S27E136: Magnetars' Mysterious Birth, Voyager's Light Day Journey, and Australia's Satellite Setback

Transcript

This is Space Times series 27 episode 136 for broadcast on Remembrance Day, the 11th of November, 2024.
Coming up on Space Time, discovering the origins of magnetars.
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft about to reach one light day away from Earth,
and Australia acts as a vital military satellite defense system.
All that and more coming up on Space Time!
Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary!
A new study suggests that highly magnetic neutron stars known as magnetars
are actually born out of stellar mergers,
rather than single star supernova events.
The findings reported in the journal Nature follows new research into the origins of fast
radio bursts. Fast radio bursts or FRBs are sudden high-energy flashes at very specific wavelengths,
lasting just nanoseconds and usually originating at cosmic distances.
But in that time, they can release more energy than half a billion suns.
The first fast radio burst was discovered back in 2007 that was in data from the
Park's radio telescope in New South Wales.
Most as singular events occurring just once at a specific location and then never again.
And that suggests the cause by some sort of cataclysmic event, such as a supernova,
that is destructive explosion of a star.
But astronomers are now detecting more and more fast radio bursts that have repeated from
the same location, and that suggests a different cause.
Fading black holes, glitching neutron stars, and highly magnetized neutron stars called magnetars
are all suspected. Or on the other hand, it could simply be that all fast radio bursts are repeaters,
with some just a lot more active than others.
Currently, confirmed fast radio bursts number in the hundreds, and scientists are assembling
mounting evidence that they are triggered by magnetars.
And that's where this latest research comes in.
It's found that fast radio bursts are more likely to occur in massive star forming galaxies
rather than low mass ones. And this finding has in turn led to new ideas about how the magnetars
themselves are being created. Specifically, the new work suggested these exotic dead stars,
whose magnetic fields are 100 trillion times stronger than the Earth's, often form when two
stars merge and then explode as a supernova. Previously was unclear where the magnetars were
formed from the explosion of two merge stars, or whether they might form when a single star explodes.
A steady-sled author, Critti Sharma, from Caltech, says the immense power output of magnetars
makes them some of the most fascinating extreme objects in the universe.
But very little is known about what causes their formation on the death of massive stars.
And that's where this new work comes in to try and help add to that question.
Sharma and colleagues use Caltech's deep synoptic array 110 in the Owens Valley Radio Observatory
near Bishop California. That array is already detected and localized some 75th radio burst,
pinning them down to a specific galaxy of origin. Although fast radio bursts are now known to
occurring galaxies that are actively forming stars, Sharma and colleagues found that they tend
to occur more often in massive star forming galaxies rather than low mass star forming ones.
And that's important because massive galaxies tend to be more metal rich.
That's because the metals in our universe, that is the elements manufactured by stars,
take time to build up over the course of cosmic history.
Now of course when astronomers speak of metals, they're speaking of all elements on the periodic
table other than hydrogen and helium, the elements created in the Big Bang itself.
The fact that fast radio bursts are more common in these metal rich galaxies,
implies that their source magnetars are also more common in these types of galaxies.
And the simple fact is stars that are rich in metals tend to grow larger than other stars.
Over time as galaxies grow, successive generations of stars enrich those galaxies with more
and more metals as those stars evolve and die. Also, massive stars that explode in supernovae
can become magnetars are more commonly found in pairs. In fact some 84% of all
no massive stars are in binary systems. So when one star in a binary systems puffed up due to extra
metal content, the excess material gets drawn over to the binary partner which facilitates the ultimate
merger of the two stars. These now merge stars would therefore have a far greater combined
magnetic field than that of a single star. And a star with more metal content expands and drives
more mass transfer, culminating in a merger and thus forming an even more massive star with a total
magnetic field greater than what the individual star would have had. It's nice when the
pieces all fit together. This is space time. Still to come, Voyager 1 about to reach a distance
of one light day from Earth and a vital military satellite defense system acts by the Albanese
government. All that and more still to come on space time.
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecrafts about to become the first man-made object to travel more than a
light day's distance from Earth. Now to put that in perspective, a light day is a distance of 26
billion kilometers. Now the historic achievement won't happen for a while yet, it'll be January
2027, but it's worth mentioning it. Voyager 1 together with its twin Voyager 2 spacecraft are
continuing their journey through unexplored interstellar space. And it's been a drama-filled mission
with tensions again set soaring recently when Voyager 1 suddenly lost contact with mission managers.
Scientists were concerned that the unexpected loss signal might have meant the end of the historic
47-year-long interstellar mission. Turns out the loss of contact was triggered by a glitch
invoages for protection system that caused its primary radio transmitter to suddenly switch off.
Eventually, engineers were able to reestablish contact and identify the source of the problem.
Now this system usually autonomously manages onboard functions, reducing power used by deactivating
non-essential equipment in order to safeguard the spacecraft's core operations.
The incident unfolded when the flight team based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California, demanded Voyager 1 to power on a heater on October 16th. Now although the spacecraft
seemed to have enough power, the command unexpectedly triggered a fault protection system.
And on October 18th, NASA's deep space communications network was no longer able to detect its
signal. Initially, engineers hypothesized the full protection system had reduced the data transmission
rate on the expand radio transmitter, acquiring less power, but complicating signal detection.
Eventually, they were able to detect a weak signal coming from the spacecraft,
indicating that Voyager 1 remained operational and was in a stable condition.
However, the following day, October 19th, communications appeared to cease entirely,
leading the team to suspect that Voyager's fourth protection system activated again,
switching from the primary expand transmitter to a much weaker "S" band transmitter.
This "S" band transmitter has not been used since 1981. It emits a weaker signal and therefore
presents a far greater chance for detection over Voyager 1's nearly 25,879,000,000 km distance.
Glenn Nagel from NASA's Deep Space Communications Network Complex,
near camera, says engineers managed to pick up the expand signal and confirm that Voyager 1 remains
operational, although full functionality has not yet been restored.
Yes, just in recent times, a standard command set sent to the spacecraft,
the command had to turn one of its onboard heaters on, and that seems to have stripped a fault
inside the computer on the Voyager spacecraft. And it did something that wasn't expected.
Normally, the spacecraft transmits to us on its expand transmitter, which is a good,
strong frequency that we can get back data from the spacecraft and understand about the
health of spacecraft. But this fault turned off the expand and turned on the "S" band communication.
Now, the "S" band transmitter hasn't been operated in over 30 years, but this "S" band switched on
and worked. The problem with "S" band is to a much wider band, much wider frequency and much
lower signal coming back to the earth. So, unfortunately, the spacecraft, while we could hear it,
barely above the background noise of the rest of the universe, we could not get science out of
from it. But what we discovered is the spacecraft was still commandable, and that was really great news.
We could uplink commands to the spacecraft. We had to wait for nearly 46 hours at round trip time,
at the speed of light to get the signal to Voyager 1 and back again, and be able to determine that
the spacecraft was responding to the commands that we gave it, to some little offsets in the
frequency that it was transmitting at. So, that was good news. So, we're in lock with the spacecraft,
in fact, as we're speaking right now, we're actually talking with Voyager 1 through our big dish here in
Canberra. And so, the spacecraft seems to be good in good health, and now let's just start to the
science team to try to figure out what was the fault, how can they rectify it, how can we switch
back to the X band transmitter and get back in full science mode with Voyager.
Well, of course, the two Voyager twins are getting on in years, aren't we all? And have been a
couple of incidents of late. Yeah, so, they're both out there for over 47 years now, and just like a lot
of us, we might get a little bit forgetful from time to time, have a few aches and pains as we wake up
in the morning. Last year, Voyager 2, we lost contact with it for a few weeks when an incorrect
command set to the spacecraft recalibated a antenna that actually point away from the Earth,
and again, it was sort of camberal to the rescue, transmitting it high power to the spacecraft to
re-lock in and off the computer, even though the antenna was pointed away from us, and be able to
get it back in back to science again, and it's been quite good health over the last year and a half
or so, but Voyager 1 earlier this year also had a problem on board. It's on board computer, which we're
talking about computers that were built in the 1970s and very, very basic chips on that spacecraft.
And when I talk about a chip, not like the little tiny ones, you might have a new car fob, these are
ones that are 10,000 times less powerful than what's in the car fob to open the car door. And these,
one little little chips out of a set of eight must have been hit by a cosmic ray strike,
and that flipped a bit on that and made that particular chip unusable. And so it took a while to
determine what was the problem. It was the spacecraft was sending back gibberish to us basically.
Spacecraft is talking in binary code, 1 and 0s, and we're either just getting one or just getting zero,
and that doesn't tell us anything about the spacecraft, it's just nonsense, but some greater
engineers within the science team and within the deep space network that were a part of actually
noticed that there was some information there buried quite deep into the data, and that helped us
understand what the problem with the spacecraft was to identify the problem with the chip on board,
and then to write a program, which we were then able to uplink through our antennas and transmit
to the spacecraft to ensure that it could then go, don't look at that chip anymore. Let's distribute
the program across the other chips, which we still know are working. And as soon as that was done,
we waited an anxious 46 hours for the transmission time there and back, and we received the data,
and Voyterwell was back in full communication. So this is just another one with current pause,
it's just another one of a series of issues with an aging spacecraft, but you gotta remember,
nobody ever expected Voyager to last this long. There were 12 of you missions. Go and explore the
giant planets of our solar system. They finished that journey in 1989, but they've kept going,
they've now left behind the solar system, they're both in interstellar space, they're still telling us new
and unique things about a regional space that nobody ever thought we'd be having a spacecraft
operate and to explore that region so soon. So they've got a remarkable legacy behind them,
they have a remarkable journey ahead of them. The scientists are still using the data they gathered
back in the 1980s to carry out new studies of bodies within the solar system. Some Voyager 2 data
just the other day was used to confirm that the Uranian moon, if that's the correct term Miranda,
possibly has a liquid water ocean under its surface. Yeah, it is remarkable. We're still mining
that data both for scientists all over the world and even some amateurs using some of the available
Voyager data to actually make new discoveries. Even find a once thought of moon that was sort of
lost out at Neptune and rediscover that in some of the images just through amateurs working on
a data circuit, it's amazing that after 47 years these two spacecraft are still playing as new things
about our own solar system and announcing us about the rest of the universe. That's got a
nagle from NASA's deep space communications network, near Canberra. The incident is the latest
example of the mission's complex engineering demands, especially as the twin Voyager spacecraft,
which were launched back in 1977, are edging ever closer to the half century mark. Voyager 1
entered interstellar space, that's the region of the galaxy beyond the heliosphere, a bubble created
by the solar wind and magnetic field emanating from the Sun, back in 2012 when it was some 123
astronomical units from the Sun. An astronomical unit is the average distance between the Earth and the
Sun, about 150 million kilometers or 8.3 light minutes. Voyager 2 followed its twin into interstellar
space in 2018, although it traveled in a different direction. In the decades following their launch,
on August 20th and September 5th, 1977, respectively, the Voyager twins have undertaken a grand tour
of the outer solar system, studying Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Now if nothing else goes wrong,
the Voyager probes could continue to operate using their existing power reserves until the late 2020s.
But as time goes by, continued operations are becoming more and more challenging,
with mission powered diminishing by 4 watts every year, and the two spacecraft will continue
to cool down as this power decreases. This is space time. Still to come, the Australian government
acts as a crucial $7 billion satellite defense project, and later in the science report,
it turns out people using private jets generate 500 times more carbon dioxide in a year,
and the average person. All that and more still to come. On space time.
The Australian government has just asked a crucial $7 billion satellite defense project.
The move is a significant blow to Australia's defense capabilities, and it comes at a time of
growing regional tensions between China and Taiwan, China and India, and Beijing's ever-expanding
interests in controlling the South China Sea. The ambitious JPE-902 military satellite
communication system was awarded just 18 months ago to US defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
Its sudden cancellation marks a dramatic reversal, for what was a key project designed to make Australia's
military communications safer at a time when the cyber-attack and electronic warfare landscape
has been dramatically evolving. As well as launching numerous large military-grade satellites,
the program would have also included satellite communication ground stations and
a central mission control system. The planned satellite network would have provided advanced
encryption and anti-jamming capabilities, creating what experts call an uncrackable data network
across the Australian Defence Force. It would have provided secure communications for military
aircraft, naval vessels and ground forces over the fast Indo-Pacific region. Without it, Australia's
military lacks the comprehensive coverage and secure communications network the JPE-902 would have
delivered. The decision comes at a time when Australia's foreign minister Penny Wong is given more
than $32.2 million of taxpayer money to groups like Unra, the controversial United Nations
organization with close ties to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations.
The news of the satellite contract cancellation also comes in the wake of a promise cut of $16
billion by the Albanese government in future hex-debt repayments by university students if it wins
the next federal election slated for some time around May next year. China, Iran, North Korea and Russia
are all widely recognized as having advanced capabilities to jam satellite signals into set
communications, undertake cyber warfare and take control of satellite systems. This is space time.
And time at a take a brief look at some of the other stories making using science this week with
a science report. The next time politicians and celebrities bleed out about their green credentials,
it might be worth reminding them of a new study which is found that people using private jets to
get themselves around the globe generate some 500 times more carbon dioxide every year than the
average person. The findings reported in the journal communications Earth and Environment also
showed that the annual carbon dioxide emissions from private planes has increased by 46 percent between
2019 and 2023. The study also found significant emission peaks around certain international events
including the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Count Film Festival and ironically the COP28 United Nations
Climate Challenge Conference. The data shows Australia currently has 317 private jets which accounts for
1.2 percent of the global total but at ranks 6 high globally with a number of planes per 100,000 residents.
A new study has identified 22 pesticides consistently linked to the incidence of prostate cancer.
The findings reported in the journal cancer assess links between 295 different pesticides
and prostate cancer using a lag period between exposure and cancer incidence of 10 to 18 years.
The time lag was needed because most prostate cancers grow slowly. The years 1997 to 2001 were
assessed for pesticide use and the years 2011 to 2015 will prostate cancer outcomes. Similarly 2002 to 2006
were assessed for pesticide use in 2016 to 2020 for outcomes. Among the 22 pesticides showing consistent
direct links with prostate cancer incidence across both analyses were three that had previously
been linked to prostate cancer including 2.4D which had been used for weed control in Australia since
the 1960s. The other 19 pesticides had not been linked to prostate cancer before and included 10
herbicides, several fungicides and insecticides and one so fumigant. Four pesticides linked to
prostate cancer incidence were also linked with an increased risk of death from prostate cancer.
Three herbicides, trifluiralian which is approved for utinous Australia, colarantholumethanol which
is not approved in Australia and difluolinzypry for which there is no Australian information
and also one insecticide via methoxam which is also approved in Australia.
A new study has found that humans aren't the only species that deliberately consume alcohol.
The findings reported in the journal trends in ecology and evolution looked at growing evidence
of how commonly ethanol naturally occurs in fruits and nectar that are commonly food for wild animals.
There are such as most animals that eat sugary fruits likely to be exposed to at least some ethanol
and while most naturally fermented fruits only reach about 1 to 2%, concentrations as high as
10.2% have been found. The authors admit there's not much we know about why animals might choose
to consume ethanol that's because being drank is generally a bad idea when you're living in the wild.
However, it's possible that while humans like the effects of alcohol but not the calories,
other animals may be risking the effects specifically to consume the calories.
A new systematic review covering thousands of studies has confirmed yet again that there's no scientific
evidence that cell phones can cause brain cancer. This latest review was commissioned by the World
Health Organization and published in the journal Environment International. It's the most comprehensive
review so far and included more than 5,000 studies of which 63 published between 1994 and 2022 were
included in the final analysis. Tim Mendum from Australian skeptics says, "While there are a few isolated
studies that have raised concerns, a more complete examination of the data has negated those results."
You sort of wonder how much proof you need but obviously in certain circumstances people just
don't believe the proof so you've got to say it again and again. People looked at individual studies
and done their meta studies of thousands in come some cases of other studies and looking at
those that are good and those that are bad studies etc. And the current conclusion, no, they're a
problem. It's not going to cause brain cancer. You might spend too much time on the phone but that's
the different issue but yeah this theory that was causing brain cancer, the radiation from mobile
phones you hold a year, then you're listening to them. It's going to give you cancer is not true. Over
100,000 studies, over millions of people over a long time that mobile phones have been available.
There is no evidence that it's causing brain cancer. There just be no correlation between the
increase in cell phone usage. Brain cancer rates have not increased. Brain cancer rates have not
increased for the usage of the technology has dramatically increased. That's T-Mendum from Australian skeptics.
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