Nov. 14, 2024

#469: Ryugu's Magnetic Mysteries, Arecibo's Silent Collapse & Venusian Impact Revelations

Space Nuts Episode 469: Ryugu Revelations and Celestial Mysteries
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this enthralling episode of Space Nuts, where they delve into the latest astronomical discoveries and cosmic stories. From the secrets...

Show Notes
Transcript

Space Nuts Episode 469: Ryugu Revelations and Celestial Mysteries
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this enthralling episode of Space Nuts, where they delve into the latest astronomical discoveries and cosmic stories. From the secrets of asteroid Ryugu to the mysterious demise of the Arecibo Observatory, this episode is packed with fascinating insights and stellar discussions.
Episode Highlights:
- Ryugu's Magnetic Mysteries: Uncover new findings from the Ryugu asteroid samples, revealing insights into the magnetic fields of the outer solar system. Explore how these discoveries might reshape our understanding of planetary formation and the solar nebula.
- Arecibo's Tragic End: Learn about the sad fate of the iconic Arecibo Observatory and the invisible issues that led to its collapse. Discover the plans for transforming this historic site into an education centre for future generations.
- Venusian Impact Crater Discovery: Dive into the intriguing discovery of a massive impact crater on Venus, revealing unexpected similarities with ice moons like Callisto and Europa. Delve into the theories that suggest a past where Venus had a lava-covered surface.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on facebook, X, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favourite platform.
For more Space and Astronomy News Podcasts, visit our HQ at www.bitesz.com.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts/support.
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
00:00 - This is Space Nuts. Thank you for joining us
00:35 - Professor Fred Watson discusses Venus on this episode of space nuts
02:45 - Russia put 53 satellites into orbit in one launch the other day
05:17 - Scientists have found no sign of a preserved magnetic field in Ryugu samples
14:36 - Andrew Dunkley with Professor Fred Watson studying Ryugu asteroid sample
15:21 - The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico collapsed in 2020
23:13 - National Science foundation says the building will be turned into an education centre
24:37 - Fred Call says Venus' craters are much younger than similar craters elsewhere
32:53 - Yes. Isn't that amazing? That's really big pickup. Indeed. Um, Fred mentioned it. Yeah.
33:03 - Please leave a review if you listen to us through whatever platform
33:56 - All right, so, yeah, Fred Watson, astronomer at large

WEBVTT

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Hello again, thank you for joining us. This is Space

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Nuts where we talk about all sorts of astronomical and

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space science things. And coming up on today's show, we're

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going to get some more information from Reugu, the asteroid

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that they took some samples from about four four years ago.

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It's back in the news because, yeah, we talked about

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it a few weeks ago, and now we're looking at

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maybe the origins of our outer Solar system. Some new

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information on what really happened to the Aricibo Observatory and

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it's a bit of a sad tale. And then we

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head the Venus. Now, Venus doesn't have many big asteroid

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impact or impact craters, and they're not very old compared

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to the rest of the Solar System. However, they think

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they've found one that breaks the mold, certainly broke Venus.

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We'll talk all about that on this episode of Space

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Nuts fifteen Guidance Channel.

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Ignition Space Nuts or three two.

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One Space Nurse as when actually bought it. Bill's good

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and here he is the man of the hour. It

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is Professor Fred watsonn Astronomer at Large. Hello, Fred, Hi Andrew,

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how are you doing. I'm not I've noticed that in

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most of the recordings we do, I wear dark colors,

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so today I thought i'd wear a white shirt. It's

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actually one of my golf shirts, because I believe it

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or not. Before we recorded today, I went out and

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had nine holes and I was running so late because

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it was slow, I had to come straight in here

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to record. So I don't smell too good, and that

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has caused Judy to leave the building. So really, Wellucky,

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this isn't smell a vision.

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Yes it is, but it sort of harks back to

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what we're talking about a couple of weeks ago about

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maybe aliens will communicate by smell, so you might be

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sending out a signals to the alien world.

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Well, they'll never come here, that's the case. I won't

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want to come.

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It looks very smart, Andrew. And actually you've caught me

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off guard because I very nearly wore a light colored

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shirt today, and then I thought, I know Andrew will

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be dressed in something dark. I've just got the same

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little blue one.

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A well, look at that. You know. Unfortunately, golf shirts

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that are white tend to show a lot of dirt.

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And yeah, that's why I've got the collar up because

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all the dirts. It's horrible like that's here. Plus our

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golf course is a very dirty, dusty golf course compared

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to most as well known ones you see on television.

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So yeah, before we get onto the stories, fred I

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read something that I thought would interest you, given that

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we talk about this semi regularly. But the week just gone,

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Russia aid a record launch of satellites. They put fifty

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three satellites into orbit in one launch the other day,

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which is a record for Russia. But what interested me

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about it was the payload. Wasn't just Russian satellites. I mean,

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they've got satellites for their own purposes. I think most

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of them were, including their news agency tasks I think

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it's called. So there were Russian satellites, there were Chinese

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satellites on there, which probably shouldn't come as any surprise.

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This one might surprise people though. Iran a couple of

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satellites for Iran, and they launched a couple of SATs

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for Zimbabwe as well. Yeah, but that just adds more

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satellites to the growing numbers in orbit around the planet.

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The Russians still have because they were contracted to one WEB,

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which is one of the satellite consolation companies actually owned

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I think the principal shareholders a British but other countries

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as well, and one Web originally contracted to the Russian

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Federation for launches with their soyots launch vehicles. And when

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the invasion twenty twenty two invasion of Crimea took sorry

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of Ukraine took place, the I can't remember which way

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around it was, but essentially yes, because of the various

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boycotts and things of that sort, the Russians commandeered those

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twenty twenty one web spacecraft that they had already to go.

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They were going to launch twenty one Web satellites, but

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they've still got them, and one Web very quickly changed

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and went with SpaceX.

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In fact, yeah, gosh, yeah, I wouldn't like to be

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a lawyer riding up contracts for all this kind of work.

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Exactly.

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It sounds like it's a pretty amazing business the luks

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in it, yes, exactly. Yeah, But that satellite, of all

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those multiple satellite arrays that are starting to build up

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around the planet just get thicker and thicker, which, as

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we previously mentioned week or two or three back, not

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a good thing for the environment either. Not just people

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who want to look out into space. Speaking of looking

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out into space, well, this was actually a mission, the

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Higher Buss two mission to Reugu about four years ago,

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when it retrieved some samples from the asteroid and brought

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them back and they've been studying those and a few

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weeks ago we did talk about one of the things

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that Reugu has now revealed in terms of planetary formation

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and maybe how life evolved on this planet. Now it's

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revealing more data on the origin of our outer Solar System,

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and it sounds like it was all done with magnets

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or was a blue tack magnets.

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Yeah, it is an interesting worry. This is quite complex,

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but you're absolutely right. It's more data coming back from

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the samples of the asteroid Yugu, but brought back, as

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you said, by Hyabusa two in twenty twenty. And so

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what has happened. As well as the chemical analysis that

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you've just referred to that was done on the various

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grains of material from this mission, scientists have now done

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magnetic analyzes and basically these have been done with some

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tiny grains of dust from Riugua, only about a millimeter across,

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but they've been measured very accurately by device called a magnetometer, which,

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as you might guess, measures magnetic field strength. And so

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they've essentially stuck this thing in a laboratory with a magnetometer,

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and the tiny grains have had their magnetic fields sampled.

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And the interesting bit is there's no sign of a

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preserved magnetic field in these samples, which is a surprise.

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I'll tell you why in a minute. I'm looking at

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Fitz dot Oak, one of our favorite websites for this news,

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and I'm going to read a little paragraph from their

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article on this which explains it a lot more accurately

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than I could. The scientists determined that the samples held

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no clear sign of a preserved magnetic field. This suggests

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that either there was no nebula field present, and by

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that they mean the field of the magnetic field of

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the nebula from which the Solar system formed, and that

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was a cloud of gas and dust. It suggests that

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either there was no nebula field present in the outer

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Solar system where the asteroid first formed, or the field

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was so weak that it was not recorded in the

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asteroid's grain. If the latter is the case, the team

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estimates that such a weak field would have been no

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more than fifteen microtesla in intensity. Now I think, as

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I understand it, I really should check this, but I

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think that's about a quarter of the Earth's magnetic field.

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So there's a bit more to say though, So that

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the Riugu samples didn't really have any magnetic field, and

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that's a surprise because we believe that nebula probably would

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have had a magnetic field. So another paragraph, if I may.

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The researchers also re examined data from previously studied meteorites.

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They specifically looked at ungrouped car carbonaceous chondrites, which are

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meteors meteorites that have properties that are characteristic of having

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formed in the outer Solar System. Scientists had estimated the

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samples were not old enough to have formed before the

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Solar nebula disappeared. Now, the solar nebula is the cocoon

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in which the Solar System was born, and it was

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eventually blown away by winds from the Sun when it

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went through a windy phase. So it says any magnetic

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field recorded a record that the samples contained then would

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not reflect the nebula field. But the team decided to

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take a close So look, we reanalyzed the ages of

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these samples and found they are closer to the start

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of the Solar System than previously thought. We think these

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samples formed in this distant outer region, and one of

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those samples actually does have a positive field detection of

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about five microtesla, which is consistent with that upper limit

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of fifteen microtesla they they spoke about before. So what

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they're suggesting is that the outer Solar system, way beyond

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the orbit of Jupiter, probably beyond the orbit of Neptune,

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had a very weak magnetic field, but were still strong

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enough that material from the very limits of the soule

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and nebula were pulled in and perhaps formed things like

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Uranus Neptune, some of the you know, the smaller bodies,

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the trans Neptunian objects. And a comment from one of

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the authors of this paper and really credited who they are,

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but they are a group of scientists in a number

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of different universities, led actually by a postdoctoral researcher at

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Cambridge University in the UK. So they go on to say,

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when you when you're further from the Sun, a weak

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magnetic field goes a long way. It was predicted that

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it doesn't need to be that strong out there, and

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that's what we're seeing. But still it's a real thing

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that the magnetic field is real, but it was predicted

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to be weak, and that's what they're seeing with the

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evidence that they're getting from these Yugur samples and some

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earlier meteorites that have been delivered to us from space,

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probably by an asteroid in a few million years ago.

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So fifteen micro tesla, which is only thirty percent of

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our own magnetic field, he is today, which is which

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is fifteen micro tesla. So so that's not that's not

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a big number from what you say.

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Yes, that's right, it's it's not a big number. I mean,

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I've always thought the US magnetic field was quite healthy,

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but it's you know, it's when you compare it with

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some of the magnetism that's used in industry or in

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scientific research, it's pretty weak.

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Yeah, well, there's a bootknote. You have to recharge a

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tesla halfway to Sydney.

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Especially if it's a micro tesla. So one footnote to

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this story is that the same team they're going to

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look at samples from the asteroid Benu, which was which

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is also had samples returned to Earth, this time by

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NASA's cyrus Rex, not a Cyrus rocks, but the cyrus

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Rex space grab came back to Earth in September last year.

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So it would be really interesting to see what results

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they get from that if they do get their hold

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on get a hold on some of these samples from Benue. Indeed,

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you did.

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Say something that I picked up on and I thought

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it was worth revisiting. You said, the nebula that created

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our solar system was ultimately blown away by the Sun

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or the Sun's solar winds, whatever. So even at the

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very beginning, we were destroying our creator by the said, yes,

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that's right, blowing it away.

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That's right. So we know that stars forming gas clouds,

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clouds of gas and dust. We see it. You know,

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when you look at the pillars of creation, that's what

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you're actually seeing, pillars of dust with stole formation taking

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place at the middle. And we know that very early

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on in the life history of a star it goes

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through a phase which is known as the t Tory phase.

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T Toy is the name of a variable star and

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it's the sort of you know, basically the prototype of

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this type of activity. And when they're going through the

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t tourist phase. They're sort of blowing away the rest

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of the debris. And we see that too the Pliodes,

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the PLI d Es star cluster, which we see as

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the seventh Sisters in the sky in our summer sky

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here in Australia. They are when you look at them

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with a big telescope or even with a small telescope

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these days, with the modern detectors that we have, you

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can see they're surrounded by a sort of blue shell.

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There's a lot of blue material in them, and that

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blue is the reflection of light from dust. It's actually

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why smoke. It's the same thing that makes smoke look

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blue when sunlight falls, and it's a process called rarely scattering,

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00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:09.600
which scatters the blue light preferentially. And so we see

221
00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:13.519
all this blue dusty stuff which is surrounding the Pliodies.

222
00:14:13.559 --> 00:14:15.639
Now we think the Pliodes are only about ten million

223
00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:18.840
years old. They're a young star cluster. So those stars

224
00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:22.399
have just gone through their te tory phase. And what

225
00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:24.559
we see is, you know, the last remnants of that

226
00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:27.840
dust cloud, the cloud of gas and dust in which

227
00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:30.240
they were born. So it's blown all the debry away

228
00:14:30.279 --> 00:14:32.200
and the Sun must have done the same thing as well,

229
00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:35.240
probably not long after its formation four point six billion

230
00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:35.720
years ago.

231
00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:41.200
Yeah, it's just gone, hey, I'm here now, get wreck off.

232
00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:45.480
So just sweeping up, sweeping up the debris really yeah, yeah,

233
00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:52.399
cleaning up after itself. Maybe, yes. And yeah, it's exciting

234
00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:54.600
that we're getting so much data from such a small

235
00:14:54.679 --> 00:14:59.279
sample from her Reugu asteroid. And there'll be more to come,

236
00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:01.960
I do not doubt. If you'd like to read up

237
00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:04.240
on that story fizz dot org, as Fred said, or

238
00:15:04.279 --> 00:15:07.080
you can read the whole thing lock stock and barrel

239
00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:11.039
with the five million people who signed the report in

240
00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:15.720
the journal A gu Advances. There's a space nuts Andrew

241
00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:21.960
Dunkley here with Professor Fred. What's an Okay, we've tacked

242
00:15:21.960 --> 00:15:28.360
all space nuts now to a story that we have

243
00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:31.879
done a couple of times, and that was the demise

244
00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:39.240
of the Aricibo in Racibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. I

245
00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:41.159
know it's one of those, yeah, I knew it was

246
00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:44.759
one of the ricos Puerto Rico. This was a really

247
00:15:44.840 --> 00:15:47.200
sad one because this is a famous one for all

248
00:15:47.240 --> 00:15:49.440
sorts of reasons. It's the one that sort of nestled

249
00:15:49.440 --> 00:15:52.919
into a mountaintop, and they've used it in movies. It

250
00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:57.600
was used in the Jodie Foster film Contact, and it's

251
00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:01.159
just it's a very used to be a very favorite

252
00:16:01.159 --> 00:16:04.279
place of cinematographers but also astronomers, and it achieved a

253
00:16:04.279 --> 00:16:09.559
lot in its time, the Aracibo Observatory, but then a

254
00:16:09.559 --> 00:16:13.960
few years ago it collapsed rather dramatically, and they have

255
00:16:14.039 --> 00:16:17.480
been looking into the reasons why, and now it appears

256
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:22.120
they have discovered the cause and effect. And it's a

257
00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:26.039
bit of a sad miss by the sound of it.

258
00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:30.279
It is. That's right, you're quite right, Andrew. It's got

259
00:16:30.279 --> 00:16:33.799
a very very distinguished history of this instrument. Built in

260
00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:39.840
nineteen sixty three, it was originally for what's called imospheric research,

261
00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:42.159
kind of looking up at the atmosphere and measuring the

262
00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:47.639
radio radiation from it. But it was taken over in

263
00:16:47.759 --> 00:16:52.159
nineteen sixty seven by the National Science Foundation for the

264
00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:58.039
astronomy community and did all kinds of really interesting things

265
00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:03.919
and actually shared the cost of maintenance and upgrades and

266
00:17:03.960 --> 00:17:07.519
things of that sort. Lots of discoveries, don't really have

267
00:17:07.559 --> 00:17:09.640
time to talk about them now, but one of them

268
00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:13.119
was a Nobel Prize winning discovery. The binary pulse are

269
00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:21.039
discovered in nineteen seventy four. So the you know, the issue,

270
00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:24.960
I guess took most of us in the astronomical community

271
00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:34.480
by surprise when the demolition happened, But it sort of

272
00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:37.839
was an accident, not quite an accident waiting to happen,

273
00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:41.440
But there had been weakening of the structure over a

274
00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:44.599
period before that. It was twenty twenty when the thing

275
00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:50.759
finally collapsed, but apparently the failure of the structure actually

276
00:17:50.799 --> 00:17:55.559
began three years before that. In twenty seventeen, there was

277
00:17:55.559 --> 00:18:00.880
a hurrican Hurricane Maria, which went through Puerto Eco on

278
00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:07.400
September the twentieth, twenty seventeen, and you know, that bombarded

279
00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:11.359
the area with winds that were in the region of

280
00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:14.680
one hundred and sixty one hundred and seventy maybe a

281
00:18:14.680 --> 00:18:18.759
bit more kilometers per hour rather more than one hundred kilometers,

282
00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:22.480
rather more than one hundred miles per hour, and that

283
00:18:22.599 --> 00:18:27.599
was you know, that was something that hammered, the hammered

284
00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:33.759
the structure. But the review that was carried out after that,

285
00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:39.319
there were inspections that were done in detail, and the

286
00:18:39.400 --> 00:18:43.400
conclusion of those inspections was that no significant damage had

287
00:18:43.480 --> 00:18:49.799
jeopardized the Racibo's telescopes structural integrity, some of the issues

288
00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:56.240
were suggested to need repairs, but there were other things

289
00:18:56.319 --> 00:18:59.839
that caused those repairs to be delayed. And even so

290
00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:03.519
so they thought that this was you know, this was

291
00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:09.200
not going to be an issue. And actually the components

292
00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:13.839
that were going to be repaired weren't the ones that

293
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:17.359
failed when the collapse actually happened.

294
00:19:18.119 --> 00:19:21.240
Yeah, that's a pretty significant point. Even though they didn't

295
00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:25.079
fix certain things. Even if they had.

296
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:27.000
It would still have they weren't.

297
00:19:27.079 --> 00:19:28.000
They weren't the problem.

298
00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:34.720
Yeah, yes, that's right. And then in August and November

299
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:41.599
twenty twenty, there were two cables that failed, and that

300
00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:45.960
basically was the thing that said, look, we've got a

301
00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:51.759
problem here. We think that the telescope is not recoverable

302
00:19:51.799 --> 00:19:56.480
from these cable failures, and they were going to decommission

303
00:19:56.480 --> 00:19:59.960
the telescope and then have what they called a country

304
00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:06.440
demolition to avoid the catastrophe. So that was all sort

305
00:20:06.440 --> 00:20:12.039
of in train towards the end of well in November

306
00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:16.279
twenty twenty. That was August and November when those two

307
00:20:16.359 --> 00:20:22.519
cables failed. But then on the first of December there

308
00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:26.000
was a failure of more of these cables, and that's

309
00:20:26.039 --> 00:20:30.200
when the catstrophe happened. The instrument platform collapsed into the dish,

310
00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:33.880
took off the tops of the support towers, and damaged

311
00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:39.640
some of the observatori's other buildings. It was really a

312
00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:42.799
catastrophic end that probably people had in the back of

313
00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:45.960
their mind already but when they were working towards trying

314
00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:50.400
to avoid it. And it seems that some of the

315
00:20:50.440 --> 00:20:55.400
fractures were called caused by zinc decay in the sockets

316
00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:59.519
that held these cables what are called the spelter sockets.

317
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:02.920
Zinc decay in those sockets that really led to the

318
00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:07.559
fracturing that wasn't that wasn't identified as an issue after

319
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:12.079
the hurricane inspection, So there would as you've just said,

320
00:21:12.119 --> 00:21:14.079
they would never have picked out what was going to

321
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:15.480
eventually cause the collapse.

322
00:21:16.279 --> 00:21:20.319
So yeah, from what I read the the capacity to

323
00:21:20.359 --> 00:21:25.279
actually identify the problem was nearly impossible. It was an

324
00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:26.720
invisible issue.

325
00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:30.799
Yes, I think that's correct. So you can't that's that's right.

326
00:21:30.839 --> 00:21:34.000
You can't really blame the engineers they there were the

327
00:21:34.079 --> 00:21:37.759
failures were in uh, you know, parts of the structure

328
00:21:37.799 --> 00:21:42.440
that weren't available for inspection, like the innods of it

329
00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:46.559
and things that really you would you would expect to

330
00:21:46.599 --> 00:21:48.000
last forever, but they didn't.

331
00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:53.359
Yeah, that's very sad and such a such an iconic

332
00:21:53.759 --> 00:21:58.599
piece of infrastructure, which I'm sure most people would recognize

333
00:21:58.599 --> 00:22:01.799
as soon as I saw a photo of Aciboy. It's

334
00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:05.079
so it was so popular just because of the way

335
00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:08.400
it was built and the way it was used, and

336
00:22:08.680 --> 00:22:12.119
it's some some of its great achievements, as you mentioned, Fred,

337
00:22:13.480 --> 00:22:15.480
but it was a bit of a slow death. I mean,

338
00:22:15.640 --> 00:22:20.680
it was really probably beyond salvage before they identified that

339
00:22:20.759 --> 00:22:23.160
there was a problem by the sound of it.

340
00:22:24.119 --> 00:22:27.200
I think that's correct. That's a comment analysis. Yeah, And

341
00:22:27.279 --> 00:22:30.839
of course, now we have the Chinese Fast telescope, the

342
00:22:30.839 --> 00:22:35.079
five hundred meter apertures Phyico telescope. That's the sort of

343
00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:37.880
dwarfs are a Siba actually Raceba was three hundred and

344
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:39.960
five meters in down the two it was one thousand feet.

345
00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:43.759
The Fast is half a kilometer in diameter. That's a

346
00:22:43.880 --> 00:22:47.759
very very big dish. Indeed, it's a similar sort of structure. Though.

347
00:22:49.079 --> 00:22:54.640
Indeed, yes, and and if people are interested, they did

348
00:22:54.680 --> 00:22:58.960
actually film that final collapse. It was they just happened

349
00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:02.559
to have a drone flying over Arasibo at the time,

350
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:05.960
and they got footage of the collapse, so you can

351
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.720
actually see it on YouTube if you're if you're interested,

352
00:23:08.799 --> 00:23:12.240
it's it's pretty sad to watch, to be honest, I

353
00:23:12.279 --> 00:23:15.599
have seen it myself. It's yeah, such a such a

354
00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:20.240
wonderful piece of kit as Fred would say. But yeah,

355
00:23:20.680 --> 00:23:23.559
all gone. Now are they going? Who I suppose they're

356
00:23:23.599 --> 00:23:25.559
gonna have to clean it up? Or they've already probably

357
00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:27.519
done that or starting to do that.

358
00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:30.480
That's a work that's right, that's a work in progress.

359
00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:34.519
But we do believe from statements made by the National

360
00:23:34.519 --> 00:23:37.680
Science Foundation that it will be turned into an education

361
00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:44.160
center specifically to carry on, you know, as a research

362
00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:50.279
center for stem How can you best teach science, technology, engineering,

363
00:23:50.279 --> 00:23:53.160
and mathematics. How can you teach that to young students?

364
00:23:53.599 --> 00:23:57.279
This will be what it will be doing, so it

365
00:23:57.279 --> 00:24:02.200
will have an enduring legacy, as Universe Today describes it.

366
00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:06.279
Yeah, it's hardly surprising when you look at Hurricane Maria,

367
00:24:06.359 --> 00:24:09.119
because in our language, winds of up to two hundred

368
00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:13.200
kilometers an hour. You know, most large structures would struggle

369
00:24:13.240 --> 00:24:17.880
with that, and especially something that was built in the

370
00:24:18.359 --> 00:24:21.880
sixties when they didn't have the kind of technology to

371
00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:26.160
reinforce big structures like they do today. So yeah, very

372
00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:29.720
very sad. Indeed, that's a story also on fizz dot org.

373
00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:36.839
Fife Space Nuts.

374
00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:41.599
Fred to our final story today and we head to Venus,

375
00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:44.440
one of the more mysterious planets in our Solar System,

376
00:24:44.519 --> 00:24:48.480
simply because we can't see it beyond its atmosphere, but

377
00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:52.160
we can use radar to map its surface, which has

378
00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:55.640
been done very effectively. One of the things that's fascinating

379
00:24:55.680 --> 00:25:00.319
about Venus is that its craters are much smaller, much

380
00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:03.200
younger than most of the creators found elsewhere in the

381
00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:06.359
Solar System. But now they think they've found one that's

382
00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:10.519
probably the oldest and most definitely the biggest to be

383
00:25:10.599 --> 00:25:13.319
discovered at this point in time. But what's really weird

384
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:17.200
about it is that it resembles impact craters on ice

385
00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:21.839
moons further out in the Solar System, which I guess

386
00:25:21.880 --> 00:25:25.119
got people scratching their heads and they've tried to figure

387
00:25:25.119 --> 00:25:26.839
out why, and it looks like they might have.

388
00:25:28.440 --> 00:25:32.400
Yeah, that's right. It is a fascinating story, and it's

389
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:40.119
almost one of these accidental discoveries astrophysics is so full of,

390
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:45.480
so it's radar data that you're always looking at when

391
00:25:45.519 --> 00:25:50.440
you're talking about the surface of Venus. I remember the

392
00:25:50.559 --> 00:25:53.359
Magellan spacecraft. I think it was I think I'm giving

393
00:25:53.400 --> 00:25:56.519
it the right name, was the one that gave us

394
00:25:56.519 --> 00:26:01.920
the best radar maps of the surface of Venus and

395
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:06.720
the some of the features that came from those radar

396
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:13.119

#469: Ryugu's Magnetic Mysteries, Arecibo's Silent Collapse & Venusian Impact Revelations

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#469: Ryugu's Magnetic Mysteries, Arecibo's Silent Collapse & Venusian Impact Revelations

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