S27E78: Unveiling Rogue Planets, Hera's Demos Flyby, and Voyager 1's Science Reboot

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 78 for broadcast on the 28th of June 2024. Coming up on SpaceTime, more Rogue Planets discovered in deep space, the Martian moon Deimos to be targeted as part of the Hera mission,

[00:00:16] and good news with Voyager 1 now returning science data from all four of its instruments. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime. Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary. The European Space Agency's Euclid Space Telescope has discovered seven more free-floating rogue planets,

[00:00:51] worlds forever alone in the darkness of interstellar space. The new findings, reported on the pre-pressed physics website Archive.org, are all gas giants, each with at least four times the mass of Jupiter. They were all detected in the direction of the Orion Nebula,

[00:01:07] the largest star-forming region near the Sun, roughly 1,500 light-years away. Euclid also confirmed the existence of dozens of other previously detected rogue planets, including four binaries, two planets orbiting each other.

[00:01:20] Languishing in perpetual night, these lonely worlds are thought to have been flung out of their original home star systems by violent gravitational perturbations, and they're now left wandering alone in the darkness of space.

[00:01:33] Unbound to a host star as the Earth is to the Sun, these dark worlds experience neither days nor years. And our own solar system may have also flung out one of these worlds. Studies suggest that early in the solar system's history, there may have been an additional planet,

[00:01:50] another ice giant, orbiting along with Uranus and Neptune. And as Jupiter moved back out to its current position, its gravitational perturbations caused Uranus and Neptune to change their orbital positions in relation to the Sun, while a third planet with them was flung out of the solar system completely,

[00:02:07] destined to orbit the galaxy as a rogue planet, or possibly the outskirts of our solar system as the elusive Planet 9. In this new study, the lead author Eduardo Martin, a Euclid Mission Independent Legacy scientist, says that these latest discoveries are likely just the tip of the iceberg.

[00:02:25] He says over the next few years, Euclid would help discover an unprecedented number of dark, ultra-cold objects of substellar mass, in the process facilitating a great advance in the investigation of their curious properties and possibly their mysterious origins.

[00:02:40] Because rogue planets don't reflect the light of a host star, finding them is hard. Luckily, younger rogue planets are still giving off some of the heat created when they formed, and that makes them a little easier for space telescopes like Euclid to see.

[00:02:55] Far from a star, rogue planets are likely to be frozen, uninhabitable worlds. However, if they generate enough internal heat, that could change the picture dramatically. For example, here on Earth, life survives near geothermal vents.

[00:03:09] And without having a host star, issues like superflares irradiating the surface of a planet or the star ultimately expanding out during its red giant phase, cease to be a problem, thereby giving life a chance to get a foothold. And that's a fascinating prospect. This is Space Time.

[00:03:29] Still to come, the Martian moon Deimos to be targeted as part of the Hera mission, and Voyager 1 back on deck returning science data from all four of its instruments. All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:03:43] Mission managers have announced that the European Space Agency's upcoming Hera mission will utilise a March flyby slated for next March to study the Martian moon Deimos, as well as gaining some extra velocity needed to reach the Deimos binary asteroid system early. Hera is slated for launch on October 24.

[00:04:16] The planetary defence mission will undertake a close-up study of the damage NASA's kinetic-impacted DART spacecraft did when it was deliberately slammed into Deimorphos, a small 160-metre-wide moon orbiting around the 780-metre-wide asteroid Deimos. The DART impact back in September 2022 took place some 11 million kilometres from Earth,

[00:04:37] creating a massive crater and changing the tiny moon's orbit around its host, shortening its period by 32 minutes. Hera, together with a pair of CubeSats, Juventus and Melani, will closely examine the impacted Deimorphos to gather essential data on its mass, composition and structure,

[00:04:54] as well as the mass and composition of the larger Deimos. Juventus is equipped with a special radar designed to obtain unprecedented insights into the asteroid's composition. Following its radar survey, Juventus will eventually land on Deimorphos and deploy a gravimeter.

[00:05:10] Meanwhile, Melani will perform a close-up mineral survey of both Deimorphos and the larger Deimos. It will also survey the dust environment surrounding these bodies. And the interstellar satellite linked between the Hera mothership and its smaller companions

[00:05:24] will track any small tugs in their relative positions due to the gravitational pull of the asteroids, thereby helping to assess their mass. Meanwhile, during its Mars flyby manoeuvre, Hera will approach to within 6,000 kilometres of the red planet's surface,

[00:05:38] and that's closer than the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos. The encounter will change Hera's trajectory, allowing it to closely observe Deimos and the Martian surface itself. Orbiting some 23,460 kilometres above Mars, the potato-shaped Deimos,

[00:05:55] its name deriving from the Greek word for fear, has a diameter of just 12.4 kilometres and is the more distant and smaller of the two Martian moons. One theory is that both Phobos and Deimos are actually captured main-built asteroids.

[00:06:09] However, their surface characteristics have features in common with the planet below them, suggesting an impact-based origin instead. ESOS Hera project scientist Michael Coopers says the flyby was always part of the scheduled manoeuvres designed to get Hera to Deimos by the end of its two-year cruise phase.

[00:06:26] He described the added velocity from Mars' gravitational pull as critical to the mission's trajectory towards Deimos. Part of the excess propellant can then be spent in advancing the arrival at the binary asteroid by a few months, thereby maximising the mission's science return.

[00:06:42] While Hera's instruments have been designed to observe Deimorphos, the opportunity to also study the distinctively asteroid-like Deimos was hard to turn down. During its Mars flyby, Hera will use three instruments to gather data – the main asteroid framing camera, the Hyperscart H for spectral analysis

[00:07:00] and the thermal infrared imager for temperature mapping. This report from ESA TV. Somewhere in the vastness of space might well lurk an unobserved asteroid. On course for a head-on collision, its impact could be devastating. Should we not wish to experience the fate of dinosaurs, we best be prepared.

[00:07:34] This is also the view of ESA and NASA, as both agencies invest in locating these lonesome wanderers and seek to prepare a planetary defence strategy. As ESA's Hera spacecraft arrives at the Estetec test centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands,

[00:07:55] humankind takes another step towards a safer future for our planet and its species. The test centre at Estetec is the largest and best satellite testing facility in Europe and is equipped to simulate all aspects of spaceflight, from the force and noise of a rocket take-off

[00:08:15] to the sustained vacuum and temperature extremes of deep space. This allows new spacecraft such as Hera to efficiently undergo the crucial tests needed to qualify for launch. We need to make sure that the satellite works, which means the software, all the different pieces of software together work

[00:08:36] and it does what it's supposed to be when it's going to be alone into space. And this entails not only doing the nominal operations, but even more importantly to be able to react in case of failures,

[00:08:49] in case things go wrong or things go differently from what we have planned. At the facility, Hera will not only receive her metaphorical wings proving her worthy of flight, but also its solar wings will be installed here.

[00:09:04] Finally, the spacecraft will be ready to meet its tight October 2024 launch window in order to make its appointment with the binary asteroid system Didymos and Dimorphos. The Hera spacecraft is part of a larger programme. NASA's DART mission successfully impacted on Dimorphos, shifting the celestial body's orbit as planned.

[00:09:29] Now, Hera will survey the aftermath and the asteroid up close to help turn this grand experiment into a well understood and potentially repeatable planetary defence technique. One of the interesting aspects of Hera is that for the first time we bring two CubeSats with us.

[00:09:46] These are very small spacecraft, similarly to drones, that will go very close to the surface of the asteroid and gather complementary information to Hera. They will have ground penetrating radars, they will have multispectral imagers. All of this and as going closer, of course, they will take more risks.

[00:10:06] So the idea there is that we fly cheaper systems closer to the danger zone and keep Hera at a safe distance. So it is not only Hera that needs to be tested, but also the CubeSats it carries with it

[00:10:21] and how the trio of spacecraft will work together in deep space. Out of all these tests, which are typically performed on all the spacecraft that are launched into space, one of particular interest will be the one in the anechoic chamber when we will assess the so-called electromagnetic compatibility.

[00:10:43] In that framework we will operate for the first time the CubeSat and the mother spacecraft communicating to each other via this inter-satellite link. This is one of the primes of the Hera mission in deep space. Hera is a unique spacecraft and compared to similar missions like Rosetta,

[00:11:02] Hera is about 10 times smaller and cheaper. An enormous achievement for the team. Soon Hera will leave ESTEC and be fully ready to take on the vastness of space and explore Dimorphos. And in that report from ESA TV we heard from Hera project manager Ian Carnelli from ESA.

[00:11:23] This is Space Time. Still to come, good news, Voyager 1 returning science data from all four of its instruments and later in the science report a new study confirms that self-driving cars really are better drivers than humans. All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:11:42] NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is back conducting normal science operations for the first time following a major technical failure. The probe, which is the most distant man-made object in existence, lost normal communications with mission managers back in November when it suddenly started transmitting unusable gibberish instead of its usual data

[00:12:15] about its surrounding environment and the health and status of its onboard systems. Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory could tell that the 815 kg spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise appeared to be operating nominally. After some inventive sleuthing, the management team determined that the problem

[00:12:34] was tied to one of the spacecraft's three onboard computers called the flight data subsystem. It's responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it's sent onto Earth. The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the computer's memory

[00:12:49] including some of its software code wasn't working anymore and it was the loss of that code which rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, because roadside service doesn't go that far, mission managers instead decided to replace the affected code elsewhere in the memory.

[00:13:06] The trouble is no single location is large enough to hold that section of code in its entirety. So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the flight data subsystem.

[00:13:20] And to make the plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they still all function as a whole. And any references to the location of the code in other parts of the flight data subsystem memory also needed to be updated.

[00:13:34] The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft's engineering data and they sent that to a new location in the memory on April the 18th. A radio signal takes 22.5 hours to reach Voyager 1 from Earth

[00:13:47] and then another 22.5 hours for a return signal response to come back to Earth. It was only when mission managers heard the return signal from Voyager on April the 20th that they knew that their modification had worked.

[00:14:01] For the first time in five months, they were able to check the health and status of the spacecraft. During the next few weeks, they relocated and then adjusted other affected portions of the flight data subsystem software. The spacecraft initially began returning engineering data,

[00:14:16] including information about its health and status. On May the 19th, they executed the second step in their repair process and beamed a command to the spacecraft to begin returning science data. Two of the four science instruments returned to their normal operating modes immediately.

[00:14:31] Two others required some additional work. But the good news is, now all four are returning usable science data. The four instruments are studying plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles. Voyager 1 and 2 are the only spacecraft to directly sample interstellar space – that's the region of space outside the heliosphere,

[00:14:51] a protective bubble of magnetic fields and solar wind created by the Sun. While Voyager 1 is back conducting science, additional minor work still needed to clean up the effects of the issue. Among other tasks, engineers will resynchronise timekeeping software

[00:15:05] in the spacecraft's three onboard computers so they can execute commands at the right time. They'll also perform maintenance on the digital tape recorder, which records some of the data for the plasma wave instrument, which is sent to Earth twice every year.

[00:15:18] Most of Voyager's other science data is sent directly to Earth and not recorded. Later this year, the two Voyager probes will mark 47 years of operations. Voyager 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida back on September 5th 1977 in what was a grand tour of the outer solar system.

[00:15:37] You see, astronomers had discovered that the planets of the outer solar system were about to align in such a way that a spacecraft could use the gravity of one of the outer planets as a slingshot

[00:15:47] to fling itself to the next, and from there on to the next and so on. This would allow the two Voyagers to undertake a grand tour visiting both gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 1 would then head towards the edge of the solar system

[00:16:01] and become the first spacecraft to reach and explore interstellar space and the galaxy beyond. Meanwhile, Voyager 2 would continue on the grand tour visiting the ice giants Uranus and Neptune for it too would leave the solar system travelling in a different direction.

[00:16:16] Voyager 1 is now located more than 24.3 billion kilometres away. Meanwhile, its sister ship Voyager 2 is now more than 20 billion kilometres away. That's 18 light hours and 52 light minutes. Both are exploring the unexplored. This is Space Time. And time now to take another brief look at some of the other stories

[00:16:53] making news in science this week with a science report. Scientists say indulging in too many refined carbs, starchy veggies such as potatoes and sugary drinks could see you pile on the pounds in middle age, while chowing down on whole grains and fruit

[00:17:08] could help you avoid the dreaded middle-age spread. The findings reported in the British Medical Journal are based on data from 136,432 Americans aged up to 65 who were followed up every four years for a total of 24 years. The team found a 100 gram per day increase in starch or sugar

[00:17:26] was linked with a 1.5 kilogram and 0.9 kilogram respectively greater weight gain over four years, whereas a 10 gram per day increase in fibre was linked with a 0.8 kilogram loss in weight. And getting more of your carbs from whole grains, fruit and non-starchy vegetables such as broccoli

[00:17:43] was linked with less weight gain, while refined grains such as starchy vegetables and potatoes was linked to greater weight gain. Now this type of study can't show cause and effect, but the authors say it suggests considering the type of carbs you eat

[00:17:56] may help you manage your weight in the long term. A new study warns that even resting in the heat can stress your heart. The findings reported in the Journal of the Analysts of Internal Medicine follows growing concerns on the impact of heat on heart health

[00:18:11] amid worsening climate change. The researchers recruited 61 participants, a mix of healthy younger and older adults and older adults with coronary artery disease. They then monitored their hearts as they were exposed to increasing heat while lying down in a lab. The researchers say that once the participants' core temperatures

[00:18:30] increased by 1.5 degrees Celsius, all of them saw an increase in myocardial blood flow indicating their hearts were having to work harder. The imaging evidence also showed seven of the 20 participants with coronary artery disease wound up with a myocardial ischemia or blockage.

[00:18:46] A new study has confirmed that self-driving cars are better drivers than people. The findings reported in the journal Nature Communications looked at comparison data on accidents, mainly from California, involving some 2,100 self-driving vehicles and 35,133 human-driven vehicles. They found that self-driving vehicles were involved

[00:19:08] in fewer accidents than human-driven vehicles in most situations. The authors say autonomous vehicles were generally safer and less likely to be involved in accidents during routine driving tasks, such as staying in your lane and adjusting to traffic flow. They were also involved in fewer rear-end and side-swipe collisions.

[00:19:26] But self-driving vehicles were more prone to accidents in some situations, such as during low-light conditions at dawn and dusk or while executing turns. The findings suggest that self-driving automobiles could potentially improve road safety, but only if their performance can be improved in lower-light situations.

[00:19:46] There are calls for the US military to release more data on UFO sightings to the general public in hope of getting better answers than those now being provided by government experts. Official investigations often come up with incomplete or wrong answers, and scientists in the sceptical community

[00:20:02] are suggesting that given the data they could probably arrive at more accurate explanations more quickly. Tim Mendham from Australian Sceptics says noted UFO investigator Mick West's take on recent US Department of Defence reports on their own UFO investigations suggests they're often too quick to say

[00:20:19] an object is either unidentified or resolved. Right, so the Pentagon or the Department of Defence has a group which is called the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which is a mouthful, AARO, A-A-R-O is the abbreviation, and they're the ones who are investigating unknown phenomena, UFO, UAP claims, etc.

[00:20:37] And they do it seriously, that's fine. This is the modern-day counterpart to Project Blue Book. Yes, it is, in a way, yes it is. Project Blue Book ran for how many years? 30 years or something before it closed down saying, ah, can't find anything worthwhile.

[00:20:49] Anyway, this thing has been going not that long by any means, but it's looking at current claims of flying aircraft, unknown flying aircraft, UFOs or UAPs. And it comes up against this guy named Mick West who's probably the premier sceptical investigator

[00:21:02] of UFO claims and that sort of stuff. And a personal hero of mine. And me too. So what has happened is that people will remember a few years ago when the Pentagon came out about some sightings that were picked up by American aircraft, military aircraft.

[00:21:15] There was the Tic Tac thing, there was various little objects that were being touted as surprising information revealed in these top-secret videos which were available everywhere even before they were revealed as top-secret. Some of them going back to 2004.

[00:21:30] And the Pentagon came up with a report on these things and saying we don't know what they are. So naturally, being we don't know means they're unknown flying objects or they're flying saucers. They're alien craft. No, Pentagon said we don't know what they are. Okay.

[00:21:42] Mick West in his usual fashion, within about minutes explained what they were. If only they'd asked Mick West. And there were ordinary objects, there were anomalies of the cameras being used in the aircraft, various things. But anyway, they were quite explainable or explicable and he did that.

[00:21:56] Now there's a more recent one. There's a sighting of a supposed diamond-shaped formation of objects that was over Florida, I think it is, or the Gulf of Mexico anyway, by a plane and on radar. And now this aero group has come out again

[00:22:11] with a different result saying it's resolved. It was a balloon with light underneath it and dark on top. How does it explain four craft that were seen on the radar? Mick West comes in now and said, now you're being a bit too hasty with your resolution

[00:22:24] of saying it's solved. But before you were too hasty saying it was unknown and therefore when it was quite clearly known and now you're saying it's resolved, well actually this is a bit more mysterious. So Mick West is quite critical of the organisations that are supposedly being sceptical.

[00:22:38] And this aero I think is in a bit of a bind. It doesn't know whether to be believers or non-believers or what. But he was saying that the suggestion that if it's a balloon is something that crops up all the time. Someone was suggesting they're toy balloons

[00:22:49] or big large toy balloons used in parties and things which have escaped to the light inside etc. And that explains a lot. Well, didn't the US Air Force shoot one of those down a couple of years ago over the Great Lakes?

[00:23:00] Balloons do account for a lot of sightings. At the same time, a bunch of weather balloons did go missing. So I think that's pretty conclusive. Yeah, that was pretty much sort of what it was. This one, the issue is that with four objects being found on radar

[00:23:13] and one object being resolved by aero, there's often issues with radars not being entirely accurate. Sometimes there's an issue with distance if a pilot sees an object at a certain distance and assumes that other objects on the radar are all at the same place

[00:23:27] or they could be all totally different. But one thing Nick West is suggesting is that aero, please put the information out there straight away and through a public research, like a wiki sort of thing of UFO investigators, you'd probably find a resolution to these things

[00:23:40] a lot more quickly and a lot more accurately than aero is putting forward. They're too hasty in both cases. One of the big problems is of course that a lot of these UFO reports are highlighting problems with so-called advanced Western military radar setups.

[00:23:55] And these were at the time cutting edge FAA 18 Hornet fighters that were being launched from US aircraft carriers. And so to know that there are these problems with the radars on these aircraft, and they're still being used today of course, that raises concerns about their effectiveness

[00:24:12] when placed in a combat situation. Absolutely true. The problems with technology have been around ever since there's been UFOs. And radar since the Second World War has developed a lot, but it obviously has not perfect by any means. It can be interfered with, natural interferences

[00:24:27] and that sort of stuff. Therefore what it should do is point out, fix up the radar, I'm sure they're doing work on radar to try and perfect them, but they're still not perfect. And when someone says it appears on radar,

[00:24:39] there could be a lot of reasons why it appears on radar. It could be something on the ground, it could be something in the air, it could be atmospheric, it could be all sorts of things. So in this particular case, the sighting didn't match the radar,

[00:24:48] but people were trying to bring them together and give explanations for one and the other at the same time. It doesn't work that way, but basically Mick West is saying, don't hide the data, don't give it to a couple of people outside who were your consultants

[00:25:00] who might be equally poor at recognizing things and equally hasty at putting out a finding, put it out there to the public and you will find through the mass of people that are out there through crowdsourcing or whatever that you'll get a resolution pretty quickly. That's probably correct.

[00:25:13] And Mick West has done this, he's proved it with the earlier Pentagon suggestions of unknown craft, but he explained what they were within minutes, honestly. And you know, they should ask Mick next time. Mick West is very worthwhile following up, he's got a site called Metabunk

[00:25:27] and he does some very, very good work, especially in UFOs, not only UFOs, but that's where he's particularly well known for. Yeah, we're finding the same thing with both the Ukrainian and the Gazan wars right now where there are groups out there

[00:25:40] that are providing quicker, more accurate reports of where strikes are taking place, where things are happening than what we're getting from the military or the media. Yeah, especially in the early days when they were pointing out that photo's a fake. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:25:52] There's a lot of cases they're putting out this photo, here's a hospital being bombed or this is someone doing this, etc. And they said no it's not because they do searches. And that's the thing about these days, you can do searches pretty quickly.

[00:26:01] You get enough people doing searches and then suddenly you've got a result. That's Tim Mindom from Australian Skeptics. And that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Bytes.com,

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