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[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 95 for broadcast on the 7th of August 2024.
[00:00:06] Coming up on SpaceTime, Mercury in the Sky with Diamonds,
[00:00:11] new details on the brightest gamma ray burst of all time,
[00:00:15] and more spectacular auroral activity seen across the Earth as the sun moves closer to Solar Max.
[00:00:22] All that and more coming up on SpaceTime.
[00:00:30] Stuart Gary
[00:00:46] A new study claims the planet Mercury, the nearest rock to the sun,
[00:00:50] may harbor a thick layer of solid diamond deep below its ancient surface.
[00:00:56] If confirmed, the findings reported in the journal Nature Communications
[00:01:00] may help solve some of the planet's biggest mysteries,
[00:01:03] including Mercury's strange composition at its unusual magnetic field.
[00:01:08] The study suggests diamonds could be forming a layer with an average thickness of about 15 km,
[00:01:14] at a depth of about 485 km below the surface.
[00:01:18] A massive diamond layer hundreds of km below the crust would explain tiny Mercury's magnetic field.
[00:01:25] A massive diamond layer hundreds of km below the crust could help explain Mercury's weak magnetic field.
[00:01:32] As this planet no longer thought to be geologically active,
[00:01:35] scientists figured its magnetic field was being generated through interactions with the solar wind,
[00:01:40] the constant stream of charged particles flowing out from the sun.
[00:01:44] But a diamond layer deep down could transfer heat between Mercury's core and its mantle,
[00:01:50] creating enough temperature difference to cause liquid iron to form, swirl, and generate a magnetic field.
[00:01:57] The planet Mercury is hypothesized to have formed just like the other terrestrial rocky worlds in our solar system.
[00:02:03] Initially through the condensation of gas into tiny grains in the protoplanetary disk,
[00:02:08] which then begin to cling together through electrostatic charge,
[00:02:11] and later through the accretion of larger particles gravitationally,
[00:02:15] forming a protoplanetary magma ocean, which eventually cools to form the planet.
[00:02:20] Now as the planet cooled and differentiated, heavy materials formed an unusually large metallic core,
[00:02:26] while lighter materials like silicon and carbon formed the planet's mantle and crust.
[00:02:32] This tiny, heavily created world has unusually light surface patches which NASA's messenger spacecraft
[00:02:38] identified as graphite, a form of carbon.
[00:02:41] But that high carbon content suggests that something unusual must have happened within the planet.
[00:02:46] Scientists thought the temperature and pressure of Mercury's mantle were high enough to allow carbon to form graphite,
[00:02:51] which being lighter than the rest of the mantle would have floated to the surface.
[00:02:56] But there are other studies which suggest that Mercury's mantle could be up to 140 km deeper than previously thought,
[00:03:02] and that would have increased the temperature and pressure at the boundary between the core and mantle.
[00:03:08] And that could have created the sorts of conditions where carbon could crystallize into diamond rather than graphite.
[00:03:15] One of the study's authors, Oliver Nemoor from KU Louverne says the diamond could have been formed by two processes.
[00:03:22] Firstly, through the crystallization of the magma ocean which then created a very thin diamond layer at the core mantle boundary,
[00:03:29] and secondly through the crystallization of part of the planet's core.
[00:03:33] Now to investigate this hypothesis, the authors created chemical simulations containing iron, silicon and carbon
[00:03:40] in compositions similar to certain meteorites which they think would have simulated the planet's magma ocean.
[00:03:46] Now they also included differing levels of iron sulfide in the mix, that's because Mercury's surface is also rich in sulfur.
[00:03:53] Then using a modable anvil press, the authors subjected these various mixtures to crushing pressures of 7 gigapascals.
[00:04:00] That's some 70,000 times the pressure of Earth's atmosphere at sea level,
[00:04:05] and temperatures of up to 1,970 degrees Celsius to simulate the sorts of conditions found deep inside the planet near the core mantle boundary.
[00:04:14] And they also used computer simulations to determine the physical conditions under which graphite or diamond would be stable.
[00:04:21] The experiments also showed that minerals such as olivine likely formed in the mantle, a finding that was consistent with previous studies.
[00:04:28] However, by adding sulfur it caused it all to solidify at much higher temperatures,
[00:04:33] and such conditions are more favorable for forming diamonds than graphite.
[00:04:39] And indeed the team's computer simulations showed that under these revised conditions, diamonds may have crystallized as Mercury's inner core solidified.
[00:04:48] And because the diamonds are less dense than the iron core, they then floated up to the core mantle boundary.
[00:04:54] Of course all this is hypothesis.
[00:04:57] A joint European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission called Beppi Colombo is now on its way to Mercury.
[00:05:05] Launched back in 2018, the multi-probe spacecraft is expected to achieve Mercury orbit insertion later next year.
[00:05:12] Needless to say, we'll be watching its results very closely.
[00:05:17] This is Space Time.
[00:05:20] Still to come, the brightest gamma ray burst of all time and more spectacular auroral activity seen across planet Earth as the sun nears closer to solar max.
[00:05:30] All that and more still to come on Space Time.
[00:05:35] Astronomers have identified a new feature in the boat, the brightest gamma ray burst of all time.
[00:05:55] A report in the journal Science claims NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope identified the feature in the brightest gamma ray burst ever seen.
[00:06:04] Back in October 2022, astronomers were stunned by what was quickly dubbed the boat, the brightest of all time gamma ray burst.
[00:06:12] And a few minutes after the boat erupted, Fermi's Gamma Ray Burst Monitor recorded an unusual energy peak.
[00:06:19] The studies lead author Maria Edvidge Ravazio from Radboud University says the energy peak surprised everyone.
[00:06:26] Ravazio's analysis shows it to be the highest confidence emission peak ever seen in 50 years of studying gamma ray bursts.
[00:06:34] See when matter interacts with light, the energy can be absorbed and then re-emitted in characteristic ways.
[00:06:41] These interactions can brighten or dim specific colors, really energies, producing key features when the light gets spread out rainbow like in a spectrum.
[00:06:51] And these features reveal a wealth of information including the chemical elements involved in the interaction.
[00:06:57] At higher energies, spectral features can uncover specific particle processes such as matter and antimatter annihilating each other to produce gamma rays.
[00:07:06] While some previous studies have reported possible evidence of absorption and emission features in other gamma ray bursts,
[00:07:13] subsequent studies have shown that these could have simply been statistical fluctuations.
[00:07:18] But what the authors saw in the boat was very different.
[00:07:22] In fact, the odds of this feature being nothing more than a noise fluctuation are less than one chance in half a billion.
[00:07:28] Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang itself.
[00:07:34] They emit copious amounts of gamma rays, the highest energy form of light.
[00:07:39] Most gamma ray bursts occur when the cause of massive stars exhaust their fuel supplies and then suddenly collapse,
[00:07:46] resulting in a massive shockwave and blast before everything is quickly sucked in again, forming a black hole.
[00:07:52] And matter falling into that black hole then powers oppositely directed particle jets that blast through the star's outer layers at close to the speed of light.
[00:08:01] Astronomers are able to detect these gamma ray bursts when one of these jets points almost directly towards the Earth.
[00:08:07] Now, the boat, formerly known as G-R-B-221009A erupted on October 9th, 2022 and properly saturated most of the gamma ray detectors in orbit, including those on Fermi.
[00:08:20] This therefore prevented them from measuring the most intense parts of the blast.
[00:08:25] Reconstructed observations coupled with statistical arguments suggest the boat, if part of the same population of gamma ray bursts as previously detected bursters,
[00:08:34] was likely the brightest burst to appear in Earth's skies in at least the last 10,000 years.
[00:08:40] Purity-divermission line appears almost 5 minutes after the burst was detected and well after it dimmed enough to end the saturation effects on Fermi.
[00:08:48] The line persisted for at least 40 seconds and the emission reached a peak energy of about 12 million electron volts.
[00:08:56] Now, for comparison, the energy of visible light ranges from 2 to 3 electron volts.
[00:09:01] So that begs the question, what produced this spectral feature?
[00:09:06] The author's thing the most likely source was the elimination of electrons in their antimatter counterparts positrons.
[00:09:12] When electrons, which are negatively charged and positrons, which are positively charged collide, they annihilate each other,
[00:09:19] producing a pair of gamma rays with an energy of around 0.511 megarelectron volts.
[00:09:25] And because the astronomers were looking into the jet where the matter is moving at close to light speed,
[00:09:30] the emission becomes greatly blue-shifted, pushed towards much higher energies.
[00:09:35] Now, if this interpretation is correct to produce an emission peaking at 12 megarelectron volts,
[00:09:40] the annihilating particles must have been moving towards us at around 99.9% the speed of light.
[00:09:46] What's amazing is after decades of studying these incredible cosmic explosions,
[00:09:50] scientists still don't fully understand the details of how these jets work.
[00:09:55] So finding clues like this remarkable emission line will help them investigate this extreme environment more deeply.
[00:10:02] This report from NASA TV.
[00:10:06] In late 2022, the brightest gamma ray burst ever seen shocked astronomers
[00:10:11] and even temporarily blinded many high-energy detectors in space.
[00:10:16] Now, a study of the first few minutes of this burst have found an important feature not seen before.
[00:10:23] Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the cosmos.
[00:10:27] One that occurred October 9th, 2022 was quickly dubbed the boat, the brightest of all time.
[00:10:33] Events like it may occur in Earth's skies only once every 10,000 years.
[00:10:39] As with most gamma ray bursts, the boat arose from the death of a massive star.
[00:10:44] When its core ran out of fuel, it collapsed, creating a black hole in the star's center.
[00:10:49] Matter swirled toward the black hole and some of it was thrown out along two jets moving near the speed of light.
[00:10:56] The jets drilled their way out of the star and blasted into space.
[00:11:00] We see a gamma ray burst when one of these jets happens to point almost directly at Earth.
[00:11:05] That happens somewhere in the sky almost every day.
[00:11:08] The closer to head on we view a jet, the brighter it appears.
[00:11:12] This, along with an unusually narrow jet, is what made the boat so exceptional.
[00:11:18] NASA's Fermi Observatory carries instruments specifically designed for studying these explosions.
[00:11:25] Its gamma ray burst monitor was saturated by the boat's initial flash, but was fine a few minutes later.
[00:11:31] And it's in that data, around five minutes into the event, that scientists found something new.
[00:11:37] It's an emission line, a narrow band of enhanced brightness and light spread out in a spectrum.
[00:11:43] It only lasted 40 seconds, but it's the first one ever seen with high confidence during a burst.
[00:11:49] It gives scientists insight into processes within parts of the jet where gamma rays,
[00:11:54] the highest energy form of light, come from.
[00:11:57] Researchers say it's likely produced by electrons in their antimatter twins, positrons,
[00:12:03] colliding and annihilating within the jet.
[00:12:06] Each collision produces a pair of gamma rays, but it also works backwards.
[00:12:10] Two gamma rays can collide to form an electron and a positron.
[00:12:15] In the jet's environment, both processes occur, so there are plenty of particles to go around.
[00:12:22] For this to explain what Fermi saw, the gamma rays had to have been shifted to higher energies by their motion.
[00:12:28] This is similar to a siren rising in pitch as it races toward us.
[00:12:33] To get that boost, the particles emitting the gamma ray line must have been moving at 99.9% the speed of light.
[00:12:43] After decades of studying GRBs, scientists know little about the processes within these incredible jets,
[00:12:49] yet they're a staple of the cosmos.
[00:12:52] Now Fermi has given us a brief glimpse inside.
[00:12:57] This space-time still to come more spectacular auroral activity seen across planet Earth,
[00:13:04] signifying solar max is getting closer and later in the science report,
[00:13:09] scientists discover the earliest man-made tools ever found in Europe.
[00:13:13] All that and more still to come on Space Time.
[00:13:31] The latest Sunspot figures for July have just been published,
[00:13:34] showing we now have the highest monthly average Sunspot activity for 20 years
[00:13:39] and some 50 points higher than the highest value at this time during the last solar cycle.
[00:13:44] All these activities triggered another solar storm lighting up planet Earth's skies
[00:13:49] with more spectacular auroral light shows.
[00:13:52] The colourful display was a repeat of that observed back in April and May this year
[00:13:56] as an extremely active group of sunspots traversed across the Earth's facing side of the Sun.
[00:14:01] Sunspots are cooler regions of the Sun's visible surface.
[00:14:05] They're caused by magnetic field lines from deep inside the Sun stretching out into space.
[00:14:11] Because different latitudes of the Sun rotate at different speeds,
[00:14:15] these magnetic field lines become stretched and twisted,
[00:14:18] eventually snapping and reconnecting exclusively, triggering violent bursts of energy
[00:14:23] called solar flares which can be powerful enough to fling magnetic field
[00:14:27] and solar plasma deep into space as coronal mass ejections.
[00:14:31] Now if these solar flares and coronal mass ejections erupt as they face the Earth,
[00:14:36] they can cause our planet's magnetic field to wobble like jello.
[00:14:40] And this is what we call a geomagnetic storm, more commonly referred to as space weather.
[00:14:46] Charged particles can penetrate the shielding usually provided by the Earth's magnetic field.
[00:14:51] That results in damage to spacecraft, it can affect communications and navigation systems,
[00:14:56] it can black out power grids on the Earth's surface,
[00:14:59] and it increases radiation exposure for astronauts and even people in high flying aircraft.
[00:15:04] The charged particles from these solar storms also travel along the Earth's magnetic field lines
[00:15:09] towards the planet's north and south magnetic poles.
[00:15:12] And as the streams of plasma travel through the Earth's upper atmosphere,
[00:15:16] they collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms and molecules, causing them to excite and emit photons,
[00:15:22] giving off a glow and producing colorful curtain-like displays known as the northern and southern lights,
[00:15:28] the aurora borealis and aurora straalis.
[00:15:31] The colors being emitted depend on which particles are being ionized.
[00:15:35] The reddish brown glows are caused by collisions of particles with single oxygen atoms
[00:15:40] in the Earth's upper atmosphere, usually higher than 300 km.
[00:15:44] Now lower down in the atmosphere, a green hue is created by single oxygen atoms being hit
[00:15:49] down to altitudes of around 100 km.
[00:15:52] And the kaleidoscope turns a whitish-yellow beige when nitrogen is mixed in with the oxygen.
[00:15:58] Aurora also exhibit blue, red and even purple glows in the lower atmosphere.
[00:16:03] That's caused by the excitation of molecular nitrogen below 100 km.
[00:16:08] Now all these space weather events tend to build up, becoming more and more frequent and violent
[00:16:13] as the sun reaches the climax of its 11-year solar cycle called Solar Maximum.
[00:16:18] The current solar cycle, 25, began back in 2019
[00:16:23] and it should reach Solar Maximum anytime from now through to the middle of next year.
[00:16:28] Over the past week or so, birth solar flares and coronal mass ejections have batted the Earth.
[00:16:33] That's triggered some spectacular auroral displays.
[00:16:36] They've been observed not just at higher latitudes where they normally occur,
[00:16:40] but even at lower down latitudes, well into the continental United States and the northern hemisphere.
[00:16:45] While south of the equator, areas as far north as Tasmania and southern Victoria and western Australia
[00:16:51] have also experienced the spectacular light shows.
[00:16:55] This is Space Time.
[00:16:58] And time that'll take another brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week
[00:17:18] with The Science Report.
[00:17:20] Scientists from Charles Darwin University have declared a global biodiversity tipping point
[00:17:25] has been reached with confirmation of the first marine fish extinctions.
[00:17:29] A species of ray so rare it's only ever been recorded once, that was in the late 1800s,
[00:17:35] has now been formally declared extinct following an assessment by an international team
[00:17:39] of marine biologists and environmental scientists.
[00:17:43] The loss of the Java sting aria, small relative of stingrays,
[00:17:47] is the first confirmed marine fish extinction directly attributable to human activity.
[00:17:52] The news comes as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
[00:17:56] released its latest updated red list of threatened species.
[00:18:00] The Java stingray was only known from a single specimen collected in 1862
[00:18:05] from a fish market in Chikarta.
[00:18:08] The study's authors conducted new modeling encompassing all available information on the species,
[00:18:12] which has revealed that the Java stingray is now in fact extinct.
[00:18:16] Scientists have blamed intensive and generally unregulated fishing
[00:18:20] resulting in the depletion of the Java stingray population
[00:18:23] with coastal fish catchers in the Java sea already declining by the 1870s.
[00:18:28] The northern coast of Java, particularly Java Bay where the species was known to occur
[00:18:33] is also heavily industrialized with extensive long-term habitat loss and degradation due to pollution.
[00:18:40] Scientists say that all these impacts were severe enough to unfortunately cause the extinction of the species.
[00:18:47] What that means for the rest of the ecosystem is yet to be realized.
[00:18:52] A new study claims that taking between 9 and 10,000 steps daily
[00:18:57] may counteract the risk of death and cardiovascular disease in highly sedentary people.
[00:19:03] The findings reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine
[00:19:06] looked at data on 72,174 Brits fitted with fitness trackers for a week.
[00:19:12] They found that every additional step up to around 10,000 per day
[00:19:16] reduced the risk of death and heart disease regardless of how much time was spent being sedentary.
[00:19:22] They calculated the optimal number of steps per day to counteract high sedentary time
[00:19:27] was between 9,000 and 10,000 which lowered the risk of premature death by 39%
[00:19:33] and heart disease by 21%.
[00:19:36] In both cases, 50% of the benefit was achieved at between 4,000 and 4,500 steps per day.
[00:19:43] Now the authors acknowledged that this type of study can't prove cause and effect
[00:19:48] but they say people with sedentary lifestyles such as office workers
[00:19:52] may benefit from any amount of daily steps above say 2,200.
[00:19:58] Archaeologists have discovered the earliest man-made tools ever found in Europe.
[00:20:02] A report in the journal Nature claims artifacts from an archaeological dig site
[00:20:07] at Koroliv on the Ukraine are estimated to be around 1.4 million years old
[00:20:12] making them the earliest securely dated evidence for the presence of early hominids in Europe.
[00:20:18] The authors were able to estimate the age of the mud in which the artifacts
[00:20:21] including stone tools were buried.
[00:20:24] They also investigated what conditions would have been like back there at that time
[00:20:28] and they believe these early humans probably exploited warmer weather periods
[00:20:32] between ice ages to move into more mountainous areas.
[00:20:37] Social media companies have grown to become some of the most powerful media forces on the planet.
[00:20:43] Their influence is now all empowering
[00:20:46] but time and time again they've used that power to spread lies
[00:20:50] and manipulate the public for political gain.
[00:20:53] Social media claim they're nothing more than a village town square
[00:20:57] but in fact they're actually acting like publishers editorializing on issues
[00:21:02] and if that's the case shouldn't they be treated as such under the same laws as regular publishers?
[00:21:08] With the details we're joined by technology editor Alex Zaharov-Royd from TechAdvice.life
[00:21:14] Well, absolutely. I mean social media organizations are indeed publishers
[00:21:18] they're publishing things all the time on X for example you actually now have GROC
[00:21:22] which is summarizing a whole bunch of news items in its news section for you to have a look at
[00:21:26] I mean they're publishing news. Social media organizations use the cover of not being publishers
[00:21:32] to be able to skirt around the First Amendment in the US where freedom of speech is guaranteed.
[00:21:38] Does that tell you something about the power they have over politicians?
[00:21:41] Well it certainly does yeah, I mean no politician wants to be censored, cancelled
[00:21:46] or otherwise besmirched by these social media giants
[00:21:49] but there needs to be some sort of reckoning where these organizations are treated
[00:21:54] like everybody else in terms of the First Amendment being paramount
[00:21:58] I mean 1984 the famous novel by George Orwell I mean it's been said many times
[00:22:02] that was meant to be a piece of fiction not an instruction manual
[00:22:05] I mean people are still being banned off YouTube
[00:22:08] How is Google and YouTube allowed to do those sorts of things?
[00:22:12] YouTube have a long history of corrupt fact checkers they don't check facts
[00:22:15] they're pushing their own political agenda
[00:22:17] And that's why you've seen a big upsurge in people using rumble and bit-shoot
[00:22:22] and Odyssey and variety on YouTube is no longer the only platform
[00:22:27] The phone market's gone up in value?
[00:22:29] Yes well over the second quarter of 2024 phone sales are up 12%
[00:22:34] So some of the downturns in sales we saw in 2023 because inflation was spiking
[00:22:40] and you know the cost of products was going up it seems to have moderated somewhat
[00:22:43] Apple's iPhones are top of the charts in every major area except France
[00:22:47] where the Galaxy A15 which has decidedly a mid-range or even lower end phone
[00:22:52] is selling whereas Apple's phones are all premium devices
[00:22:55] and of course the big search in sales of AI powered phones is starting to happen
[00:23:00] I mean Samsung launched their AI phones earlier this year
[00:23:03] they now have the second generation of AI devices with the fold and flip
[00:23:06] sixth generation Google's new phones come on August 13
[00:23:09] it's no secret they've publicly announced themselves
[00:23:11] and of course Apple's phones with Apple intelligence will be arriving with the iPhone 16 range
[00:23:16] in September and the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max will be able to use the AI goodness too
[00:23:21] when it launches later this year although most of the features won't launch until 2025
[00:23:25] Yeah well we're talking about Apple they've just launched 17.6 their latest iOS
[00:23:30] and also there's a beta 18 version out as well
[00:23:32] Yeah with 17.6 you've got one of the US cyber agencies advising people to update
[00:23:37] as soon as they can there are 35 vulnerabilities that have been closed
[00:23:40] and if you are using an older version of iOS or even you know you're not using the latest version
[00:23:45] which is 17.6 you know the hackers can break into those phones
[00:23:50] they can do infected websites to try and force your phone to download something
[00:23:54] and trick you into tapping the okay button
[00:23:56] and then the hackers can be spying on you looking at getting apps to look for private information
[00:24:01] and they've been told not to I mean in theory they can turn on your camera and microphone
[00:24:05] so definitely if you've got any Apple device iPhone iPad Mac Apple Watch Apple TV etc
[00:24:10] check for an update and then with iOS 18 the beta versions are out
[00:24:14] but there's also now 18.1 as a special developer version
[00:24:18] very unusual to have an 18.1 before the actual 18.0 was even out
[00:24:22] but this is introducing the new Apple intelligence features
[00:24:25] which allow you to rewrite content and summarize it
[00:24:27] eventually you'll be able to also do the image generation
[00:24:30] you can also now do the phone call recording and get a transcription and a summary
[00:24:33] but again this is only for the developer version and if you're not a developer
[00:24:36] it's not a good idea to put it on because it will make your phone unstable
[00:24:40] but plenty of people are giving it a shot and of course developers are loving it
[00:24:43] because they can now start playing with all of the Apple intelligence features
[00:24:46] or at least the subset of them and again you know many of the features
[00:24:49] will be rolling out over the rest of this year when it finally launches
[00:24:52] That's Alex Sahar of Royte from Take Advice.
[00:24:56] And that's the show for now.
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