From Cosmic Collisions to Astronaut Safety

Versus Spacetime Series twenty nine, Episode thirty seven, were broadcast on the twenty seventh of March twenty twenty six. Coming up on Space Time, solving one of the mysteries of the Small Magellanic Cloud, protecting astronauts from radiation in deep space, and another step forward in growing food beyond Earth. All that and more coming up on Spacetime. Welcome to space Time with Stuard Gary. Astronomers may have finally solved one of the many mysteries of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy which all but our own galaxy in the Milky Way. Like all the other stars in our galaxy, the Sun and its solar system, which includes the Earth, circles around the Milky Ways galactic center, taking somewhere between two hundred and twenty five and two hundred and thirty million years to completely each orbit, and from what we can tell, most other star systems and most other galaxies do the same around their galactic centers. The funny thing is that's not what happens in the Small Magelanic Cloud. This dwarf galaxy is one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbors, It's a small, gas rich galaxy, visible to the unaided eye from the southern hemisphere and bound to our galaxy by gravity, along with its companion, the Large Magellanic Cloud. All three galaxies, the Small Magilini Cloud, the Large Magilani Cloud, and the Milky Way have been interacting with each other. For millions of years. The Small madell Ani Cloud is also one of the most studded galaxies in the sky. Astronomers have cataloged at stars, mapped its gas, and tract its motion for more than half a century. Yet a basic question about it has remained, why don't it stars orbit around its galactic center the way stars in most other galaxies do now. A report in the Astrophysical Journal suggests the reason may be due to a galactic collision between the Small Machelanic Cloud and its larger companion, the Large Machelanic Cloud, millions of years ago. The findings also raised questions that has scientists use the Small Machelanic Cloud as a reference point by understanding other galaxies across the history of the cosmos. The studies lead author Harmonish wrath Or from Stewart Observatory says it's like seeing a galaxy transforming in live action. The small magellanic cloud contains more massing gas than it does in stars. Gas cools contracts under its own gravity and settles into a rotating disk, the same process that shaped the spinning plane of our solar system. But when astronomers previously measured the motion of the small matulinic cloud stars using the Hubble space telescope in the Gaya satellite, they found the stars white orbiting around the galactic center. Way stars in most other galaxies do. Rethel thinks the likely reason is the collision several hundred million years ago. He thinks these. Small matrilinic cloud crashed directly through the large machele any cloud's disc. It would explain why both galaxies are classified as disrupted spirals. During that collision, the large matrilinic cloud's gravity disrupted the small matelenic cloud's internal structure and set its stars into random, disordered motion. Also, a large machelanic clouds gas applied a tremendous amount of pressure to the small matrilinic clouds gas, destroying its gas rotation for decades. Telescope observation suggested that the gas inside the small matilinic cloud was rotating, but stars form out of gas and inherits motion, which means if the gas were spinning, the stars should be as well. But the new study now shows the rotation that was simply an illusion of the viewing angle. The collision is stretching the small matrilinic cloud, and gas moving towards and away from Earth along the stretch looks like rotation from certain perspectives. The authors use computer simulations tellored to match the known properties of the small and large Magelenic cul clouds, their gas content, their total stellar mass, and their positions relative to the Milky Way. They paired their simulations with theoretical calculations how the small magelinic cloud's gas was affected as it plowed through the large Magellanic clouds dense gas environment during the collision. The authors also develop new methods of reading the scrambled star motions in a post galactic collision soils that can now be used to properly interpret what the telescopes are actually measuring in the small Magellanic cloud. And that matters because the small Magelinic cloud is small, gas rich and low in heavy elements, all of which are properties that make it a standard yardstick for the kinds of galaxies that they are thought to have existed in the very early universe, and a galaxy that still reeling from a collision may not be a clean reference point. A study birath Or on colleagues last year showed that the collision also left a physical muck on the Large Magellanic Cloud, which could help scientists probe dark matter. The Large Magellanic Cloud as a bar shaped structure at its cent. That bar is tilted out of the plan of the galaxy as a result of the collision. Rathor says the. Degree of the tilt is tied to how much dark matter the small Machelanic Cloud contains, giving astronomers a new way to measure a substance that has never been directly detected and only inferred by its gravitational influence. This is space time still to come, protecting astronauts from radiation in deep space, and another step forward in growing food beyond Earth. All that and more still to come on space time. This episode of space time is brought to you by square Space, the platform that makes building an incredible online presence not. Just possible but effortless. Square Space gives you all the tools you need to create a professional website, claim your perfect domain, promote your brand, and even get paid, all in one. Easy to use place. Whether you're showing off your portfolio, selling products, or booking clients, Squarespace as you covered, let's talk about why squarespace is recommended for anyone looking to offer professional services online. First, offering your services couldn't be easier. Squarespace gives you everything you need to impress your clients and streamline your business. You can set up a custom website to showcase consultations, events, or any experience you provide. Now let's talk about design. With Squarespace. You don't need any coding experience to have a website that truly stands out. They're cutting edge design. Squite offers Blueprint a one a smart website builder that creates a tailor made design based on your industry, your goals, and your personality, all in just a few easy steps. Or you can pick from a library of award winning templates and easily customize your site with drag and drop editing and stylish visuals. Every website, no matter your starting point, is fully flexible, visually stunning, and designed to help you look your very best online. So are you ready to get started, head on the square space dot com slash space time for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use the offer coat space time to save ten percent off your first purchase for a website or domain that square space dot com slash space time with the coat space time, and of course there's a link to the offer coat in our show notes Build your space online with square Space. NASA's first man mission to the Moon in over half a century has been rolled out back onto the launch pad and is now slated for flight on April. The first Artemis two have spent the last few weeks back in the vehicle assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, resolving a helium leak issue in the Space launch System Rockets upper stage. The ten day Artemis two mission will send a crew of four astronauts around the Moon and back to Earth in the process, traveling further from our home planet than any human has ever ventured. As the astronauts travel around the Moon, they'll be far beyond on the protective shielding of Earth's magnetic field, and so their Orion spacecraft will need to keep them safe from the dangers not just of the extreme temperatures and vacuums space, but also from exposure to radiation, both from deep space cosmic rays and from the solar wind and space weather events streaming out from the Sun. During their flight, both NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration NOAH will monitor the Sun around the clock, translating space weather conditions into real time decisions. To protect the crew. Space weather refers to the changing conditions driven by solar wind and eruptions on the Sun. Solar flares are the most powerful eruptions in our solar system, the strongest unleashing more energy than a billion hydrogen bombs, and coronal mass ejections are giant clouds of solar particles hundreds of times the side of the Earth that burst forth from the Sun. Both solar flares and coronal mass ejections can affect technology, but the primary concern for astronauts are the solar particle events that can trigger accelerate some subatomic particles to near the speed of light. Now, if a significant solar particle event occurs the atomis two crew, it could raise radiation levels inside the spacecraft to higher. Total lifetime exposure of radiation will contribute to an increased risk of developing cancer, so during the Atomis two mission, NASA will need to try and minimize the risk. Operations lead for space weather analyst Mary Roni from NASA's Godard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, says the focus will be on real time space weather analysis, prioritizing the solar energetic particles and events that could produce them. The GODID team will track any solar eruptions that occur, measuring how big they are, how fast they're moving, and how likely they are to generate energetic particles that will cross the ryot's path. To achieve this, they'll use real time data from sun watching spacecraft stategically placed around the Solar system. These include NASA's recently launched Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe IMAP, NASA's Solo Dynamics Observatory, the joint NASA and Youruropean Space Agency Solar and Healousphic Observatory spacecraft SOHO, and noa's Geostationary Operational Environments satellite goes nineteen and it doesn't end there. Other spacecraft will also help monitor the Sun, and one of those is NASA's Perseverance Mars rover see jue to Mars's current orbital position. Perseverance can look at the fast side of the Sun that the Earth can't see, and the rovers' MASSCAMZ cameras will be able to give NASA's space weather teams a view of the larger sunspots up two weeks earlier, so that the team can monitor and prepare for possible solar flares. The complication is energetic solar particles don't stream straight out from the Sun. They tend to spiral along the Sun's magnetic field lines, tracing loops tens of thousands of kilometers cross and scattering due to particle collisions along the way, and the swarm is usually so large that from inside its particles seem to be coming from every direction. But it's a gradual rise in radiation that gives analyst time to evaluate the situation. Now. There are six radiation sensors aboard ARIN designed to measure doses in different parts of the cabin, and the crew will also be wearing their own personal radiation trackers called active disometers. If radiation levels increase, Orion's onboard systems will display warnings and sound on alarm. NASA has those level thresholds they'll be monitoring inside the capsule the first signals of caution, prompting closer monitoring coordination with medical and flat operations teams. A higher threshold triggers a recommendation for the crew to take shelter. That raises an important question, how do you take shelter from radiation inside a tiny spacecraft? Well, Radiation shielding in space is all about mass judged particles you see are slowed and absorbed as they pass through matter. So the astronauts are trained to configure their cabin during a solar particle event, removing stowed equipment from storage base and securing along the areas of the cabin to add extra mass between themselves and incoming particles. The complexity of solar parks events is one reason NASA places spacecraft across the Solar System. During that solar storm back in January we spoke about earlier, NASA analysts tracked a solar chronal mass ejection event on its way to Earth. When it arrived, satellites detected two distinct spikes in energy particles where there would normally only be one, and it was measurements from NASA's Biosentinal Cube SAT, which is deployed during the Atomus one mission, which revealed what was happening. That spacecraft, located some eighty eight million kilometers from Earth, detected a distinct eruption that later merged with the coronal mass ejection heading towards Earth. Automately, two separate eruptions occurred, and it doesn't end there. The crew on Atomis two will also need to account for exposure to Earth's radiation belts as well as galactic cosmic rays from deep space. The Van Allen radiation belts are two rings of high energy particles that surround the planet. Any mission headed. Towards the Moon or beyond will need to pass through both them, and the high energy galactic cosmic ray particles which emanate from sources will beyond our Solar system. Together, the radiation exposure from these sources is expected to be comparable to a one month stay on the International Space Station, or about five percent of an astronaut's career radiation limit, and any additional exposure from solar radiation events would simply add to this spaceline. This report from THEIRTV eruptions. From the Sun can release more energy than a billion hydrogen bombs, and astronauts are about to head straight into this harsh domain. During NASA's Artemis two mission, astronauts will leave Earth's protective magnetic field to travel around the Moon. Out there, they'll be exposed to some of the harshest elements in space, including swarms of energetic particles from huge solar eruptions speeding across the Solar System. If astronauts aren't prepared, these particles could put them at increased risk of developing cancers and other health problems. So during their ten day journey, NASA and Noah are monitoring the Sun twenty seven with spacecraft across the Solar System. By tracking the direction and strength of eruptions in real time, scientists can see if energetic particles from the Sun will cross paths with the astronauts, exposing them to radiation. Radiation exposure is measured inside the Orion's spacecraft with sensors, and each astronaut also wears a personal radiation tracker. So what happens if a solar storm strikes. If radiation levels become dangerous, astronauts take shelter. They reconfigure the cabin by stacking equipment and materials around the spacecraft to add extra shielding. The more mass they have between themselves and the incoming particles, the better protected they are. As astronauts travel into deep space for the first time in more than fifty years, will be watching the Sun to keep them safe. This is space time still to calm. Another step forward in growing space food, and later in the science report, then you spray on fabric coating that can clean clothing without the need detergent. All that and more still to come on space time. Scientists have been growing plants and the International Space Station using hydroponics for some years now, but scientists are now putting the astronomical green thumbs to the test by trying to grow plants in simulated lunar and martian soils. The problem is, lunar and martian soils are known to be a pretty terrible medium for growing plant life. That's because they contain high concentrations of metals and don't allow water to filter through properly. Now, a new study in the journal Scientific Reports are shown that by adding fungi to lunar soil and combining that with reg Wiggler earthworm excrement, it gives it that jenise qua needed for plant growth, and that's allowed them to grow chickpea plants. I. Meanwhile, in a second study, the authors followed growth of microbes in a simulated Martian soil and they say that in a sterile environment with similar atmospheric humidity to that of Mars, the little bugs were able to double their DNA mass over a period of thirty days. The problem is that by day sixty the life that had grown had completely disappeared. So it's back to the drawing board. This is space time and time out to take another brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week with a science report. A new study has found that teenagers who were more aggressive during early adolescents may also be more likely to have faster biological aging and the higher body mass index by the age of thirty. The research, reported in the General Health Psychology, followed one hundred and twenty one teenagers from the age of thirteen until they reached the age of thirty, finding that higher levels of aggression in early adolescents was a good predictor for more advanced biological aging by the time they reached thirty. Even after accounting for gender, family income, serious childhood illnesses, and adolescent body shape. The authors believe that this link can be explained by the impact of aggression on relationships. Teens who showed higher levels of aggression were also more likely to argue with parents and mistreat their friends as they grew older. Those continued relationship struggles, not early aggression by itself, were what ultimately predicted accelerated aging. Three new species of rock dwelling monotaizards have now been formally described from the savannahs of northeastern Queensland. A report in the Zoological Journal of the line in Society says the works were revealed a previously unrecognized evolutionary lineage. The discovery, led by scientists from the Australian National University, identified the rainbow rock monitor Varanus iridus, the orange headed rock monitor Varanus umbra, and the yellow headed rock monitor Varanus phosphorus. Scientists have developed a spray on fabric coating which they say can make clothing washable without detergent for more than one hundred laundry cycles. Modern laundry comes with a host of environmental issues, including the use of huge amounts of water and polluting detergents and even increasing the release of microplastics from fabric. The new research, reported in the journal Communications Chemistry, tested a method of spraying alternating layers of two chemicals onto clothing to create a layer of water molecules in an attempt to prevent stains sticking as strongly to fabric. Comparing a conventional washing cycle with a rint cycle for the spray clothing, the authors say that the coating matched or outperformed the conventional method when it came to removing stains, bacteria, and fungi. They say the method would mean applying a relatively expensive spray during the clothing manufacturing process, but as the spray appears durable after sunlight exposure and over one hundred laundry cycles, this cost would eventually the offset as it could reduce water usage, electricity usage, and washing time by more than eighty percent. Well, I guess it's important to have a goal in life. And since he was ten, Dave Sheeley has spent his years searching Florida's Everglades for a creature. The local was called the skunk ape. Apparently it's a close shorter relative of Bigfoot, and it's called the skunk Gate because of its foul smell. The skeptics timendum says, it's good to have many in your life. The skunkate is is a Florida version of the big footmaker. I mean in virtually every state of America supposed that big seat, even though that was sort of largely desert. They're a big feed all over the place. The most countries would have a version of a big football Singapore or the Etty or whatever, but yeah, everywhere. Singapore supposed that he had one, but Singapore is not very big. Some of thee were also suggesting it was a Japanese soldier for the Second World War who hadn't given in for forty years. Anyway, there's a fellow who's got a bit of publicly lately named Dave Sheeley. He runs what he calls a skunk ape research scene in Florida in the Everglade. He did film quite a lengthy film, actually supposedly two thousand, although I've seen stills from it which are labeled nineteen ninety seven, so I'm not quite sure of that. A film in the open mainly very very shaky, bit out of focus. They all of this big Foot or several of them wandering through the everglade forest on the edge of the forest, in and out of the trees. And then finally, actually one of these things runs across this open area almost looks like it's running towards him with a run sort of along his path and end of them trees on the other side. It's quite you know, it is a it's not a deer. It doesn't seem to be a bear. Is it a man in a gorilla suit? It's a man in the grilla suits are there, So it seems to be wading through shallow water because it's sort of swinging his arms around and pushing along with his leg. Yeah. I mean it's out of focus. If it's two thousand, it's not really yourself from a smartphone with sort of technologies that can remove shakes, et cetera. But he's now saying that he's spent a lot of years seeing it, and he's had several encounters as others, and they keep receiving reports sort of big foot sightings or skuncake sighting. It's one of many people out there. They're very sincere, I think, unless he's after people to visit his recess. But the trouble is, there's a lot of them out there, and there's a lot of bad evidence put forward. This film is interesting. You can look at it on YouTube. It's obviously the Patterson Gimbland film that was the famous moment taken in the sixties revealed to be a man in a suit or assessed to be a man in a suit. Well, the suit admitted it. Yeah, the guy who sold them the suit admitted right. Okay, so this one I think we'll turn out to be a man in the suit as well. Says here the skuncape is over six feet in high airy and foul smelling that sounds like every bouncer I've ever met. Okay, this is a big foot bouncer running across between clubs in the Everglades. It's another story, another bit of fuzzy. But if someone suggested that big feet have this psychic ability to make photos go glowry. Yes, that's expedition bigfoot again there where they have this remarkable power both to become invisible on will and also to make electronics go haywire on will. That's right. They're very sophisticated for something that lives in a cave and eats. Scrubs and rock. Well, this is actually now because they're suggesting that they are interdimensional. They disappear, and which is hard. The way we can find them where they come from other universes, the sort of things they haven't had, haven't had a big wood body, haven't had big good bones. They found other bones, but they haven't had big wood bones. Haven't found you, haven't a proper film evidence that is indisputable all these things. So to account for this. Fact that they wouldn't they be wearing silver suits or something like that. That's that's so cliche. Honestly, with a policy he out of that. That's what's the logic in these things. It's not logical. They say it's in dimensional because they've got rubbish evidence that they have to find another reason why there's Rubby's evidence. And one of them is suggesting that the psychic powers of Bigfoot can destroy the evidence, or that they are interdimensional and they don't leave anything behind. And there's so many people doing the necessary TV shows of people that are in the middle of the forest at night or is it night? This one's not a fight Bigfoot abducts of girls coming up on HPO. Yeah, yeah, Well that's that's been happened before as well. Big would have inductive happened. I been in Queenslan. I think think one of the very first sightings or claims of bigfood has been a minor or a forester or something like that in northwest the US being kidnapped by beat put and taken to the sort of bigfoot camp. That's a long time ago with him or what happened then, I think you didn't like to talk to him. I'm sorry. So it's one of many. That's the skeptics timendum. And this is space Time, and that's the show for now. The space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through bites dot com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider, and from space Time with Stuart Gary dot com. Space Time's also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science and Radio and on both iHeartRadio and tune In Radio. And you can help to support our show by visiting the Spacetime Store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies, or by becoming a Spacetime Patron, which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of bonus audio content which doesn't go to weir, access to our exclusive Facebook group, and other rewards. Just go to space Time with Stewart Gary dot com for full details. You've been listening to space Time with Steward Gary. This has been another quality podcast production from bytes dot com