Spiral Galaxy's Ancient Order, Earth's Mantle Mystery, and Hera's Asteroid Adventure

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime, Series 27, Episode 125, for broadcast on the 16th of October 2024.

[00:00:07] Coming up on SpaceTime, discovery the most distant spiral galaxy ever seen, a record-breaking

[00:00:14] recovery of rocks that originated deep inside the Earth's mantle, and the European Space Agency's

[00:00:20] Hera asteroid mission launches from Cape Canaveral. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime.

[00:00:27] Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:47] Astronomers have discovered the most distant spiral galaxy ever seen. The galaxy, catalogued

[00:00:53] as Rebels 25, seems to be every bit as orderly as present-day spiral galaxies. But it's being

[00:00:59] observed some 13.1 billion years ago. That's a time when the universe was only 700 million

[00:01:05] years old. The findings, reported in the monthly notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, are

[00:01:10] surprising. That's because, according to science's current understanding of galactic formation,

[00:01:15] such early galaxies are expected to appear far more chaotic. The rotation and structure of Rebels 25

[00:01:21] were revealed using ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array Radio Telescope

[00:01:27] in Chile's Atacama Desert. One of the study's authors, Jacqueline Hodge from Leiden University,

[00:01:33] says the galaxies we see today have come a long way from their chaotic, clumpy counterparts,

[00:01:38] which astronomers typically observe in the early universe. Scientists expect most early galaxies to

[00:01:44] be small and messy looking. These messy early galaxies then merge with each other, and then

[00:01:49] gradually, over billions of years, they evolve into smooth shapes. Current theories suggest that,

[00:01:56] for a galaxy to be as orderly as, we'll say, our own spiral galaxy in the Milky Way, a rotating

[00:02:01] disk with tidy structures like elegant sweeping spiral arms, billions of years of evolution must have

[00:02:07] elapsed. However, the detection of Rebels 25 challenges that timescale. Rebels 25 was initially

[00:02:14] detected in a previous observation by the same team, also using ALMA. At the time, it was already

[00:02:20] considered an exciting discovery, showing hints of rotation. But the resolution of the data wasn't

[00:02:26] fine enough to be sure. So, to properly discern the structure and motion of the galaxy, the authors

[00:02:31] performed follow-up observations at higher resolutions, and that confirmed its record-breaking nature.

[00:02:38] Surprisingly, the data has also hinted at more developed features similar to those in the Milky

[00:02:42] Way, like a central elongated bar, although more observations will be needed to confirm this.

[00:02:48] The bottom line is, these new observations of Rebels 25 are transforming science's understanding of

[00:02:55] early galaxy formation, and consequently, the evolution of the universe as a whole.

[00:03:00] This is Space Time.

[00:03:03] Still to come, the record-breaking recovery of rocks that originated in the Earth's mantle,

[00:03:08] and the European Space Agency's HERA asteroid mission finally launches from Cape Canaveral.

[00:03:14] All that and more still to come, on Space Time.

[00:03:33] Scientists have recovered the first ever long section of rocks that originated in the Earth's mantle.

[00:03:39] The mantle is the layer below the crust and the planet's largest component, making up about

[00:03:44] 80% of the Earth's volume.

[00:03:46] The retrieval of these new rocks will help unravel the mantle's role in the origins of life on

[00:03:52] Earth, how it drives global cycles of important elements such as carbon and hydrogen, and how

[00:03:58] volcanic activity is generated when parts of the mantle melt.

[00:04:02] The nearly continuous 1,268 metres of mantle rock were recovered from what's called a tectonic window,

[00:04:09] that's a section of seabed where rocks from the mantle were exposed along the Atlantic's mid-ocean ridge.

[00:04:14] The expedition was undertaken by the ocean drilling vessel Geordi's resolution last year.

[00:04:20] With attempts dating all the way back to the early 1960s, this recovery was a record-breaking achievement,

[00:04:26] led by the International Oceans Discovery Programme, a marine research consortium involving more than 20 countries

[00:04:32] that retrieves cores, cylindrical samples of sediment and rock from the ocean floor, in order to study Earth's history.

[00:04:39] Since its successful collection, the expedition has been compiling an inventory of the recovered mantle rocks,

[00:04:45] in order to better understand their composition, structure and context.

[00:04:48] And their findings, reported in the journal Science, are revealing a more extensive history of melting in the recovered rocks

[00:04:55] than what was expected.

[00:04:56] The study's lead author, Johann Leisenberg from Cardiff University,

[00:05:00] says this recovery is a major achievement in the history of Earth sciences.

[00:05:04] But more than that, its value is in what the cause of mantle rocks tells us

[00:05:08] about the make-up and evolution of our planet.

[00:05:11] The study begins to look at the composition of the mantle by documenting the mineralogy of the recovered rocks,

[00:05:16] as well as their chemical make-up.

[00:05:18] And the results differ from what was expected.

[00:05:21] There's a lot less of the mineral pyroxene in the rocks than what was thought there would be,

[00:05:26] and the rocks also have far higher concentrations than expected of magnesium.

[00:05:31] Now both of these are the results of higher levels of melting than what had been previously predicted.

[00:05:36] This melting occurs as the mantle rises from deeper parts of the Earth towards the surface.

[00:05:42] As it moves up to the surface, pressure is relieved and the solid mantle starts to liquefy.

[00:05:47] The results from further analysis of this process will have major implications

[00:05:51] for understanding how magma is formed and how that leads to volcanism.

[00:05:55] The authors also found channels through which the melt was transported through the mantle,

[00:05:59] and so they were able to track the fate of magma after it formed

[00:06:03] and travelled upwards towards the surface.

[00:06:05] This is important because it tells science how the mantle melts and feeds volcanoes,

[00:06:10] especially those on the ocean floor, which accounts for the majority of volcanism on Earth.

[00:06:14] Having access to these mantle rocks will now allow scientists to make the connection

[00:06:19] between volcanoes and the ultimate source of their magmas.

[00:06:23] The study also provides initial results on how olivine, an abundant mineral in mantle rocks,

[00:06:28] reacts with seawater, leading to a series of chemical reactions

[00:06:32] that end up producing hydrogen and other molecules which can fuel life.

[00:06:36] In fact, scientists believe that this might have been one of the underpinning processes

[00:06:40] which resulted in the origins of life on Earth.

[00:06:44] Rocks that were present early on Earth bear a closer resemblance to those retrieved during this expedition

[00:06:50] than the more common rocks that make up the continents today.

[00:06:53] So analysing them gives scientists a crucial view of the chemical and physical environments

[00:06:58] that would have been present early in Earth's history,

[00:07:01] and that could have provided a consistent source of fuel

[00:07:04] and favourable conditions over geologically long timescales

[00:07:07] to have hosted the very earliest forms of life.

[00:07:10] And that's worth thinking about.

[00:07:13] This is Space Time.

[00:07:15] Still to come, Europe's Hera asteroid mission launches into space,

[00:07:19] and later in the science report,

[00:07:21] a new highly transmissible version of COVID-19 has arrived in Australia.

[00:07:26] All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:07:45] SpaceX have managed to sneak in the launch of the European Space Agency's

[00:07:48] Hera asteroid inspection mission just hours before

[00:07:51] the Milton the Monster Show Hurricanes slammed into Florida.

[00:07:55] However, while they were able to get Hera off into space,

[00:07:58] they were forced to scrub plans to also launch NASA's Europa Clipper mission

[00:08:02] to the Jovian Ice Moon because of the approaching Category 5 tropical cyclone.

[00:08:07] SpaceX got the approval to launch the Falcon 9,

[00:08:10] which had been grounded since late September's Crew 9 mission

[00:08:12] to the International Space Station

[00:08:14] because of an issue with the Falcon 9's upper stage

[00:08:16] missing its intended re-entry target.

[00:08:18] The FAA approved the Hera mission

[00:08:21] as its launch wasn't going to feature a second stage re-entry.

[00:08:25] The mission was flown from Space Launch Complex 40

[00:08:28] at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

[00:08:29] just a day before Milton began to make its presence felt along the Gulf Coast.

[00:08:34] It was also the 23rd and final launch for the same first stage booster,

[00:08:38] which needed to use up all its fuel

[00:08:40] in order to place Hera into its interplanetary transfer orbit.

[00:08:43] All systems are go. Let's listen in to terminal count.

[00:08:46] LD, go for launch.

[00:08:47] Falcon 9 transports the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft into space.

[00:08:52] T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

[00:09:02] Ignition. Engine's full power.

[00:09:04] And liftoff. Go Hera. Go Falcon. Go SpaceX.

[00:09:08] Vehicle is pitching downrange.

[00:09:10] Stage 1 propulsion is nominal.

[00:09:12] At 2 plus 30 seconds and counting,

[00:09:14] Falcon 9 has successfully lifted off from Slick 40.

[00:09:17] After clearing the tire, we begin to tilt or gimbal the engines.

[00:09:21] That initiates a roll maneuver.

[00:09:22] This enables the vehicle's antennas to stay in the best position

[00:09:25] for communicating with the ground.

[00:09:27] We are into throttle down now in preparation for Max Dynamic Aero.

[00:09:31] Falcon is supersonic.

[00:09:33] Faster than a speeding bullet.

[00:09:34] We're supersonic on Falcon 9.

[00:09:36] Waiting for the call out from GNC of Max Q.

[00:09:39] Max Q.

[00:09:40] Right on time.

[00:09:41] We're through the period of maximum pressure on the vehicle.

[00:09:44] The Merlin engines are back at power, and we're out of the throttle bucket.

[00:09:47] Now, from here on, even though the velocity is rapidly increasing,

[00:09:51] the atmospheric density is decreasing, and that's resulting on less loads on the Falcon 9.

[00:09:56] 90 seconds into flight.

[00:09:57] The rocket typically needs to go 17,500 miles per hour horizontally in order to avoid gravity

[00:10:04] and pulling it back down to Earth and getting into orbit.

[00:10:07] We've heard the call out for MVAC chill.

[00:10:09] That's a bleed valve on the second stage engine.

[00:10:11] That's performing the final chill prior to second stage engine ignition.

[00:10:14] All's looking good with the first stage trajectory.

[00:10:17] We're coming up on T plus 2 minutes.

[00:10:19] Now, we've got three events that will be coming up in just under 30 seconds.

[00:10:22] Main engine cutoff.

[00:10:23] The nine Merlin engines will be throttled down and shut down.

[00:10:26] Then we'll get stage separation and then start up of the MVAC engine on its first of two burns on the second stage.

[00:10:33] We've begun throttling down the Merlin engines.

[00:10:35] Main engine cutoff.

[00:10:36] Call for MECO.

[00:10:37] Stage separation.

[00:10:38] Successful stage separation.

[00:10:40] MVAC ignition.

[00:10:41] MVAC ignition and weapon power on stage two.

[00:10:44] Coming up will be fairing deployment.

[00:10:47] And for the first stage, farewell 1061.

[00:10:49] And we thank you.

[00:10:50] As we continue climbing out of Earth's atmosphere.

[00:10:53] Fairing separation.

[00:10:54] And successful payload fairing separation.

[00:10:57] As we mentioned earlier, the fairing halves have supported multiple missions.

[00:11:02] One half has flown 12, now 13 missions.

[00:11:05] And the other had previously flown 18.

[00:11:08] And those firing halves will come back down to Earth.

[00:11:10] They're guided by cold gas thrusters and then parachutes or parafoils.

[00:11:15] Falcon is on a nominal trajectory.

[00:11:17] They'll deploy and they'll be recovered by our recovery vessel, Doug.

[00:11:21] Jesse, T plus 4 minutes 23 seconds.

[00:11:24] Everything continues to look good on Falcon 9 with Hera.

[00:11:27] A 1,128 kilogram Harris spacecraft is now on a two-year journey to the near-Earth asteroid

[00:11:33] Dimorphos and its tiny moon Didymos.

[00:11:36] Didymos was the target of NASA's DART double asteroid redirection test, which was designed

[00:11:41] to slam and impact a spacecraft into an asteroid to see whether it could be deflected onto a

[00:11:46] different trajectory.

[00:11:47] The DART spacecraft hit Didymos on September 26, 2022, altering its orbit around Dimorphos,

[00:11:53] shortening it by 32 minutes and leaving a massive crater and debris cloud in its wake.

[00:11:59] The test marked the first time that humanity had demonstrated its ability to deflect an asteroid,

[00:12:05] thereby providing proof of concept that we just might be able to protect the Earth from

[00:12:09] potential asteroid impact by altering the asteroid's path.

[00:12:13] Of course, that's if we know about the asteroid early enough.

[00:12:16] Hera, together with its two CubeSats, Milani and Juventus, will undertake an extensive forensic

[00:12:22] evaluation of exactly what happened in the wake of the DART impact.

[00:12:26] The mission will help answer outstanding questions, such as the exact mass and composition

[00:12:31] of Dimorphos, the structural effects of the impact, the size of the crater formed by the collision,

[00:12:36] and analysis of the expanding debris cloud caused by the impact, and whether Dimorphos

[00:12:40] might actually have been fractured by the collision and is now only held together

[00:12:44] by weak gravity.

[00:12:46] The two CubeSats will help with the study and eventually land on the asteroid.

[00:12:51] This report from ESA-TV.

[00:12:54] Two years ago, NASA made history by intentionally slamming into an asteroid with its DART mission.

[00:13:01] The asteroid wasn't a threat to us here on Earth, but scientists wanted to see if they

[00:13:06] could change the path of an asteroid to test a technique that could one day protect us from

[00:13:11] a real threat.

[00:13:12] The experiment was a success.

[00:13:15] Humans can move an asteroid.

[00:13:17] But the bad news is that scientists aren't sure yet they understand why it worked.

[00:13:22] There is still a lot we don't know, like what exactly happened on the asteroid surface

[00:13:27] after the impact, what the asteroid is made of and how well the deflection worked.

[00:13:34] Hera spacecraft will light that same asteroid to answer all of our questions.

[00:13:39] Hera will perform a close-up crash scene investigation, gathering data on the asteroid's mass, structure

[00:13:46] and makeup to turn this kinetic impact method of planetary defence into a well-understood

[00:13:52] and repeatable technique.

[00:13:56] Why do we need to protect our planet?

[00:13:58] In 1908, people reported a bright flash and a noise that sounded like a bomb 10 minutes

[00:14:04] later.

[00:14:05] This was from the largest observed asteroid strike ever recorded, which occurred over the

[00:14:10] Tanguska region in Siberia.

[00:14:12] People up to 500 miles away reported seeing the flash.

[00:14:16] Some claimed it was even brighter than the sun.

[00:14:19] The explosion was massive, causing 80 million trees to flatten, windows up to 250 miles away

[00:14:26] to smash and the effects of the shockwave could even be felt in London.

[00:14:30] This represented a lucky escape for Europe. It happened just a short distance from affecting

[00:14:36] heavily populated regions. As a result, ESA, NASA and other space agencies started closely

[00:14:43] monitoring space to track potentially dangerous asteroids.

[00:14:47] So far, we have found more than 35,000 asteroids whose orbits bring them dangerously close to Earth.

[00:14:53] But if one was on a collision course with us, what could we do?

[00:14:58] To answer this question, an international team came up with the first planetary defence mission.

[00:15:04] DART to hit the asteroid and HERA to gather data after the impact.

[00:15:11] Knowing there are so many asteroids that could be a danger to us, how did we pick one to explore?

[00:15:17] The asteroid that DART hit and that our HERA spacecraft will now visit is called Dimorphos.

[00:15:23] It's a small asteroid, about half the size of the Ophel Tower, but if it impacted Earth,

[00:15:29] it could devastate a small country or city. Dimorphos orbits a larger asteroid called

[00:15:35] Didymus, which HERA will also visit. Together, the two asteroids form the Didymus system.

[00:15:41] Here are some of the reasons why scientists decided to explore the Didymus system among all the asteroids out there.

[00:15:48] The two asteroids are not a real threat to Earth, so nudging one of them wouldn't accidentally set it on a crash course to Earth.

[00:15:56] The system passes relatively close to Earth, so they are not impossible to get to.

[00:16:02] The 150 metre diameter of Dimorphos is important.

[00:16:06] We know about 95% of all near-Earth objects larger than one kilometre in size,

[00:16:12] but the majority of smaller asteroids are yet to be discovered, despite their city-killing potential.

[00:16:19] Since Dimorphos orbits Didymus, we can easily see any changes in its orbit from Earth.

[00:16:25] So, what are we expecting to see on Dimorphos? We asked one of our experts, Patrick Michel,

[00:16:32] the principal investigator of the HERA mission, to find out more.

[00:16:36] So, what do we expect to find on Dimorphos? That's a big question. Actually, we don't really know,

[00:16:41] because the DART mission by NASA made an impact on Dimorphos, and based on the current data that we

[00:16:47] have from this mission, there are different solutions. So, Dimorphos may host a crater whose size is unknown,

[00:16:55] or it could be completely reshaped. Prior to DART's impact, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes

[00:17:02] to orbit its large apparent asteroid. Since the collision, astronomers have found that the

[00:17:08] spacecraft's impact altered Dimorphos' orbit around Didymus by 33 minutes, shortening the orbit to 11

[00:17:15] hours and 22 minutes. The mission was deemed a large success, but to learn more about these

[00:17:21] asteroids' physical properties, and DART's impact outcome, we need to visit them. Initially, we thought

[00:17:28] that when DART crashed into Dimorphos, it would create a big impact crater, potentially the first

[00:17:33] one ever made by humans. But now, scientists think there might not be a crater on Dimorphos after all.

[00:17:40] More recent simulations suggest the impact might have completely changed the asteroids'

[00:17:45] shape. Scientists estimate that around 8% of the asteroid's mass was shifted around its body,

[00:17:51] and 1% of the entire mass of Dimorphos was thrown into space, some of which may reach us here at

[00:17:58] Earth as small meteoroids. So the DART impact generated a lot of ejecta, a lot of material that is still,

[00:18:06] you know, escaping from the system at tens of thousands of kilometers from Dimorphos. And it may be

[00:18:12] that some small particles eventually reach Mars or the Earth, but in the form of shooting stars,

[00:18:18] like what you see in the sky during the night, so with no risk. We don't know what it looks like now,

[00:18:24] so there's going to be a lot of surprises. I'm so excited because in two years we will have the answer.

[00:18:30] Crater or no crater, we need to go back to Dimorphos to study the aftermath of the impact.

[00:18:35] This will help us turn the DART deflection experiment into a well understood, repeatable technique that might

[00:18:41] one day be needed for real. So, we know it will take us two years to reach the asteroids after launch,

[00:18:49] but how do we get there? On its way, Hera will make a swing by of Mars in March 2025, borrowing speed to

[00:18:58] help reach its destination. In the process, Hera will get us close as 6,000 kilometers from the surface of

[00:19:05] the red planet, closer than the orbits of the two Martian moons. Hera's trajectory will be tweaked so

[00:19:14] that it can train its science instruments onto Mars' smaller moon, Dimorphos, for less than 1,000

[00:19:19] kilometers away, a practice run for when it reaches the asteroid system while also observing Mars itself.

[00:19:26] A second deep space maneuver in February 2026 will line Hera up for arrival at the Didymus system.

[00:19:36] Hera will have an impulsive rendezvous with the system in October 2026, meaning it will be captured by

[00:19:43] their gravity and begin to orbit. Didymus' gravity is estimated to be around 40,000 times weaker than Earth's,

[00:19:52] while Dimorphos' is approximately 200,000 times weaker. This is so low that Hera must orbit around their

[00:20:00] common center of gravity at very low velocity to remain captured. To maintain the optimal distance for

[00:20:08] studying the asteroids, Hera's orbit will need regular adjustments, otherwise the spacecraft could

[00:20:14] gradually drift away from them. The possibility of Hera touching down on one of the poles of Didymus at the

[00:20:20] end of its mission is being considered. Although it has not been specifically designed for landing,

[00:20:26] it could descend towards the surface. However, on the surface, Hera will no longer be able to

[00:20:31] communicate with us on Earth, effectively bringing the mission to an end.

[00:20:37] What types of technology do we need to inspect an asteroid?

[00:20:41] Although Hera itself may not land on the asteroid, it is packed with new technologies which will allow us to

[00:20:47] study the asteroid in extraordinary detail. Hera carries a total of 12 instruments to explore the Didymus

[00:20:55] system. It has a state-of-the-art camera which will take detailed pictures of the asteroids,

[00:21:01] a laser altimeter which will create a map of the asteroid's surface, a camera which can look at the

[00:21:08] asteroids in different colors of light to find out exactly what they're made of, a radio science experiment

[00:21:14] which can use radio waves to figure out the mass and gravity of the asteroids.

[00:21:19] To explore Dimorphos and Didymus, Hera doesn't go by itself. Instead, the spacecraft carries two

[00:21:26] shoebox-sized CubeSats that resemble terrestrial drones, able to fly closer and take more risks and

[00:21:33] eventually even land. And the reason why we bring these CubeSats is because we want to go at very close

[00:21:39] proximity of the asteroid and we don't want to pose any risk to the main spacecraft. And these two CubeSats

[00:21:45] will contain their own instruments and for the first time, for instance, will be able to probe

[00:21:51] the internal property of an asteroid which has never been done so far and that's on the Juventus CubeSat.

[00:21:57] On the second CubeSat, Milani, will measure the mineralogical composition of the asteroid

[00:22:02] and detect whether there is still dust around the body.

[00:22:07] The two CubeSats, called Juventus and Milani, will get up close and personal with the asteroid.

[00:22:13] Juventus will use radar sending out radio waves that will bounce off the asteroids and come back.

[00:22:19] By measuring how long it takes for the waves to return, we will be able to tell how far away the

[00:22:24] asteroid is at any given point and even what shape it is. More importantly, it will allow us to explore

[00:22:32] what an asteroid is like on the inside for the first time. Is Dimorphos a rubble pile or a monolith

[00:22:38] covered with pebbles and gravels? Once it has inspected both asteroids, it will then descend to

[00:22:45] Dimorphos' surface to take detailed pictures of the surface features, including hopefully the exact spot

[00:22:51] of the dart impact. Once on the ground, it will use a gravimeter to increase our knowledge of the gravity

[00:22:58] field of the asteroid. The other CubeSat, Milani, will measure the mineralogical composition of the

[00:23:04] asteroid and will analyse any surrounding dust. Later on, it will also attempt a landing on Dimorphos.

[00:23:11] Its onboard instruments will gather valuable data on the landing and any subsequent bounces to give insights

[00:23:18] into the surface properties of the asteroid. If Milani lands safely, its Vista instruments will analyse

[00:23:25] the dust on Dimorphos' surface. By the end of the six-month exploration by these three spacecraft,

[00:23:32] scientists will have a better understanding of the delicate art of asteroid deflection and asteroid

[00:23:38] impacts will become the first avoidable natural disaster. At first glance, an asteroid is just a tiny

[00:23:45] dot of light in the sky. We require more observations to see if it is a real threat.

[00:23:52] Planetary defence is a global problem and therefore we need to be able to work together with other

[00:23:57] space agencies to protect our planet, and HERA is the perfect demonstration of that.

[00:24:04] However, as mentioned earlier, SpaceX's second scheduled launch of the week,

[00:24:08] NASA's Europa Clipper mission from the Kennedy Space Centre's Launch Complex 39A,

[00:24:12] had to be scrubbed until Hurricane Milton had passed. The giant triple core stage Falcon Heavy was

[00:24:18] safely secured inside SpaceX's hangar at 39A to ride out the storm. NASA have also delayed the

[00:24:25] planned return of Crew-8 aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour from the International Space Station

[00:24:30] because of Milton. This is Space Time. And time now to take another brief look at some of the other

[00:24:52] stories making news in science this week with the science report. A new highly transmissible variant of

[00:24:58] the COVID-19 virus has been detected in Australia. The new XEC strain has already been reported in 29

[00:25:05] countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and China. XEC is a recombinant COVID-19 variant.

[00:25:13] That means it's a mixture of two previous Omicron sub-variants, KS1.1 and KP3.3,

[00:25:20] and it's resulted in a change in the virus's spike protein. That's made the disease more transmissible.

[00:25:26] The new strain is thought to have originated in Germany back in May. Last month, the World

[00:25:31] Health Organization classified XEC as a variant under monitoring, and the strain's already making

[00:25:37] between 5 and 10 percent of Australian COVID-19 cases. The World Health Organization says over 7

[00:25:44] million people have now been killed by the COVID-19 coronavirus since it was first detected among

[00:25:49] workers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology back in September 2019. However, the Lancet Medical

[00:25:56] Journal estimates the true death toll to be above 18 million, with some 780 million confirmed cases globally.

[00:26:05] The consumer advocacy group CHOICE has discovered that car manufacturers are not only spying on you when

[00:26:11] you're in your car, recording everything you do, but most of them are willfully passing that data

[00:26:15] onto government and law enforcement. The CHOICE investigation found most of Australia's popular

[00:26:21] makes of car collect and share data ranging from fuel usage to how you accelerate, how you apply your

[00:26:27] brakes, how fast you take corners, and just about every other aspect of your driving, even where you're going.

[00:26:32] Worse still, some are recording what you're saying in your car, who you're calling, who's calling you,

[00:26:38] the content of your smartphones, and even videoing what's going on inside the car.

[00:26:43] And it turns out it's not just your car that's spying on you. Even things like your robotic

[00:26:48] vacuum cleaner and other smart electronics at home, pretty well everything connected to the

[00:26:52] Internet of Things is doing the same. It seems that manufacturers are collecting super

[00:26:58] intimate information about you, everything from your medical details and genetic information to your

[00:27:03] sex life, the sort of songs you like, and the sort of questions you ask Siri, Google or whatever.

[00:27:09] It's huge amounts of data, and it's all being used to make detailed profiles of you through inferences

[00:27:15] about things like your intelligence, your abilities, and your interests. And you can forget privacy and

[00:27:21] consent clauses, they're next to useless. Meaning right now, without government legislation to stop it,

[00:27:26] there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Well, it turns out deactivating your Facebook

[00:27:32] social media account really does increase your well-being. However, according to the new study

[00:27:37] reported in the Journal of the Royal Society Open Science, it also reduces your political knowledge.

[00:27:43] The findings are based on research involving 1,117 people who voluntarily deactivated their Facebook

[00:27:49] accounts during the 2022 French presidential elections. The authors surveyed the participants

[00:27:55] about their mood and well-being, political knowledge, and their level of political and social

[00:27:59] polarization during the election. They then compared those results with a further 1,129 people who did not

[00:28:07] deactivate their accounts. They found that people who had deactivated their Facebook accounts reported

[00:28:12] having slightly higher well-being but lower political knowledge. However, they did find that people's

[00:28:19] level of political and social polarization did not change despite deactivating their Facebook account.

[00:28:25] Chip maker AMD have just released their new AI chips, setting new standards in the amount of

[00:28:30] calculations they can do. With the details, we're joined by technology editor Alex Sahar of Royt from

[00:28:36] TechAdvice.life.

[00:28:37] So, AMD has been around for 50 years, as long as Intel, and they're the big competitor. Their chips are used

[00:28:44] in Tesla cars. They're powering the PlayStation and Xbox games consoles. And if you go into one of the

[00:28:49] regular stores, you'll see computers with the Intel inside chip and also the Ryzen chip, which is their

[00:28:55] version of the Intel chips that have been powering computers. And they are ahead of Intel with the AI built

[00:29:02] in to the chip itself. So, the measure of the speed of the neural processing unit or NPU, which does all

[00:29:10] the AI grant work, the minimum required for Microsoft's co-pilot plus PC standard is 40 tops or trillion

[00:29:17] operations per second. And Qualcomm, which makes the chips that go into most of the Android smartphones,

[00:29:22] their chip that runs Windows computers does 45 trillion operations per second. Intel is 48, but AMD is

[00:29:30] 50 and their high-end ones are 55 trillion operations per second. And this just means that the responsiveness,

[00:29:36] when you ask your computer to do something AI related, like compose text or rewrite it or

[00:29:41] create images or other things that AI allows you to do, it's just faster and more responsive. And

[00:29:46] look, in a few years, we'll be at 100 trillion operators per second and more. But AMD isn't just

[00:29:50] doing the chips for the laptops and desktops, but they're also doing chips for servers and for the data

[00:29:57] center. And the big company that most people know is Nvidia. Nvidia makes the H100 chip that is

[00:30:03] powering ChatGPT and Microsoft co-pilot. But last year, AMD launched its, what's known as the

[00:30:08] Instinct MI300X processor. That was their first one. And they committed at Computex, the big show in

[00:30:15] Taiwan, the tech show, that they would have an annual cadence of updates. And so they announced that the

[00:30:21] MI325X was coming this year. And the announcement happened at this conference that I'm at where the

[00:30:27] MI325X will be available to the companies now and it'll be shipping in early 2025. And it's about 1.8

[00:30:34] times faster than the H200 chips, the more advanced chips that Nvidia launched earlier this year. So if

[00:30:41] you're looking at a computer, then have a look at the ones with the AMD Ryzen chip inside, because

[00:30:47] they're faster than Intel, they operate with lower power requirements, they generate less heat,

[00:30:52] and they're usually cheaper. So it's good to have competition and choice. And it pushes all the

[00:30:56] manufacturers, Qualcomm, Intel themselves, Apple and Samsung and everybody else to do better. And it's

[00:31:02] good to see competition happening in this space. That's Alex Sahar of Royd from techadvice.life.

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