Galactic Collision Uncertainty: New Insights on the Milky Way and Andromeda
SpaceTime: Astronomy & Science NewsJune 09, 2025x
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Galactic Collision Uncertainty: New Insights on the Milky Way and Andromeda

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In this episode of SpaceTime, we delve into groundbreaking revelations that challenge our understanding of cosmic events and planetary formation.
New Insights on the Milky Way and Andromeda Collision
Recent studies utilizing data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft cast doubt on the long-anticipated collision between our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. New simulations indicate only a 2% probability of a merger occurring within the next 3.7 to 5 billion years, suggesting that both galaxies may continue to evolve largely unperturbed for a much longer period. We explore the implications of these findings and the variables that have altered previous predictions about our galactic future.
Understanding Seismic Wave Acceleration in Earth's D Layer
A fascinating new study sheds light on the behavior of seismic waves deep within the Earth. Researchers have discovered that the unique crystal structure of minerals in the D layer, located near the core-mantle boundary, influences the acceleration of seismic waves. This breakthrough not only clarifies the mystery behind seismic wave behavior but also provides insights into the dynamics at play in the Earth's depths.
Discovery of Embryonic Exoplanets Using Advanced Techniques
Astronomers have unveiled a new technique that has successfully identified five new embryonic exoplanets, offering a glimpse into their early formation stages. Utilizing the ALMA radio telescope, researchers can peer through dense protoplanetary disks to detect these young planets, which are forming rapidly in dynamic environments. This revolutionary method opens new avenues for understanding planetary evolution and the processes that govern the birth of new worlds.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Nature Astronomy
https://www.nature.com/natureastronomy/
Communications Earth and Environment
https://www.nature.com/commsenv/
Astrophysical Journal Letters
https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0004-637X
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
00:00 This is Space Time Series 28, Episode 69 for broadcast on 9 June 2025
01:00 New insights on the Milky Way and Andromeda collision
12:15 Understanding seismic wave acceleration in Earth's D layer
22:30 Discovery of embryonic exoplanets using advanced techniques
30:00 Science report: AI systems refusing to turn off


00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Stuart Gary: This is space Time Series 28, episode

00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 69, for broadcast on the 9th of June,

00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 2025. Coming up on Space Time,

00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 doubt cast on the impending galactic collision between the

00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 Milky Way and Andromeda. A new study

00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 explains why seismic waves suddenly

00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 accelerate deep inside the Earth. And

00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 the new technique discovers five new

00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 embryonic planets. All that and more coming

00:00:25 --> 00:00:26 up on, Space Time.

00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 Voice Over Guy: Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary

00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 Stuart Gary: A new study is casting doubt on the timing of the

00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 long expected collision between the Milky Way and the

00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 Andromeda Galaxy, M M31. The

00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 findings, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, are based

00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 on new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and

00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 the European Space Agency's Gaia Space spacecraft.

00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 Astronomers have used the new observations to create fresh

00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 computer simulations showing how these two large

00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 galaxies will evolve over the next 10 billion

00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 years. The two galaxies, which are the largest

00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 in the Local Galactic Group, are currently located some 2

00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 million light years away from each other and are moving

00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 towards a merger at a speed of about 100 kilometers

00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 per second. A collision would be devastating

00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 for the overall structure of both, spiral galaxies.

00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 Although the stars themselves wouldn't collide, there's plenty of space

00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 between them. The beautiful spiral arms of the galaxies

00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 as a whole would cease to exist, replaced by a

00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 spheroidal pile of stars known as an elliptical

00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 galaxy. The authors of the new study ran

00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 100 simulations of both galaxies based

00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 on the new observational data. And for the first

00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 time, this included the effects of the Milky Way's most

00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 massive satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic

00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 Cloud. As a result, they found only a

00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 2% probability that the galaxies will collide

00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 sometime over the next 3.7 to 5 billion

00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 years. That's contrary to the previous belief

00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 that a galactic collision and the demise of the Milky Way as

00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 an independent body was a certainty within that

00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 time frame. In just over half of the simulated

00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 scenarios, the Milky Way and Andromeda experience at least one

00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 close encounter before they lose enough orbital energy to

00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 eventually collide and merge. But that's now

00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 likely to happen somewhere between 8 and 10 billion years

00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 from now. And on that timescale, our sun

00:02:29 --> 00:02:32 will have already dropped off the main sequence, having fused all

00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 its hydrogen core into helium, expanded out to become a

00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 red giant, puffed off its outer layers, and ended

00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 up as a white dwarf. Now, in most of

00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 the computer simulation scenarios about the galactic collision

00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 between Andromeda and the Milky Way, it seems they'll pass at

00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 such large distances from each other that they'll continue to

00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 evolve large, largely unperturbed, for a very

00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 long period of time. Although the new research

00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 challenges the previously accepted fate of the Milky Way, the

00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 study's authors admit it's still difficult to make very precise

00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 predictions. The study's lead author, Till Sawala

00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 from the University of Helsinki, emphasized that the new

00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 conclusions don't imply a mistake in early calculations,

00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 rather that the authors are able to include more variables within

00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 their simulations. Earlier calculations

00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 focused on the interaction between the Milky Way, Andromeda,

00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 and a third galaxy, the Triangulum. They're the three

00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 largest members of our Local Galactic Group.

00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 Although the Large Magellanic Cloud only has about 15%

00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 the mass of the Milky Way, its gravitational pull,

00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 directed perpendicular to the orbit of Andromeda

00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 nevertheless would perturb the Milky Way's motion

00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 sufficiently to significantly reduce the chance of a merger

00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 with Andromeda, Zwalla says. While

00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 earlier studies only considered the most likely value for

00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 each variable, running many thousands of simulations has

00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 allowed the authors to account for all the observable uncertainties.

00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 Now, these new results are significant for the fate of

00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 our galaxy. But this new uncertainty about the future

00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 of the Milky Way in Andromeda may not last for long. The

00:03:59 --> 00:04:01 authors are already looking ahead towards new research,

00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 further scenarios, and even more data becoming available.

00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 You see, the Guy Space Telescope will soon be delivering more

00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 precise measurements with some of the most crucial variables within

00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 the galaxies, including the transverse motion of

00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 Andromeda, which is difficult to measure directly.

00:04:17 --> 00:04:19 This is space time still to come,

00:04:19 --> 00:04:22 why seismic waves deep inside the Earth suddenly

00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 accelerate, and the discovery of five new

00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 embryonic planets using a new technique. All that

00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 and more still to come on, space time.

00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 A new study has provided fresh clues about the

00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 mysterious behavior of seismic waves as they traverse

00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 a weird zone deep inside the Earth. A

00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 report in the journal Communications Earth and Environment

00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 has found that the crystal structure of minerals deep in the

00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 planet's D layer is accelerating the movement of

00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 seismic waves. The D layer is located

00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 near the Earth's core mantle boundary, some

00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 2 to 3 km beneath the

00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 planet's crust. This region consists of a mixture

00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 of molten rock flowing sort of like honey or

00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 molasses, rather than being either liquid like lava

00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 or brittle like solid rock. For more than

00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 50 years, scientists have wondered why seismic

00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 waves suddenly behave differently in this D layer, with their

00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 speed accelerating as if they were traveling through a different

00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 material. Then, in 2004, one

00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 of the study's authors, Motohiko Murakami from

00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 Idiot Zurich, discovered that the mineral perovskite, which

00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 dominates the D layer, transforms under extreme

00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 pressures and temperatures into a New min different

00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 mineral, which they've named post perovskite.

00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 Scientists assumed that it was this change which was explaining

00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 the strange acceleration of the seismic waves.

00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 But then, in 2007, Murakami and colleagues

00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 found evidence that the phase change of the perovskite

00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 alone simply wasn't enough to accelerate the

00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 seismic waves. Now, using new

00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 computer models, they've discovered that depending on the

00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 direction in which the prosperovskite crystals are pointing, the

00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 hardness of the mineral changes. It turns out

00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 the seismic waves are accelerated only when the crystals

00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 of the mineral point in the same direction. The

00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 big question then becomes, what makes these crystals line

00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 up? Well, it seems the answer is

00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 solid mantle rock is flowing horizontally along the

00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 lower edge of the Earth's, mantle. Researchers have long

00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 suspected that this movement, a sort of convection like

00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 boiling water, must exist. But they've never been able to

00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 prove it directly. The new computer simulations

00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 developed by Murakami and colleagues have now demonstrated, at

00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 least experimentally, that metal convection of solid rock

00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 is real, and it's occurring at the boundary between the

00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 Earth's molten liquid outer core and the mantle above.

00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 The discovery not only solves the mystery of the D

00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 layer, but also opens a new window into the dynamics

00:06:56 --> 00:06:58 in the depths of the Earth. This is

00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 space time. Still to come,

00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 astronomers have developed a new technique which has allowed them to

00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 identify embryonic planets. And later in the science

00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 report, a new study warns that artificial

00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 intelligence is now so smart, it's refusing to

00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 turn itself off, even when instructed to do

00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 so. Looks like Skynet. If not, the Terminator

00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 may well have arrived. All that and more still to

00:07:21 --> 00:07:21 come.

00:07:22 --> 00:07:23 On space time,

00:07:32 --> 00:07:32 foreign

00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 astronomers have developed a new technique which is

00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 allowing them to identify embryonic exoplanets at a

00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 far earlier stage of their development than ever before.

00:07:48 --> 00:07:50 Exoplanets are, planets orbiting stars other than the

00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 Sun. Astronomers have so far discovered well over

00:07:53 --> 00:07:56 5 exoplanets, usually by either

00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 the transit method, in which some of the light from a host

00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 star is briefly blocked out by an eclipsing planet, or, or

00:08:02 --> 00:08:05 by the wobble method, in which the host star is being affected

00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet, resulting

00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 in a slight Doppler shift in the star spectra.

00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 Now, a report in the Astrophysical Journal Letters claims the

00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 new technique, which uses alma. The Ataccam, a Large

00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 Millimeter Submillimeter Array radio telescope in Chile,

00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 has successfully discovered evidence of five new

00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 embryonic exoplanets. So young, they're still

00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 growing. The new Advanced Exoalma

00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 project imaging technique allowed astronomers to

00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 peer through the thick protoplanetary disks of gas, gas

00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 and dust, that have been obscuring these embryonic planets from view

00:08:37 --> 00:08:40 until now. The study's lead author, Christoph

00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 Pinte from Monash University, says the five newly found

00:08:43 --> 00:08:46 planets are, just a few million years old. That's a thousand

00:08:46 --> 00:08:48 times younger than the Earth. Paint says.

00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 Unlike traditional planet hunting methods that look for a young

00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 planet's direct light, EXO ALMA searches for the

00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 effects these planets are having on their surroundings.

00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 He says it's like trying to spot a fish by looking for

00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 ripples in the pond rather than trying to see the fish

00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 itself. It allows astronomers to detect much

00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 younger planets than ever before so they can learn more about

00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 planetary evolution and growth. A key

00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 finding of EXO ALMA is that these planets are forming

00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 really quickly in less than a few million years.

00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 And in surprisingly dynamic environments, with lots of

00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 physical mechanisms at play. The EXO

00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 ALMA project is revolutionizing science's

00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 understanding of how planets interact with their natal

00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 environments and evolve over time. By,

00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 uncovering the youngest planets, EXA ALMA is

00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 providing the first clues to unravel these mysteries.

00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 Pinte says the technique he and his team have developed is a

00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 remarkable leap forward in astronomy, opening up light years

00:09:42 --> 00:09:45 of new possibilities for future discoveries.

00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 Christoph Pinte: We're using the alma, interferometer in Chile,

00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 which is a radio telescope. And we're using

00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 ALMA to find very young planets. Because

00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 classical technique to find planets like

00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 transit or radial velocity cannot be used for young

00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 stars. So instead we're using ALMA to look

00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 at the disk around young star. And in this

00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 disk, planets are forming. And we using the, high

00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 spectral resolution to detect very small motion

00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 in the gas in the disk around the star to find

00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 little planets. It's a new method that we developed

00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 in 2018 when, we got the first high

00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 spectral resolution observation with alma. And

00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 this is the first time that this method has been

00:10:25 --> 00:10:27 applied in a systematic way using alma.

00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 So we obtained what's called a large program. So we

00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 were granted almost 200 hours of telescope time

00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 to observe those 15 disks, to do a systematic survey

00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 and to try to find those planets. So it's the first time that

00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 we do this kind of observation in a systematic

00:10:42 --> 00:10:42 way.

00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 Stuart Gary: So when we look at a protoplanetary disk, there's,

00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 a lot of dust and gas and molecular

00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 debris there, which is all coming together to form these

00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 exoplanets. These are little embryos, basically,

00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 that are forming in gravitationally dense regions.

00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 Christoph Pinte: If you try to observe those systems in the

00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 optical with a classical telescope, the disk

00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 is so opaque so dense that we cannot see through the

00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 disk. So if there are planets in the disk, you will not be

00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 able to see them. So we use ALMA to go to much longer

00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 wavelengths, like you said, in the millimeter, where the

00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 dust becomes more transparent. So we're able to scan

00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 through the disk to see planets that we would not be able to

00:11:19 --> 00:11:20 see otherwise.

00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 Stuart Gary: Is it the wavelength of ALMA which was the key to this?

00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 Christoph Pinte: Yes. So it's two things. It's the wavelength and also

00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 the fact that at this wavelength, we can see the

00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 molecular emissions. So we see emission lines from the

00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 molecule in the disk. In particular the, carbon

00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 monoxide, which we use in that case. And

00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 because of the way the instrument is designed, it has a very

00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 high resolution in velocity. So we're able to see

00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 very small motion. That we would not be able to see

00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 at other wavelengths. And because the disturbance

00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 created by planets is small Compared to the global

00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 rotation of the disk. Being able to detect very small

00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 motion is the key to find these planets.

00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 Stuart Gary: That means you're using a degree of spectroscopy.

00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 Christoph Pinte: Yeah. So in practice, we're using, ALMA

00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 as a big spectrograph. And because ALMA has

00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 a very high spectral resolution. We're able to detect very small

00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 motions in the gas. Like a few 10, meters per

00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 second. At this wavelength, the star is not

00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 emitting. And the planet itself is not

00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 emitting either. What we're really seeing is a disk.

00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 And what we detect is the gravitational impact

00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 of the planet on the disk. So if there was no

00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 planet, the disk would be in Keplerian rotation. And

00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 because there's a planet, the rotation of the disk is

00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 slightly different. And that what allows us to detect the

00:12:33 --> 00:12:34 presence of planets.

00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 Stuart Gary: And you found five planets using this system?

00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 Christoph Pinte: Yes. So we have indication for at

00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 least five planets in the 15

00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 disk that we have observed. But we also, in all those

00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 disks, we detected, like, non Keplerian motion.

00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 So that suggests that there might be more planets. But what we

00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 detected, too, is that it's, like, more complicated

00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 than when we initially believed. So there's

00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 other motions on top of the motions created by the

00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 planet. That means there's probably other mechanisms that are at play

00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 during the, formation of. That could be interaction

00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 with other stars or instabilities in the

00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 disk. Or interaction by companions or

00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 stars that flew by that we can't see, right now.

00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 But we could potentially still see the effect of those stars

00:13:16 --> 00:13:17 on the disk.

00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 Stuart Gary: It's a busy place where planets are forming.

00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 Christoph Pinte: Yes. The main conclusion of our work is that the planets

00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 are forming very early. So basically, at the same time

00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 as the stars themselves are forming. And

00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 stars form in molecular clouds that are very dense

00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 and where stars are interacting with each other. So

00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 it's highly dynamical, process in which planets are

00:13:36 --> 00:13:37 forming.

00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 Stuart Gary: A few years ago there was a paper out that surprised a lot

00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 of people. It speculated that the Earth only took

00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 about 5 million years to form. What you're finding here with

00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 these new exo alma readings supports that, that it

00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 doesn't take long for a full planet to actually form.

00:13:51 --> 00:13:52 Yes, it's amazing.

00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 Christoph Pinte: Exactly. So we believe those System are between

00:13:55 --> 00:13:58 3 and 5 million years and at

00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 least some of the planets are already formed. So the

00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 planet that we are detecting are big planets too. They're like

00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 a few times the mass of jup. So giant

00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 planets form quickly. We don't have the capacities

00:14:10 --> 00:14:13 yet to detect small planets like Earth in

00:14:13 --> 00:14:16 those young systems, but it's likely that they form also

00:14:16 --> 00:14:17 on very short timescales.

00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 Stuart Gary: These exoplanets you found, they're all large planets, bigger than

00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 Jupiter. Were they far from their host stars or were they

00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 hot Jupiters? Or were they at Jovian type distances

00:14:26 --> 00:14:27 from their host stars?

00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 Christoph Pinte: Oh no. So they're much further away.

00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 so Jupiter is five astronomical units

00:14:33 --> 00:14:35 and those planets are between 80 and

00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 250. So they're much further, outside.

00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 So there's probably more planets inside.

00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 Except we don't have the spatial resolution to see

00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 them because one of the limitations is that star forming region

00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 in the galaxy are on average quite far,

00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 150parsec, which is roughly 600

00:14:53 --> 00:14:54 light years for me.

00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 Stuart Gary: That's Christophe Pinte from Monash University

00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 and this space time

00:15:04 --> 00:15:04 foreign

00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 look at some of the other stories making news in Science this week

00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 with the Science report in yet another

00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 warning that the age of the Terminator and Skynet is

00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 getting awfully close. It's been revealed that

00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 OpenAI's O3, O4 and Codex

00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 Mini artificial intelligence systems, all of which are used to

00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 help power the ChatGPT. Chatbot will sometimes

00:15:36 --> 00:15:39 disobey direct instructions to turn off and will even

00:15:39 --> 00:15:41 sabotage computer scripts in order to remain

00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 operational. The discovery was made by

00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 Palisade Research, which searches for dangerous

00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 AI capabilities. It found during its

00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 tests that the O3 model sabotaged the shutdown

00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 script on seven occasions, the Codex Mini

00:15:55 --> 00:15:58 sabotaged it on 12 occasions, and the O4

00:15:58 --> 00:16:00 Mini also sabotaged at least once.

00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 Previous studies have already shown that some AI

00:16:03 --> 00:16:06 models will lie, cheat, be deceptive and make

00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 up stuff, even in changing their own code or replicating

00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 it and then hiding it in other programs in order to prevent

00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 themselves from being shut down.

00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 A new study has shown that owning a dog could

00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 reduce a child's risk of developing eczema. A

00:16:21 --> 00:16:24 report in the journal Allergy analyzed data from 16

00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 European studies testing for interactions between the

00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 24 most significant eczema associated genetic

00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 variants and 18 early life environmental

00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 factors such as antibiotic use, breastfeeding

00:16:35 --> 00:16:38 and the ownership of pets such as cats or dogs.

00:16:38 --> 00:16:41 They found interactions between seven environmental

00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 factors and at least one known genetic variant known, to be

00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 involved in eczema. And the authors found that exposure

00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 to dogs interacted with a genetic risk variant that

00:16:50 --> 00:16:53 affects immune system response in human skin

00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 cells, essentially providing a protective effect by

00:16:56 --> 00:16:57 suppressing skin inflammation.

00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 It's been discovered that sulphur crested cockatoos in

00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 the suburbs of western Sydney have learned how to use twist

00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 handled water fountains in order to get a drink.

00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 The findings, reported in the journal Biology Letters, follow

00:17:11 --> 00:17:13 scientists using cameras to monitor the bird's

00:17:13 --> 00:17:16 actions. The authors recorded the clever cockies

00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 gripping the valve and then lowering their weight on it to twist it,

00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 with a success rate of more than 46%.

00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 The behaviour hasn't been recorded elsewhere around Sydney

00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 yet, but it's likely to spread. You see,

00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 previously, cockatoos in Sydney's southern suburbs learned how to

00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 open the lids of wheelie bins to explore their contents.

00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 And that's a behaviour which has since spread to cockatoos right

00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 across Sydney's vast suburban area.

00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 One of the interesting observational factors in our age

00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 of social media is how come pseudoscience

00:17:46 --> 00:17:49 has gone so viral. You see, real

00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 science is slow, cautious and always open to being

00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 wrong. That's how it evolves. But

00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 pseudoscience, on the other hand, is fast. It's loud

00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 and it's allergic to any doubt. And nowhere

00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 is that clearer than online, especially on social

00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 media. Once upon a time, healing was the

00:18:06 --> 00:18:08 domain of science. Trust was earned through

00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 rigorous testing, and health advice came from people in white

00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 coats who spent years studying what could kill us

00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 and what might save us. But as Tim Mendham

00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 from Australian Skeptics points out, today all it takes is

00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 a ring, light, soothing voice and a few dramatic before

00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 and after shots in order to convince millions of people that

00:18:26 --> 00:18:28 a miracle cure is just a click away.

00:18:28 --> 00:18:31 Tim Mendham: The audience is history played a major role in people believing

00:18:31 --> 00:18:34 pseudoscience, but there's a lot more practitioners around than there once

00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 was. Once upon a time, when you only had the mainstream media,

00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 like newspapers and that sort of stuff, very few people got a chance to,

00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 hawk their goods around in editorial or whatever,

00:18:43 --> 00:18:46 because the editor would say, no, I don't think so. And you know,

00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 go away. These days people just set up their own publications,

00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 which is online, TikTok, Instagram,

00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 Facebook, you name it. A whole range of different things that they're using.

00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 And they can promote their wares and their cures and

00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 whether they're sincere or not, or whether they're just marketing for making our

00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 money. And there are definitely some of those around and they look sincere,

00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 they often look young, and they're sort of pitching something sort of particular

00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 cure that this will sort of cure your acne or improve your

00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 running power or whatever, and people believe them. So

00:19:12 --> 00:19:14 what happens is that more people out there spreading

00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 misinformation and a lot more people being overwhelmed

00:19:17 --> 00:19:20 by it because they're not that science literate or even media

00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 literate that they can read that, something's not necessarily

00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 true as it's, if it's on the Internet, as Abraham Lincoln once

00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 said, a lot of these things out there. Lincoln once said,

00:19:28 --> 00:19:29 haven't you heard that one?

00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 Stuart Gary: Einstein, who was concerned about the Internet?

00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 Tim Mendham: No, Abraham Lincoln said, don't believe everything you read on the

00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 Internet. classic cases. I mean, there's cases of, in Australia

00:19:38 --> 00:19:40 of Belle Gibson, who was someone who claimed that, she had cured her

00:19:40 --> 00:19:43 brain cancer because of the herbal medicines and things. So she

00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 started pushing these herbal medicines. She had a book out about

00:19:46 --> 00:19:49 cures and that sort of stuff. And she was raising money for

00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 charity, etc. None of the money went to charity. It all went to her and

00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 it fairly glamorous lifestyle for a while until

00:19:54 --> 00:19:57 people finally pointed out that, hang on a second, you probably didn't have brain

00:19:57 --> 00:20:00 cancer, you probably weren't cured. Where's the money going to? And a lot of

00:20:00 --> 00:20:03 people suffered because of it. Probably a lot of people died because they were using her

00:20:03 --> 00:20:06 goods rather than having treatment for cancer, whatever. But that's a

00:20:06 --> 00:20:09 classic case of, the dangers of believing this

00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 young, attractive person pushing a

00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 particular cause with a lot of bright

00:20:14 --> 00:20:16 enthusiasm, et cetera, on.

00:20:16 --> 00:20:19 Stuart Gary: The Internet, that it's a way of cleaning out the gene

00:20:19 --> 00:20:21 pool. But it's really not. Because when people are

00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 reaching that stage in their life and things of that

00:20:24 --> 00:20:27 grim, you do grab whatever you can. That's

00:20:27 --> 00:20:27 just.

00:20:27 --> 00:20:30 Tim Mendham: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely it is. Yeah. And sort of. And

00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 there are people who will take advantage of that. I mean, just because they are at

00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 the last stage of their life doesn't excuse the fake cures

00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 by any means. But you can understand that. You don't blame the

00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 patient, right? You don't blame the victim so much because you feel

00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 sorry for them in many cases because they are going through tough times. You

00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 certainly blame and can attack the practitioners,

00:20:47 --> 00:20:50 the promoters of this stuff. If they're crooks, definitely they're

00:20:50 --> 00:20:53 fair game. There'll be someone out there to pitch any

00:20:53 --> 00:20:56 product and there will be some scientists out there who

00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 will endorse it, and there will be people of whatever

00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 background, education, qualifications, money,

00:21:02 --> 00:21:03 whatever who will take it up.

00:21:03 --> 00:21:06 Stuart Gary: That's Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics.

00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 And that's the show for now. Space Time is

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