from either a primordial depleted depleted mantle
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 or massive melt extraction triggered by large
00:28:11 --> 00:28:13 impacts. These findings from Beijing's Chang'
00:28:13 --> 00:28:16 E6 mission are fascinating, and they highlight the
00:28:16 --> 00:28:19 role that major impacts have played in shaping the
00:28:19 --> 00:28:22 Moon's deep interior. This is space
00:28:22 --> 00:28:24 time still to come. Discovery of the
00:28:24 --> 00:28:27 Sun's helicity barrier shedding new light on the solar
00:28:27 --> 00:28:30 wind. And Europe moves another step forward in choosing
00:28:30 --> 00:28:33 its next generation of orbital launch vehicles.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36 All that and more still to come on, um, space time.
00:28:52 --> 00:28:55 A new study has confirmed the existence Of a region
00:28:55 --> 00:28:58 of the sun which astronomers are calling the helicity barrier.
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 The findings, reported in the journal Physical Review,
00:29:01 --> 00:29:04 helps explain how plasma streaming out of the sun Is
00:29:04 --> 00:29:07 heated and accelerated in the outer solar atmosphere, known as
00:29:07 --> 00:29:10 the corona. Alright, let's go back to first principles
00:29:10 --> 00:29:13 here. The Sun's core is a temperature of about 15 million
00:29:13 --> 00:29:15 degrees Celsius. By the time
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 photons created in the core Reach the Sun's visible
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21 surface, the photosphere temperatures have dropped to around
00:29:21 --> 00:29:23 6 degrees. But
00:29:23 --> 00:29:26 interestingly, further out in the Sun's corona, uh,
00:29:26 --> 00:29:28 temperatures increase again to over a million degrees.
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31 Now that's a feat which seems to defy the laws of physics,
00:29:32 --> 00:29:35 which suggest that things should be getting cooler the further away
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37 they are from a heat source. So that
00:29:37 --> 00:29:40 means something out there must be causing things to
00:29:40 --> 00:29:43 heat up again. It's a paradox we've often talked
00:29:43 --> 00:29:46 about on this program, and it's one which has been puzzling scientists for
00:29:46 --> 00:29:49 decades. Furthermore, the constant outflow of
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 plasma and magnetic field from the sun, which is known as the solar
00:29:52 --> 00:29:54 wind, is accelerated to supersonic speeds in this
00:29:54 --> 00:29:57 same region. Now, something called turbulent
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 dissipation, the process by which mechanical energy is
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 converted into heat, is believed to play a crucial role
00:30:03 --> 00:30:06 Both these phenomena. However, in the near sun
00:30:06 --> 00:30:09 environment, where plasma is largely collisionless, the exact
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 mechanisms of this dissipation remain elusive.
00:30:12 --> 00:30:15 Now, new Observations gathered by NASA's Parker Solar
00:30:15 --> 00:30:18 Probe during its ultra close encounters with the sun, have allowed
00:30:18 --> 00:30:21 scientists to directly explore this extreme environment for the
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 first time, in the process providing crucial
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 data, uh, which is helping to unravel some of these
00:30:26 --> 00:30:29 mysteries. Now, during its latest flybys,
00:30:29 --> 00:30:32 Parker swooped down to within 6.2 million kilometers of
00:30:32 --> 00:30:35 the Sun's surface. And that's closer than any other space
00:30:35 --> 00:30:38 spacecraft ever. Its record setting close encounters
00:30:38 --> 00:30:40 have also seen the spacecraft reach speeds of over
00:30:40 --> 00:30:43 687 kilometers per hour. That's
00:30:43 --> 00:30:46 faster than any other vehicle ever, all while enduring
00:30:46 --> 00:30:49 scorching temperatures of more than 930
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51 degrees Celsius, and this spectacular
00:30:51 --> 00:30:54 endeavor has allowed scientists to gather enough
00:30:54 --> 00:30:57 evidence to suggest that a long hypothesized
00:30:57 --> 00:30:59 helicity barrier really does exist, and it's
00:30:59 --> 00:31:02 actively altering the nature of turbulent dissipation.
00:31:03 --> 00:31:05 This previously theorized effect creates a barrier to the
00:31:05 --> 00:31:08 turbulent cascade of energy at small scales,
00:31:08 --> 00:31:11 fundamentally changing how fluctuations dissipate and
00:31:11 --> 00:31:14 thus how plasma is heated. The study's lead author, uh
00:31:14 --> 00:31:17 Jack McIntyre from Queen Mary University, says the
00:31:17 --> 00:31:20 results confirm the presence of the helicity barrier and
00:31:20 --> 00:31:23 they allow scientists to account for properties in the solar wind
00:31:23 --> 00:31:25 that were previously unexplained. These
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 include the discovery of protons, which are typically hotter
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 than electrons in this region, and the authors also
00:31:31 --> 00:31:33 identified the specific conditions under which this
00:31:33 --> 00:31:36 barrier occurs. They found that the helicity
00:31:36 --> 00:31:39 barrier becomes fully developed when the magnetic field strength
00:31:39 --> 00:31:42 becomes large compared to the pressure in the plasma, and becomes
00:31:42 --> 00:31:45 increasingly prominent when the imbalance between the
00:31:45 --> 00:31:48 oppositely propagating plasma waves that make up the
00:31:48 --> 00:31:51 turbulence is greater. And critically, these
00:31:51 --> 00:31:54 conditions are frequently met in the solar wind close to the
00:31:54 --> 00:31:56 sun, and that's exactly where Parker Solar Probe's been
00:31:56 --> 00:31:59 exploring. That means the effect should be
00:31:59 --> 00:32:02 fairly widespread, and that answers some long
00:32:02 --> 00:32:05 standing questions about coronal heating and solar wind
00:32:05 --> 00:32:08 acceleration, such as the temperature signatures seen in the
00:32:08 --> 00:32:10 solar atmosphere and the variability of different
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13 solar wind streams. This allows
00:32:13 --> 00:32:15 scientists to better understand the fundamental physics of
00:32:15 --> 00:32:18 turbulent dissipation, the connection between small scale
00:32:18 --> 00:32:21 physics and the global properties of the heliosphere. And
00:32:21 --> 00:32:24 it will allow scientists to make better predictions about space
00:32:24 --> 00:32:27 weather events which can affect life here on Earth.
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 This is space time still to come. The
00:32:31 --> 00:32:34 European Space Agency narrows down its list of
00:32:34 --> 00:32:36 potential candidates for its future orbital launch
00:32:36 --> 00:32:39 vehicle requirements. Later in the science report,
00:32:39 --> 00:32:42 researchers discover how to use lightning to produce
00:32:42 --> 00:32:45 ammonia gas out of thin air. All that and more
00:32:45 --> 00:32:47 still to come on um, space time.
00:33:02 --> 00:33:05 The European Space Agency has narrowed down to
00:33:05 --> 00:33:08 five its list of potential candidates for future
00:33:08 --> 00:33:11 launch vehicle service providers. The five
00:33:11 --> 00:33:14 were pre selected to move forward following the completion of the
00:33:14 --> 00:33:17 first stage of the Acer invitation to tender for the
00:33:17 --> 00:33:19 European Launcher Challenge. The successful
00:33:19 --> 00:33:22 companies include ISA Aerospace, Maya
00:33:22 --> 00:33:25 Space, Orbital Express, Launch Payload,
00:33:25 --> 00:33:28 Aerospace and Rocket Factory Augsburg.
00:33:28 --> 00:33:31 The European Launcher Challenge is part of ESA's plan
00:33:31 --> 00:33:33 for future European Space Transportation Services
00:33:33 --> 00:33:36 with the aim of promoting a greater choice of European
00:33:36 --> 00:33:39 launch services and as a result, increased
00:33:39 --> 00:33:42 competition. It's similar to what NASA has been doing in the
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 United States using different commercial launch service
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 providers like SpaceX, the United launch Alliance,
00:33:47 --> 00:33:50 Blue Origin, Northrop, Grumman, Sierra
00:33:50 --> 00:33:53 Space and Rocket Lab The European Launcher
00:33:53 --> 00:33:56 Challenge selection process is a two stage competitive
00:33:56 --> 00:33:59 tender. Successful companies will need to be able to
00:33:59 --> 00:34:01 prove that they can provide launch services between
00:34:01 --> 00:34:03 2026 and 2030 and also
00:34:03 --> 00:34:06 demonstrate an ability to further upgrade their launch
00:34:06 --> 00:34:09 vehicles to achieve high capacities. ESA
00:34:09 --> 00:34:11 will provide each of the five selected companies with up to
00:34:11 --> 00:34:14 169 million euros in seed funding in order
00:34:14 --> 00:34:16 to further develop their launch systems.
00:34:17 --> 00:34:20 ESA's Director General Josef Aschenbacher and the
00:34:20 --> 00:34:23 Director of Space Transportation Tolke Nielsen told a
00:34:23 --> 00:34:25 PACT media conference after the announcement that the agency
00:34:25 --> 00:34:28 will now consolidate the proposals for its ministerial level
00:34:28 --> 00:34:30 meeting, which he slated for November.
00:34:30 --> 00:34:33 Simon Turner: The ITT as I mentioned, will go out next
00:34:33 --> 00:34:36 week, uh, then of course after that the
00:34:36 --> 00:34:39 companies will respond, uh, but we
00:34:39 --> 00:34:42 plan to have an evaluation um, this
00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 year uh, of identifying who are um,
00:34:44 --> 00:34:47 within the frame of the elc, the ones selected. And
00:34:47 --> 00:34:50 then of course this will be brought uh, towards the
00:34:50 --> 00:34:53 ministerial for funding. But I'd like Tony to
00:34:53 --> 00:34:55 um, provide a few more details. I'll
00:34:55 --> 00:34:58 just add that um, to ask
00:34:58 --> 00:35:01 the precise question, when will the contract be
00:35:01 --> 00:35:04 uh, placed? And that will only be after
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 the ministerial when we have the subscriptions
00:35:06 --> 00:35:09 according to a fair contribution scheme. So we have
00:35:09 --> 00:35:12 no geographical, you return constraints
00:35:12 --> 00:35:15 on these, uh, this undertaking.
00:35:15 --> 00:35:16 Stuart Gary: This is space, time
00:35:32 --> 00:35:32 and time.
00:35:32 --> 00:35:35 Now to take another brief look at some of the other stories making news in
00:35:35 --> 00:35:38 Science this week with the Science Report. A
00:35:38 --> 00:35:41 new study warns that extended drought and warm
00:35:41 --> 00:35:43 weather is changing South Australia's marine
00:35:43 --> 00:35:46 ecosystem. Um, a significant flood in the Murray darling
00:35:46 --> 00:35:49 basin in 2022 and 2023 gave Flinders
00:35:49 --> 00:35:52 University researchers a rare opportunity to
00:35:52 --> 00:35:54 analyze conditions that damaged biodiversity in water
00:35:54 --> 00:35:57 quality for both marine species as well as local
00:35:57 --> 00:36:00 ecosystems. Their findings, reported in the
00:36:00 --> 00:36:03 journal Remote Sensing, also showed that periodic flooding of
00:36:03 --> 00:36:05 the Murray river provided a major risk.
00:36:07 --> 00:36:10 Scientists have developed a way to use lightning to produce ammonia
00:36:10 --> 00:36:13 gas out of thin air. A report in the
00:36:13 --> 00:36:15 journal Ungarvant Chemi International claims this new
00:36:15 --> 00:36:18 more efficient method brings researchers closer to the
00:36:18 --> 00:36:21 sustainable production of ammonia and also transition to
00:36:21 --> 00:36:24 a hydrogen based economy. Ammonia is
00:36:24 --> 00:36:27 one of the world's most important chemicals and it's the main
00:36:27 --> 00:36:30 ingredient of fertilizers, which account for almost half of
00:36:30 --> 00:36:31 all global food production.
00:36:33 --> 00:36:36 Well, it turns out that people feel more comforted by
00:36:36 --> 00:36:39 AI generated words of emotional support if they believe
00:36:39 --> 00:36:42 that these words are actually coming from a human rather
00:36:42 --> 00:36:45 than a program. The findings reported in the journal
00:36:45 --> 00:36:48 Nature followed a study designed to explore the limits of
00:36:48 --> 00:36:50 AI chatbots as a source of emotional support.
00:36:51 --> 00:36:54 Scientists from Israel and the United States conducted a series of
00:36:54 --> 00:36:57 experiments in which more than 6 people were either
00:36:57 --> 00:37:00 told they were interacting with an AI chatbot or with a
00:37:00 --> 00:37:02 human human. But they were all given AI generated
00:37:02 --> 00:37:05 responses. Either way, the researchers found that
00:37:05 --> 00:37:08 responses which participants thought were human elicited more
00:37:08 --> 00:37:11 positive feelings, and participants rated these as
00:37:11 --> 00:37:12 being more empathetic.
00:37:14 --> 00:37:17 Samsung have finally released their new super slim,
00:37:17 --> 00:37:19 fold and flip Z7s in the glittering New York
00:37:19 --> 00:37:22 ceremony in Brooklyn, just across the east river from
00:37:22 --> 00:37:25 Manhattan. But while these phones are, uh, true
00:37:25 --> 00:37:28 technological marvels, it turns out they're not
00:37:28 --> 00:37:31 cheap with the details. We're joined by technology
00:37:31 --> 00:37:33 editor Alex Zaharov-Reutt Royd from TechAdvice
00:37:33 --> 00:37:34 Live.
00:37:34 --> 00:37:37 Alex Zaharov-Reutt: Well, this was the annual Galaxy unpacked event. They
00:37:37 --> 00:37:40 actually have more than one because they have the regular bar phones and then they
00:37:40 --> 00:37:43 have their folding phones, often six months later, usually. And
00:37:43 --> 00:37:46 this time we had the Galaxy Z or Z, as we
00:37:46 --> 00:37:49 would call it, fold 7, the Zed, flip 7,
00:37:49 --> 00:37:52 the flip 7 FE, which is the fan edition, a
00:37:52 --> 00:37:55 cheaper version of the phone that turns into the smaller
00:37:55 --> 00:37:57 pocketable phone. And also their new Watch 8 and Watch 8
00:37:57 --> 00:38:00 Classic devices, which is the answer to Apple Watch,
00:38:00 --> 00:38:03 Pixel Watch, and all the other smartwatches out there. Now, Samsung has spared
00:38:03 --> 00:38:06 no expense in making these the most spectacular
00:38:06 --> 00:38:09 devices that they have. The Fold 7 is the
00:38:09 --> 00:38:12 hero. It's got the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite
00:38:12 --> 00:38:15 for Galaxy chips, and it's a better chip than the regular
00:38:15 --> 00:38:17 Snapdragon 8 Elite using competing phones.
00:38:17 --> 00:38:20 It's got a 6.5-inch screen on the
00:38:20 --> 00:38:23 outside, so it feels like a normal phone with
00:38:23 --> 00:38:26 a large screen. It's, uh, the correct width when you're
00:38:26 --> 00:38:29 holding it closed, but when it's open, it's this gorgeous
00:38:29 --> 00:38:31 8 inch display. The thing is a square, so it's not
00:38:31 --> 00:38:34 even a rectangle. So it's like the Sleeket little book you ever saw.
00:38:35 --> 00:38:37 And it's 4.2 millimeters thin
00:38:37 --> 00:38:40 when it's opened, and when it's closed, it's 8.9
00:38:41 --> 00:38:44 millimeters. So I held that next to my iPhone
00:38:44 --> 00:38:47 16 Pro Max, and it feels like it's exactly the
00:38:47 --> 00:38:49 same width, but of course you can open it up now. Even
00:38:49 --> 00:38:52 though they have made the phone a lot slimmer than
00:38:52 --> 00:38:55 the previous iteration, the battery life is the same. In
00:38:55 --> 00:38:58 fact, there's one hour extra video playback, but it's the same capacity,
00:38:58 --> 00:39:01 4400 milliamp hours. And so they
00:39:01 --> 00:39:04 did alchemy to do that. They had to make everything slimmer and
00:39:04 --> 00:39:07 smaller inside. They had to shrink the coatings on the screens, but they still
00:39:07 --> 00:39:10 have Corning Gorilla Glass. That's the latest and greatest.
00:39:10 --> 00:39:12 And one thing they had to take away though was the
00:39:12 --> 00:39:15 digitizer. So this large tablet phone is the first
00:39:15 --> 00:39:18 one that isn't compatible with the S Pen. We also
00:39:18 --> 00:39:20 have prices now in Australia. It starts at
00:39:20 --> 00:39:22 $2 for the
00:39:22 --> 00:39:25 256GB model with 8 gigabytes of
00:39:25 --> 00:39:28 RAM. And then we have the 512 gigabyte model.
00:39:28 --> 00:39:31 Now this is for $3 also with
00:39:31 --> 00:39:34 12 gig of RAM. And the 1 terabyte model
00:39:34 --> 00:39:37 comes with 16 gig of RAM and that's
00:39:37 --> 00:39:40 $3. I mean that's a big
00:39:40 --> 00:39:42 jump over what used to be the most expensive phone,
00:39:42 --> 00:39:45 the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra or the
00:39:45 --> 00:39:48 iPhone Pro Max range. Uh, but I'm
00:39:48 --> 00:39:51 holding this phone in my hands right now. I mean it is a stunning,
00:39:51 --> 00:39:54 stunning phone and it really, this is, I mean if this is
00:39:54 --> 00:39:56 what the, the Galaxy Z Fold was like
00:39:56 --> 00:39:59 originally, it would have just blown people away. It has taken seven
00:39:59 --> 00:40:02 generations to get to this point, but it is quite
00:40:02 --> 00:40:05 stunning. And they'll be available in Australia in early Aug.
00:40:05 --> 00:40:08 Of course there are a whole range of pre order offers. We do have
00:40:08 --> 00:40:11 the Flip seven, the one that is a phone that folds in half, that's
00:40:11 --> 00:40:14 also thinner. The front screen is now 4.1
00:40:14 --> 00:40:17 inches. It goes all the way to the edges. You do have cutouts obviously
00:40:17 --> 00:40:20 for the cameras and inside it's a 6.9 inch
00:40:20 --> 00:40:23 screen. So this is also a beautiful phone that has plenty of
00:40:23 --> 00:40:26 space. The Flip 7 Fan Edition, the FE, that's
00:40:26 --> 00:40:28 1499 as opposed to 1799 for the
00:40:28 --> 00:40:31 actual Flip 7 itself. That one's based on the
00:40:31 --> 00:40:34 Flip 6, the one from last year. So it's got the same
00:40:34 --> 00:40:36 outer screen. It's basically the same phone as last year, but with the
00:40:36 --> 00:40:39 upgraded processor and the new one UI 8 and
00:40:39 --> 00:40:42 Android 16. So that's the quickest that Samsung has ever
00:40:42 --> 00:40:45 launched a new operating system. And there are various multitasking
00:40:45 --> 00:40:48 capabilities that are designed for foldables, which
00:40:48 --> 00:40:51 they've designed in conjunction with Google. And also Gemini
00:40:51 --> 00:40:54 is all the way through this device. I mean they're calling it
00:40:54 --> 00:40:57 a multimodal device. Not only is it able to help you with
00:40:57 --> 00:41:00 all of the things in your digital world, but the camera can see and help
00:41:00 --> 00:41:03 you with anything in your physical world. Are you unsure
00:41:03 --> 00:41:05 about what outfit you want to wear for going on a hike? You
00:41:05 --> 00:41:08 can show the various clothes you have and it can give you advice. Do you need
00:41:08 --> 00:41:11 help fix fixing A, uh, broken, uh, motor or pump or
00:41:11 --> 00:41:14 something else. I mean you can show it anything. There was video of a
00:41:14 --> 00:41:17 young skateboarder and one of the colleagues was asking the
00:41:17 --> 00:41:20 phone about what's the good sort of skateboarding tricks to do in the area
00:41:20 --> 00:41:23 that they were on. And the phone, Gemini was giving
00:41:23 --> 00:41:25 really useful advice. So it's quite, uh, uh,
00:41:25 --> 00:41:26 amazing.
00:41:26 --> 00:41:28 Stuart Gary: How far do an ollie, let's be honest.
00:41:28 --> 00:41:31 Alex Zaharov-Reutt: Well, the phone itself can't, but if you're holding it, you can do an
00:41:31 --> 00:41:34 ollie and just make sure you buy a case for it so it doesn't go flying
00:41:34 --> 00:41:36 out of your hands. But look, they've done an incredible job. Their
00:41:36 --> 00:41:39 AI is very advanced. It actually shows
00:41:39 --> 00:41:42 how far behind at the moment, despite the fact
00:41:42 --> 00:41:45 they talked up AI to some degree at their worldwide
00:41:45 --> 00:41:48 developer conference. And of course there's the talk that Apple's going to be
00:41:48 --> 00:41:51 buying Perplexity, which is one of the big AI, uh companies out
00:41:51 --> 00:41:54 there, currently valued at about 14 billion US.
00:41:54 --> 00:41:57 The talk is they're going to buy it for 30 billion. And if they do that
00:41:57 --> 00:41:59 and it works beautifully in conjunction with AIs from
00:41:59 --> 00:42:02 Gemini and OpenAI and others, that'll sort of put
00:42:02 --> 00:42:05 Apple back in the, in the game. But at the moment, the new
00:42:05 --> 00:42:07 watches are fantastic as well. I mean, we haven't got time to go
00:42:07 --> 00:42:10 into them all, but you know, the number one ecosystem around the world is
00:42:10 --> 00:42:13 Samsung. I mean, Apple's up there too, but Apple just make
00:42:13 --> 00:42:16 smartphones, smartwatches, tablets,
00:42:16 --> 00:42:19 computers, you know, laptops, professional machines. Samsung
00:42:19 --> 00:42:21 makes all of that too. But they also make everything for the
00:42:21 --> 00:42:24 connected home, your robotic vacuum, your giant
00:42:24 --> 00:42:26 fridge with, you know, a giant huge.
00:42:26 --> 00:42:29 Stuart Gary: Tablet on storage, M for AI to keep an eye
00:42:29 --> 00:42:31 on you no matter where you are and what you're doing.
00:42:31 --> 00:42:34 Alex Zaharov-Reutt: Well, that's true, but Samsung also made a very strong. They
00:42:34 --> 00:42:37 started off by talking about how secure their platform
00:42:37 --> 00:42:40 was. I mean, you can actually run a lot of these AI, uh, things on the
00:42:40 --> 00:42:43 device by itself. I mean they do say in the settings,
00:42:43 --> 00:42:46 look, if you want the most advanced AI, yes, you'll have to
00:42:46 --> 00:42:49 go to the cloud. But just like Apple made promises about how the
00:42:49 --> 00:42:52 information going to the cloud is safe and secure, Samsung's made
00:42:52 --> 00:42:55 the same promises too. And, uh, obviously we yet to see
00:42:55 --> 00:42:58 how they're lived up to. But companies know that
00:42:58 --> 00:43:01 consumers are fickle and that privacy is becoming more of
00:43:01 --> 00:43:03 an issue. The more that companies try and pry into our
00:43:03 --> 00:43:06 private lives, the more people really, once they know
00:43:06 --> 00:43:09 they want privacy. I saw a graphic on X to Day about Uh,
00:43:09 --> 00:43:12 when you pay for something through Google Pay on your Android
00:43:12 --> 00:43:15 smartphone, Google knows what you're buying, where and when, and they're keeping
00:43:15 --> 00:43:17 records of it all. With Apple Pay, according to this
00:43:17 --> 00:43:20 infographic that I saw, Apple has set it up so it does not
00:43:20 --> 00:43:23 know, it doesn't know what it is you purchased or where you
00:43:23 --> 00:43:26 purchased it from. I mean, obviously the transaction has to go through,
00:43:26 --> 00:43:29 but it's effectively been anonymized, whereas Google is
00:43:29 --> 00:43:32 capturing all that information like the credit card companies were
00:43:32 --> 00:43:34 and probably still are, uh, to this day. So there's
00:43:34 --> 00:43:37 definitely, uh, different channels of the way companies are
00:43:37 --> 00:43:40 working and treating our data. But certainly when it comes to
00:43:40 --> 00:43:42 Android smartphones, the market leader is
00:43:42 --> 00:43:45 unquestionably Samsung. I mean, Google comes up
00:43:45 --> 00:43:48 as a very close second. And then you have all the other players
00:43:48 --> 00:43:51 who are trying to give you extra features,
00:43:51 --> 00:43:54 but for mid range money as opposed to the higher prices
00:43:54 --> 00:43:57 that Samsung can command by being the market leader.
00:43:57 --> 00:43:59 Stuart Gary: That's Alex Zaharov-Reutt Vroith from TechAdvice
00:44:00 --> 00:44:00 Live.
00:44:04 --> 00:44:05 Tim Mendham: Foreign.
00:44:13 --> 00:44:16 Stuart Gary: Scientists studying a 2.35 billion year old
00:44:16 --> 00:44:19 meteorite have, uh, filled a billion year gap in the
00:44:19 --> 00:44:21 moon's volcanic history. The ancient space
00:44:21 --> 00:44:23 rock cataloged as Northwest Africa
00:44:23 --> 00:44:26 16286 was purchased from a dealer in
00:44:26 --> 00:44:29 Algeria back in February 2023.
00:44:29 --> 00:44:32 Its providence before that remains uncertain. Certain
00:44:32 --> 00:44:35 what is known is that the 311 gram specimen
00:44:35 --> 00:44:38 has a unique chemical signature. The findings
00:44:38 --> 00:44:41 of its examination, presented at the Goldschmidt conference in
00:44:41 --> 00:44:44 Prague, are offering fresh insights into how the moon's
00:44:44 --> 00:44:47 interior evolved, highlighting the long lived
00:44:47 --> 00:44:50 nature of its volcanic activity. The analysis
00:44:50 --> 00:44:52 lends weight to the hypothesis that the Moon retained
00:44:52 --> 00:44:55 internal heat generating processes which powered lunar
00:44:55 --> 00:44:57 volcanic activity in several distinct phases.
00:44:58 --> 00:45:01 A lead isotope analysis dates the rock's formation to
00:45:01 --> 00:45:04 around 2.35 billion years ago. And that's during
00:45:04 --> 00:45:07 a period in which few lunar samples exist.
00:45:07 --> 00:45:10 And that also makes this the youngest basaltic lunar
00:45:10 --> 00:45:13 meteorite ever discovered on Earth. Uh, in fact, its
00:45:13 --> 00:45:16 rare geochemical profile sets it apart from those
00:45:16 --> 00:45:19 returned by previous moon missions, with chemical evidence
00:45:19 --> 00:45:22 indicating it likely formed from a lava flow that solidified
00:45:22 --> 00:45:25 after emerging from, from deep within the lunar interior.
00:45:25 --> 00:45:28 The Steady's lead author, Joshua Snape from the University
00:45:28 --> 00:45:31 of Manchester, says lunar rocks from sample return
00:45:31 --> 00:45:34 missions provide fantastic insights, but they're
00:45:34 --> 00:45:36 limited to the immediate areas surrounding the mission's
00:45:36 --> 00:45:39 landing site. By contrast, lunar
00:45:39 --> 00:45:42 meteorites can potentially be ejected by impact cratering
00:45:42 --> 00:45:45 occurring anywhere on the Moon's surface. As such,
00:45:45 --> 00:45:48 there's some serendipity surrounding this sample as it reveals
00:45:48 --> 00:45:50 Secrets about lunar geology without the massive expense
00:45:50 --> 00:45:53 of a space mission emission. The meteorite contains
00:45:53 --> 00:45:56 relatively large crystals of the mineral olivine. The
00:45:56 --> 00:45:59 rock is a type of lunar volcanic basalt known as olivine
00:45:59 --> 00:46:02 pyrrhic basalt. It contains moderate
00:46:02 --> 00:46:04 levels of titanium and high levels of potassium.
00:46:05 --> 00:46:07 In addition to the unusual age of the sample, the study
00:46:07 --> 00:46:10 also found that the lead isotope composition of this rock,
00:46:10 --> 00:46:13 that is the geochemical fingerprint retained from when the rock first
00:46:13 --> 00:46:16 formed, points to it originating from a source in the Mint's
00:46:16 --> 00:46:19 interior With an unusually high uranium to lead ratio
00:46:19 --> 00:46:22 ratio. And these chemical clues may help
00:46:22 --> 00:46:24 identify the mechanisms that have enabled periods of
00:46:24 --> 00:46:27 ongoing internal heat generation on the Moon.
00:46:27 --> 00:46:30 Snape says the age of the sample is especially interesting because
00:46:30 --> 00:46:33 it fills an almost billion year gap in science's
00:46:33 --> 00:46:35 understanding of lunar volcanic history. It's
00:46:35 --> 00:46:38 younger than the basalts collected by the Apollo Lunar and
00:46:38 --> 00:46:41 Chang' e 6 missions, but it's older than the much younger
00:46:41 --> 00:46:44 rocks brought back by Chang' E5. He says
00:46:44 --> 00:46:47 its age and composition showed that volcanic activity
00:46:47 --> 00:46:50 continued on the moon throughout this time Spanish span. And the
00:46:50 --> 00:46:53 analysis suggests an ongoing heat generation
00:46:53 --> 00:46:56 process within the moon, Potentially from radiogenic
00:46:56 --> 00:46:58 elements decaying and producing heat over long
00:46:58 --> 00:47:01 periods. Moon rocks are rare. This particular
00:47:01 --> 00:47:04 rock provides new constraints about when and how
00:47:04 --> 00:47:07 volcanic activity occurred on the moon. This
00:47:07 --> 00:47:09 meteorite is one of only 31 lunar basalt
00:47:09 --> 00:47:12 meteorites Officially identified on Earth.
00:47:12 --> 00:47:15 Its distinct composition with melted glassy pockets
00:47:15 --> 00:47:18 and veins Suggests that it was likely shocked by an asteroid
00:47:18 --> 00:47:21 and meteorite impact on the moon's surface surface before being
00:47:21 --> 00:47:24 ejected into space and eventually falling to Earth.
00:47:24 --> 00:47:26 Uh, of course, this shock event also makes it
00:47:26 --> 00:47:29 more challenging to interpret the data obtained for the rock.
00:47:29 --> 00:47:32 But the researchers have estimated its age With a margin
00:47:32 --> 00:47:35 of plus or minus 80 million years.
00:47:35 --> 00:47:38 This is space time still to come.
00:47:38 --> 00:47:41 A new study suggests that hypothetical objects known
00:47:41 --> 00:47:44 as dark dwarves exist at the center of the galaxy
00:47:44 --> 00:47:47 and could reveal the true name nature of that mysterious
00:47:47 --> 00:47:50 substance known as dark matter. And
00:47:50 --> 00:47:53 astronomers use adaptive optics to undertake a new
00:47:53 --> 00:47:55 study of the western wall of the Carina nebula in
00:47:55 --> 00:47:57 unprecedented detail.
00:47:57 --> 00:48:00 All that and more still to come on, um, space
00:48:00 --> 00:48:00 time
00:48:11 --> 00:48:11 Foreign
00:48:16 --> 00:48:19 suggests that hypothetical objects which would be named dark
00:48:19 --> 00:48:21 dwarves could reveal the true nature of that
00:48:21 --> 00:48:24 mysterious substance known as dark matter. Uh,
00:48:24 --> 00:48:27 dark matter is an invisible material that makes up around
00:48:27 --> 00:48:29 80% of all the matter in the universe.
00:48:30 --> 00:48:33 Scientists have no idea what it is, but they know it exists
00:48:33 --> 00:48:36 because they can see its gravitational influence on so called
00:48:36 --> 00:48:38 normal or baryonic mass matter. For example, it prevents
00:48:38 --> 00:48:41 galaxies from flying apart as they revolve, and it
00:48:41 --> 00:48:44 acts as a magnifying lens to amplify light coming
00:48:44 --> 00:48:47 from more distant objects behind it. But working
00:48:47 --> 00:48:50 out a way to identify what dark matter is has been
00:48:50 --> 00:48:53 problematic. Now, a report in the Journal of
00:48:53 --> 00:48:56 Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics come up with a
00:48:56 --> 00:48:59 hypothetical object which may well provide an
00:48:59 --> 00:49:02 answer. They've named these objects dark dwarves,
00:49:02 --> 00:49:05 not because they're dark bodies, but because of their special link
00:49:05 --> 00:49:08 with dark matter matter. One of the study's authors, Jeremy
00:49:08 --> 00:49:10 Saxtein from the University of Hawaii, says that among the
00:49:10 --> 00:49:13 best known dark matter candidates are what are called
00:49:13 --> 00:49:16 weakly interacting massive particles, better
00:49:16 --> 00:49:19 known as WIMPs. These are very massive particles
00:49:19 --> 00:49:21 that interact very weakly with ordinary matter.
00:49:22 --> 00:49:25 They pass through things unnoticed, don't emit light, and
00:49:25 --> 00:49:28 don't respond to electromagnetic forces, so they don't
00:49:28 --> 00:49:30 reflect light and therefore remain invisible, revealing
00:49:30 --> 00:49:33 themselves only through their gravitational effects.
00:49:33 --> 00:49:36 Uh, now this type of dark matter would be necessary in order
00:49:36 --> 00:49:39 for dark dwarves to exist. The thing is,
00:49:39 --> 00:49:42 because dark matter interacts gravitationally, it could also
00:49:42 --> 00:49:45 be captured by stars which have powerful gravitational
00:49:45 --> 00:49:48 fields, and therefore it could accumulate inside
00:49:48 --> 00:49:51 them. Now, if that happens, dark matter might
00:49:51 --> 00:49:54 also interact with itself, resulting in annihilation.
00:49:54 --> 00:49:57 Annihilation would release energy, and that would heat the star
00:49:57 --> 00:50:00 up. Studies like the one Saxtain and colleagues
00:50:00 --> 00:50:03 are now doing are important because they offer concrete, too,
00:50:03 --> 00:50:06 tools in order to break the deadlock on, um, discovering what
00:50:06 --> 00:50:08 dark matter really is. So
00:50:09 --> 00:50:12 what are, uh, dark dwarfs? Well, ordinary
00:50:12 --> 00:50:14 stars, like our sun, for example, shine because of
00:50:14 --> 00:50:17 nuclear fusion processes which occur in their cores,
00:50:17 --> 00:50:19 generating huge amounts of heat and energy.
00:50:20 --> 00:50:23 Fusion happens when a star's mass is large enough so
00:50:23 --> 00:50:26 that gravitational forces compress matter towards the center of
00:50:26 --> 00:50:29 the star. And they do that with such intensity, they trigger
00:50:29 --> 00:50:31 reactions between atomic nuclei. This
00:50:31 --> 00:50:34 is nuclear fusion. And the process
00:50:34 --> 00:50:37 releases huge amounts of energy which we see as
00:50:37 --> 00:50:39 light. Sextein says dark dwarves also
00:50:39 --> 00:50:42 emit light, but not because of nuclear fusion. They don't have
00:50:42 --> 00:50:45 enough mass to do that. In fact, they're very low mass
00:50:45 --> 00:50:48 objects, less than about 8% the mass of the sun.
00:50:49 --> 00:50:51 And that's not sufficient to trigger fusion reactions.
00:50:52 --> 00:50:55 The answer are brown dwarfs. They fill
00:50:55 --> 00:50:58 a gap between the largest planets and the smallest red
00:50:58 --> 00:51:00 dwarf stars. And they do emit a
00:51:00 --> 00:51:03 faint light energy produced by their relatively small
00:51:03 --> 00:51:06 gravitational contraction. The idea of this new
00:51:06 --> 00:51:08 hypothesis is that if brown dwarves are located in
00:51:08 --> 00:51:11 regions where dark matter is especially abundant, such as, for
00:51:11 --> 00:51:14 example, the center of our galaxy, then they could transform
00:51:14 --> 00:51:17 into something else, what Sextein describes as
00:51:17 --> 00:51:20 a dark dwarf. Sextein explains that the
00:51:20 --> 00:51:23 more dark matter you have around, the more you can capture,
00:51:23 --> 00:51:26 and the more dark matter ends up inside the star, the more
00:51:26 --> 00:51:29 energy will be produced through the annihilation of dark matter.
00:51:30 --> 00:51:33 Other candidates propose to explain what dark matter is
00:51:33 --> 00:51:35 are hypothetical particles such as axions or
00:51:35 --> 00:51:38 sterile neutrinos. But all these lack
00:51:38 --> 00:51:41 the mass needed to produce the expected effect
00:51:41 --> 00:51:44 needed for dark dwarves. Only massive
00:51:44 --> 00:51:47 particles capable of interacting with each other and annihilating into
00:51:47 --> 00:51:50 visible energy could power a dark dwarf. Of
00:51:50 --> 00:51:53 course, this entire hypothesis would have little value if there wasn't
00:51:53 --> 00:51:56 a concrete way to identify dark dwarf if you saw it.
00:51:56 --> 00:51:59 Saxtine and colleagues proposed a distinctive marker,
00:51:59 --> 00:52:02 he says while there'd be several markers available, he
00:52:02 --> 00:52:05 believes the isotope lithium 7 would be the best
00:52:05 --> 00:52:08 because it would have a unique effect. See,
00:52:08 --> 00:52:11 lithium 7 burns very easily and is quickly
00:52:11 --> 00:52:14 consumed in ordinary stars. So if you
00:52:14 --> 00:52:17 were able to find an object which looked like a dark dwarf, you could look for the
00:52:17 --> 00:52:20 presence of Lithium 7 in its spectra because it wouldn't
00:52:20 --> 00:52:22 be there if it was a brown dwarf or a similar object.
00:52:23 --> 00:52:26 This is space time still to come.
00:52:26 --> 00:52:29 Astronomers use adaptive optics to study the
00:52:29 --> 00:52:31 spectacular western wall of the Carina Nebula in
00:52:31 --> 00:52:34 unprecedented detail. And later in the Science
00:52:34 --> 00:52:37 report, a new study is mapping killer whale
00:52:37 --> 00:52:40 populations in Australian waters for the very first
00:52:40 --> 00:52:41 time.
00:52:41 --> 00:52:43 All that and more still to come on
00:52:43 --> 00:52:44 spacetime.
00:52:59 --> 00:53:01 Astronomers using the International Gemini South
00:53:01 --> 00:53:04 Observatory have captured the western wall of the
00:53:04 --> 00:53:07 spectacular Carina Nebula in unprecedented
00:53:07 --> 00:53:10 detail. The amazing new image uses the process
00:53:10 --> 00:53:12 of adaptive optics, resulting in a tenfold
00:53:12 --> 00:53:15 improvement in sharpness darkness in order to reveal a number of unusual
00:53:15 --> 00:53:18 structures within this amazing nebula.
00:53:18 --> 00:53:21 For astronomers, looking through the Earth's atmosphere
00:53:21 --> 00:53:24 is a lot like looking at the sky from the bottom of a swimming pool
00:53:24 --> 00:53:26 full of water. The atmosphere's density,
00:53:26 --> 00:53:29 temperature, inversion, layers, turbulence and composition
00:53:29 --> 00:53:32 all cause photons to bounce around.
00:53:32 --> 00:53:35 It's what makes stars twinkle in the night sky,
00:53:35 --> 00:53:38 which is great for romance but not so good for
00:53:38 --> 00:53:41 astronomers. Adaptive optics works by
00:53:41 --> 00:53:44 using lasers to measure changes in the atmosphere directly
00:53:44 --> 00:53:46 above the observatory's telescopes. It then
00:53:46 --> 00:53:49 corrects for these changes using actuators to
00:53:49 --> 00:53:51 constantly change the shape of the telescope's mirror,
00:53:51 --> 00:53:54 effectively compensating for the atmosphere. With
00:53:54 --> 00:53:57 the help of adaptive optics on the 8.1 meter Gemini
00:53:57 --> 00:54:00 South Telescope in Chile, astronomers have been able to study the
00:54:00 --> 00:54:03 Carina Nebula with new eyes. The brilliant
00:54:03 --> 00:54:06 Carina Nebula located in the Southern hemisphere sky
00:54:06 --> 00:54:09 is some 500 times larger than the better known
00:54:09 --> 00:54:12 Orion Nebula nebula, making it an ideal candidate
00:54:12 --> 00:54:14 for investigating star formation. The
00:54:14 --> 00:54:17 astronomers use of adaptive optics allowed them to
00:54:17 --> 00:54:19 significantly improve upon previous observations of
00:54:19 --> 00:54:22 Carina's western wall, the nebula's world defined
00:54:22 --> 00:54:25 edge. The thing is, star forming
00:54:25 --> 00:54:27 regions are shrouded in dust and gas.
00:54:28 --> 00:54:31 These are normally impenetrable to optical telescopes,
00:54:31 --> 00:54:34 but by looking through the infrared part of the spectrum,
00:54:34 --> 00:54:37 astronomers can see through this gas and dust dust.
00:54:37 --> 00:54:40 These latest observations by Patrick Hartigan from Rice
00:54:40 --> 00:54:43 University utilise the Gemini South's Adaptive Optics
00:54:43 --> 00:54:46 Imager, a near infrared adaptive optics camera, to peer through
00:54:46 --> 00:54:48 the outer layers of dust to reveal a huge wall
00:54:48 --> 00:54:51 of gas and dust glowing with the intense ultraviolet
00:54:51 --> 00:54:54 light from nearby massive young stars.
00:54:54 --> 00:54:57 Astronomers examine this region with the infrared wavelength of
00:54:57 --> 00:55:00 molecular hydrogen, 21, 20 nanometers.
00:55:01 --> 00:55:04 And molecular hydrogen is the best way to trace these structures
00:55:04 --> 00:55:06 because they'd otherwise be rendered invisible by dust
00:55:06 --> 00:55:09 blocking them at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths, which is
00:55:09 --> 00:55:12 where the Hubble Space Telescope operates with a
00:55:12 --> 00:55:15 resolution ten times higher than it would be without
00:55:15 --> 00:55:18 adaptive optics from the ground. These new images are, uh, twice
00:55:18 --> 00:55:20 as sharp as those from the Hubble Space Telescope at this
00:55:20 --> 00:55:23 wavelength, and they reveal a wealth of detail never
00:55:23 --> 00:55:26 observed before. The western wall is a
00:55:26 --> 00:55:29 mountainous section of the nebula with a long series of parallel
00:55:29 --> 00:55:32 ridges that may be being produced by a magnetic field.
00:55:32 --> 00:55:35 There's a remarkable, almost perfectly smooth wave cave,
00:55:35 --> 00:55:38 and there are fragments that appear to be in the process of being sheared off the
00:55:38 --> 00:55:41 cloud by a strong stellar wind. There's also
00:55:41 --> 00:55:44 evidence of a jet of material being ejected from a
00:55:44 --> 00:55:47 newly formed star. He says the data
00:55:47 --> 00:55:50 in this new image provides the sharpest view to date
00:55:50 --> 00:55:53 of how massive young stars affect their surroundings
00:55:53 --> 00:55:56 and how they influence the star and planetary formation
00:55:56 --> 00:55:58 process. He says it's possible that the sun and its
00:55:58 --> 00:56:01 planetary system formed in exactly the same sort of environment.
00:56:02 --> 00:56:05 If so, radiation and winds from any nearby
00:56:05 --> 00:56:08 massive stars will also have affected the masses and
00:56:08 --> 00:56:10 atmospheres of our solar system's outer planets.
00:56:10 --> 00:56:13 Patrick Hartigan: Gemini south is a large telescope. It is
00:56:13 --> 00:56:16 8 meters in diameter and it sits
00:56:16 --> 00:56:19 atop of a mountain in the Andes in Chile.
00:56:20 --> 00:56:23 And what this instrument does is it
00:56:23 --> 00:56:26 allows you to get very, very sharp
00:56:26 --> 00:56:28 images of objects. Objects,
00:56:29 --> 00:56:31 because what it does, it actually distorts the shape
00:56:31 --> 00:56:34 of the mirror. So that compensates for
00:56:34 --> 00:56:37 any sort of shimmering in the Earth's atmosphere. And the other
00:56:37 --> 00:56:40 reason for going down there, where you have to take the images
00:56:40 --> 00:56:43 in the southern hemisphere, is that there are some parts of the
00:56:43 --> 00:56:46 sky that just are never visible from the north.
00:56:48 --> 00:56:51 Well, Carina is a very interesting area of
00:56:51 --> 00:56:54 star formation because it's, it's probably
00:56:54 --> 00:56:57 the nearest star forming region to us. That
00:56:57 --> 00:57:00 has really, really massive stars. And that's
00:57:00 --> 00:57:03 very important because what it does, what the
00:57:03 --> 00:57:06 massive stars do, is they emit a
00:57:06 --> 00:57:08 lot of radiation and that can actually affect the
00:57:09 --> 00:57:11 surrounding cloud out of which other stars are
00:57:11 --> 00:57:14 forming. These images really
00:57:14 --> 00:57:16 show clearly for the first time how star
00:57:16 --> 00:57:19 formation proceeds in region that have massive
00:57:19 --> 00:57:22 stars. And an awful lot of stars form in those kind of
00:57:22 --> 00:57:25 regions. Ultimately, this is
00:57:25 --> 00:57:28 the story of creation, because what you're doing is
00:57:28 --> 00:57:31 you're looking at regions that are
00:57:31 --> 00:57:33 actually forming new stars and planets. So a
00:57:33 --> 00:57:36 couple million years from now, there will be new stars and planets there
00:57:36 --> 00:57:39 that don't exist now, and those
00:57:39 --> 00:57:42 will go through their lives and will be shining long after the
00:57:42 --> 00:57:45 Earth and the sun have, have disappeared.
00:57:45 --> 00:57:48 In the meantime, the sun will have thrown off
00:57:48 --> 00:57:51 its outer layers back into the interstellar medium, and then
00:57:51 --> 00:57:54 those provide new gases for new clouds,
00:57:54 --> 00:57:57 which then in the future form new
00:57:57 --> 00:58:00 stars. So there's this really large cycle
00:58:00 --> 00:58:03 of stellar life that is occurring. And what
00:58:03 --> 00:58:06 we're doing here is we're actually seeing into the
00:58:06 --> 00:58:09 stellar nurseries in very high detail through
00:58:09 --> 00:58:11 the dust, which is what the infrared light gives you.
00:58:12 --> 00:58:15 And you can really begin to see what's
00:58:15 --> 00:58:17 happening right at the beginning when stars and planets are
00:58:17 --> 00:58:18 forming.
00:58:18 --> 00:58:21 Stuart Gary: That's Rice University's Professor Patrick Hartigan.
00:58:21 --> 00:58:23 And this is space, time
00:58:39 --> 00:58:40 and time.
00:58:40 --> 00:58:42 Now to take another brief look at some of the other stories making news in
00:58:42 --> 00:58:44 Science this week with a Science report.
00:58:45 --> 00:58:48 A new study has found significant levels of nanoplastics, uh,
00:58:48 --> 00:58:51 in water samples taken across the Atlantic Ocean.
00:58:51 --> 00:58:54 Nanoplastics are fragments of plastic less than a thousandth
00:58:54 --> 00:58:57 of a millimeter in size. A report in the journal
00:58:57 --> 00:59:00 Nature analyzed samples taken from the top 10 metres of
00:59:00 --> 00:59:03 Atlantic coastal waters at a dozen separate locations.
00:59:04 --> 00:59:07 And the authors found that all these samples contained high
00:59:07 --> 00:59:09 concentration of nanoplastic particles.
00:59:10 --> 00:59:13 They say the average nanoplastic concentration at a depth
00:59:13 --> 00:59:15 of 10 metres was around 18.1 milligrams per
00:59:15 --> 00:59:18 cubic meter of water. Samples taken from the sea
00:59:18 --> 00:59:21 floor had an average concentration of 5.5
00:59:21 --> 00:59:24 milligrams per cubic meter. Uh, and samples taken
00:59:24 --> 00:59:27 from near coastlines in Europe had concentrations of around
00:59:27 --> 00:59:30 25 milligrams per cubic meter, uh. The authors
00:59:30 --> 00:59:32 estimate that nanoplastic pollution in the top 10 metres of
00:59:32 --> 00:59:35 water in the North Atlantic Atlantic is probably around 27
00:59:35 --> 00:59:38 million tons. And that was previously thought to be the
00:59:38 --> 00:59:40 amount polluting the Earth's entire ocean system.
00:59:42 --> 00:59:45 Australians have one of the longest life expectancies
00:59:45 --> 00:59:47 on Earth, with the average Aussie living for around
00:59:47 --> 00:59:50 83.92 years, but there
00:59:50 --> 00:59:52 are some steep socio economic differences.
00:59:53 --> 00:59:56 Now a report in the Lancet Medical Journal claims Australia
00:59:56 --> 00:59:59 has made progress in reducing some of those socioeconomic
00:59:59 --> 01:00:02 economic equalities in life expectancy which were
01:00:02 --> 01:00:04 widening up until the late 2000 and tens.
01:00:05 --> 01:00:07 However, the findings by the Australian National University
01:00:07 --> 01:00:10 show that although there was a narrowing of the gap in life
01:00:10 --> 01:00:13 expectancy across socioeconomic groups from the late
01:00:13 --> 01:00:15 2010s onwards, the impact of the COVID 19
01:00:15 --> 01:00:18 pandemic on women reversed that positive trend.
01:00:19 --> 01:00:21 In fact, overall, the authors found that the
01:00:21 --> 01:00:24 socioeconomic gap in life expectancy was larger
01:00:24 --> 01:00:27 in the period 2020 to 2022 compared
01:00:27 --> 01:00:30 to what it was between 2013 and 2015.
01:00:32 --> 01:00:35 Well, although they're well documented in the Northern Hemisphere and
01:00:35 --> 01:00:37 around Antarctica, much less is known about killer
01:00:37 --> 01:00:40 whales in Australian waters. That's a bit
01:00:40 --> 01:00:43 puzzling because orcas are actually commonly sighted year round
01:00:43 --> 01:00:46 in all coastal waters around Australia. So now
01:00:46 --> 01:00:49 a new study by Flinders University has been mapping
01:00:49 --> 01:00:52 these tooth cetaceans in local waters in order
01:00:52 --> 01:00:55 to model their distribution and shed light on the local
01:00:55 --> 01:00:58 habitat preferences, in the process uncovering
01:00:58 --> 01:01:00 ecological distinctions between different killer whale
01:01:00 --> 01:01:03 populations. The Trump
01:01:03 --> 01:01:06 administration has followed through on the President's election
01:01:06 --> 01:01:09 promise, releasing tens of thousands of documents and
01:01:09 --> 01:01:12 records related to the assassination of President John F.
01:01:12 --> 01:01:15 Kennedy. And that public disclosure has now forced
01:01:15 --> 01:01:18 the CIA, America's main spy agency,
01:01:18 --> 01:01:21 to admit for the first time that an officer specializing
01:01:21 --> 01:01:24 in psychological war warfare ran an operation that came
01:01:24 --> 01:01:26 into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before the Dallas
01:01:26 --> 01:01:29 killing. The importance of this discovery is that the
01:01:29 --> 01:01:32 confirmation shows the CIA had light for
01:01:32 --> 01:01:35 decades about its role both before and after
01:01:35 --> 01:01:37 the assassination. The previously hidden
01:01:37 --> 01:01:40 January 17, 1963 document is
01:01:40 --> 01:01:43 a CIA memo showing that George Genades,
01:01:43 --> 01:01:46 the deputy chief of the CIA's Miami branch,
01:01:46 --> 01:01:49 used the alias Howard Green Griebler. Until
01:01:49 --> 01:01:52 now, the agency had denied that Griebler was a cover
01:01:52 --> 01:01:54 name used for an operative working with an anti
01:01:54 --> 01:01:57 communist group opposed to Cuban dictator Fidel
01:01:57 --> 01:02:00 Castro. In fact, for decades the spy
01:02:00 --> 01:02:02 agency falsely claimed that it had nothing to do with this group,
01:02:02 --> 01:02:05 which was instrumental in having Oswald's pro Castro
01:02:05 --> 01:02:08 stances publicized soon after the shooting.
01:02:08 --> 01:02:11 Genides oversaw all aspects of political
01:02:11 --> 01:02:13 action and psychological warfare, including
01:02:13 --> 01:02:16 covertly funding and directing the anti Castro action
01:02:16 --> 01:02:19 activists commonly referred to as dre.
01:02:19 --> 01:02:22 In fact, it was four DRE activists who got into that
01:02:22 --> 01:02:25 now famous scuffle with Oswald in New Orleans who
01:02:25 --> 01:02:28 was passing out pro Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee
01:02:28 --> 01:02:31 pamphlets. Interestingly, the Fair Play for Cuba
01:02:31 --> 01:02:33 Committee was yet another CIA inspired
01:02:33 --> 01:02:36 operation. It was also the DRE who debated
01:02:36 --> 01:02:39 Castro on local New Orleans television in August
01:02:39 --> 01:02:42 1963, which provided more media attention,
01:02:42 --> 01:02:45 setting him up and showing him to be a Communist. Communist.
01:02:45 --> 01:02:48 A year earlier, uh, the Pentagon had formulated a plan
01:02:48 --> 01:02:51 called Operation Northwoods. It was designed to
01:02:51 --> 01:02:54 stage a false flag attack on the United States, blame
01:02:54 --> 01:02:57 Cuba for the attack and then use that as an excuse to
01:02:57 --> 01:03:00 attack the communist nation. These new
01:03:00 --> 01:03:02 documents still don't shed any fresh light on whether
01:03:02 --> 01:03:05 Oswald acted alone when he used his
01:03:05 --> 01:03:08 Mannlicher Kano rifle to shoot the President from the
01:03:08 --> 01:03:10 Texas Schoolbook Depository on November
01:03:10 --> 01:03:13 22nd, 1963. Or if
01:03:13 --> 01:03:16 the CIA hired a mafia contract hitman to act as
01:03:16 --> 01:03:19 a second shooter so as to ensure Kennedy was
01:03:19 --> 01:03:21 neutralized to prevent him from undertaking two of his
01:03:21 --> 01:03:24 stated aims, breaking up the CIA and
01:03:24 --> 01:03:27 limiting American involvement in the Vietnam War.
01:03:27 --> 01:03:30 The thing is, these new documents do confirm that the
01:03:30 --> 01:03:32 CIA knew Oswald before the assassination.
01:03:33 --> 01:03:36 Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics says the huge
01:03:36 --> 01:03:39 document release and the discoveries being made made will keep
01:03:39 --> 01:03:41 conspiracy theorists, both those steeped in reality
01:03:41 --> 01:03:43 and the others going for years.
01:03:43 --> 01:03:46 Tim Mendham: People are still looking through them and they're still trying to find the
01:03:46 --> 01:03:49 smoking gun. As we talk about, um, no evidence.
01:03:49 --> 01:03:51 Stuart Gary: Of a second gunman on the grassy knoll then.
01:03:51 --> 01:03:54 Tim Mendham: None, no whatsoever. There's an article that came out recently
01:03:54 --> 01:03:57 by uh, someone named Rebecca Watson who's a known long term
01:03:57 --> 01:04:00 skeptic, looking into a lot of the information there, especially
01:04:00 --> 01:04:03 looking into the film JFK came out 20 years ago,
01:04:03 --> 01:04:05 whatever. Looking at the JFK, Southern Nation had a lot of
01:04:05 --> 01:04:08 conspiracy stuff in it and a lot of false information
01:04:08 --> 01:04:11 in it that was being presented it as fact despite. How
01:04:11 --> 01:04:12 many years is it now?
01:04:12 --> 01:04:14 Stuart Gary: November 1963 was it?
01:04:14 --> 01:04:16 Tim Mendham: That's right, yes. I'm old enough to remember it.
01:04:16 --> 01:04:19 Stuart Gary: A friend of mine was actually a student in
01:04:19 --> 01:04:22 Dallas at the time and she uh, remembers exactly what
01:04:22 --> 01:04:25 happened on that day. The classes were stopped and they were all told
01:04:25 --> 01:04:28 about it and they're all very sad and the whole town sort of
01:04:28 --> 01:04:31 shut down the whole city. And this is a, uh. Even back then Dallas was a
01:04:31 --> 01:04:31 big city.
01:04:31 --> 01:04:33 Tim Mendham: The one conspiracy you might get.
01:04:33 --> 01:04:36 This is sort of going on a tangent if you could get out of the
01:04:36 --> 01:04:38 Kennedy assassination was the rise of British
01:04:38 --> 01:04:41 popularity in the US because as people have said, the
01:04:41 --> 01:04:44 Beatles first arrived soon after their big tour.
01:04:44 --> 01:04:47 The first time they were in the US performing Ed Sullivan show
01:04:47 --> 01:04:50 was early 64. And their sense
01:04:50 --> 01:04:53 of jollity and joy and excitement, et cetera,
01:04:53 --> 01:04:55 contrasted with the very gloomy US and it's been
01:04:55 --> 01:04:58 written that a lot of young people therefore were very attracted to the
01:04:58 --> 01:05:01 Beatles because they were offering an alternative emotion to
01:05:01 --> 01:05:04 the doom and gloom that was sort of in a lot of parts of the
01:05:04 --> 01:05:07 US So the Beatles come out jolly mop tops, hair going, ooh,
01:05:07 --> 01:05:10 M, et cetera. And that led to the whole British invasion of
01:05:10 --> 01:05:13 music fans. And it changed the world of pop
01:05:13 --> 01:05:15 music, changed the world of music, and probably changed society a
01:05:15 --> 01:05:18 lot. So, uh, there is quite an amazing sort of you can
01:05:18 --> 01:05:21 follow a social thread that might be an impact of the
01:05:21 --> 01:05:24 JFK assassination. Apart from a lot of conspiracy thinking
01:05:24 --> 01:05:27 about how terrible governments are, they have found stuff which indicates
01:05:27 --> 01:05:30 the CIA were pretty crap at preventing it, that they had some
01:05:30 --> 01:05:33 information, but they didn't do a very good job of acting upon it. So
01:05:33 --> 01:05:35 they kept it back for that reason so as not to be embarrassing.
01:05:35 --> 01:05:38 Stuart Gary: That's Tim Mendham, um, from Australian Skeptics,
01:05:53 --> 01:05:56 and that's the show for now. Space Time is
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01:06:47 --> 01:06:50 Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to Space Time with Stuart Gary
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