Nov. 19, 2025

Ancient Rocks and Cosmic Forces: Exploring Earth's Origins and the Hunt for a Fifth Force

Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode of SpaceTime, we delve into remarkable discoveries that illuminate the origins of our planet and the cosmos beyond.
Ancient Australian Rocks Shed Light on Earth's Origins
Scientists have made significant strides in understanding the formation of Earth and the Moon through the analysis of 3.7 billion-year-old feldspar crystals from the Murchison region in Western Australia. This research reveals that continental growth began relatively late in Earth's history, around three and a half billion years ago, suggesting a shared composition between Earth and the Moon following a colossal impact event. The findings challenge existing theories about the timing of crustal development and provide new insights into the early geological processes that shaped our planet.
Hints of a Possible Fifth Force in Nature
A groundbreaking report has emerged, suggesting the potential existence of a fifth fundamental force of nature. Researchers have observed unexpected deviations in electron transitions among calcium isotopes, hinting at a new particle, the Yukawa boson. This discovery could reshape the standard model of particle physics and deepen our understanding of the universe's fundamental forces, as scientists continue to explore the mysteries of atomic interactions.
Record-Breaking Ocean Waves Observed from Space
In an astonishing revelation, satellites have recorded ocean waves reaching heights of nearly 20 metres, the largest ever measured from space. This episode explores how these massive waves, driven by storms, can carry destructive energy across vast distances, impacting coastlines far from the storm's origin. The findings not only validate existing wave models but also reveal new insights into the energy dynamics of ocean swells.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Nature Communications
Physical Review Letters
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-your-guide-to-space-astronomy--2458531/support.

The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.

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This is Spacetime Series twenty eight, Episode one hundred and

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thirty six for broadcasts on the nineteenth and November twenty

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twenty five. Coming up on space Time, the oldest Australian

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rocks offering new insights into the origins of the Earth

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and the Moon, tantalizing signs of a possible fifth force

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in nature, and satellites record twenty meter high ocean waves

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on the Earth's surface. All that and more coming up

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on space Time.

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Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary.

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Scientists have opened a new window into the origins of

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Earth's ancient mantling continence. The findings, reported in the journal

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Nature Communications, are also providing fresh insights into the early

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beginnings of the Moon. The authors reached their findings by

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analyzing ancient feldspark crystals within the oldest magmatic rocks ever

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found in Australia. They examined three point seven billion euro

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and authorosites from the Murchison region of out Back Western Australia.

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Now these are the oldest rocks on the Australian continent

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and among the oldest on the planet. The studies lead author,

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Matilda Boys from the University of Western Australia, says the

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timing and rate of early crustal growth on Earth remains

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a contentious issue due to the scarcity of very ancient rocks.

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Voice and colleagues use fine scale analytical methods to isolate

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the fresh areas of pleadiocles feldspark crystals, which record the

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isotopic fingerprint of the ancient mantle. The results suggest that

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the continents began to grow relatively late in its history,

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from around three and a half billion years ago, which

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is around a billion years after the planet formed. The

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study also compared these results with measurements of lunar northrosites

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collected during NASA's Apollo missions. Boys and North rest sites

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are rare on Earth but common on the Moon. She says.

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The findings are consistent with the Earth and Moon having

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the same starting composition around four and a half billion

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years ago. Boys says it supports the idea that a

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Mars sized planet, which we now call Fear, collided with

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the early proto Earth, building both bodies together into a

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magma osian an. Ejected debris from that impact event eventually

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coalescing into orbit to form the Moon.

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The question that we want to urge right is looking

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into when the earliest continents grew on Earth, and one

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way of doing that is to look at the chemistry

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of the mantles through time, because the Earth is the

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only planet that we know of that has late tectonics

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and it's really been quite integral and the development of

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life on Earth and all the other really unique aspects

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of our planet. But looking at old mantle drived rocks

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is quite difficult because we don't have much left preserved

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from that time period. But in Australia and particularly in

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Western Australia and in the Murchison region, we've got some

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of the oldest rock on Earth. These are the oldest

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rocks in Australia three point seven billion years old and

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also some of the best preserves of this age. So

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what we were doing is looking at these magmatic rocks

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that formed from mantle drive magmas, probably underneath an early ocean,

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and looking at the chemistry of these rocks, and then

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looking at how the mantle composition changed through time.

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Was it the jack Hills area? Can I describe it

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like that? Or is that overly simplistic and too broad?

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Very close to the jack Hills, all around those areas,

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it's beautiful country. We took vehicles from the Geological Survey

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and we camped out there myself with my PhD supervisor

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for a couple of months over a few field seasons

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and camping out in swags and looking for these old rocks,

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a type of rock called and Autho site. So it's

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a rock mostly made of plagia players and they're quite

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uncommon rocks on it, but they're actually what makes up

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most of the lunar crust, which is quite interesting.

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But they're fairly rare on Earth.

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That's right, that's right. They formed in slightly different ways

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from the lunar ones, but they're quite interesting. They're very distinctive.

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They've got these enormous round crystals, white crystal, the old

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Earth ones, so they kind of stick out when you

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see them walking around and the merchans in it. There's

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not much rock exposed. It's quite dusty and kind of

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blow scrub and then you see these kind of the

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crystals sticking out. It's quite quite unique looking.

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What did that tell you about the age of the continents.

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So the techniques that we were looking at, we were

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looking at radiogenic isotope systems, particularly strong tium isotopes and

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calcium isotopes, and the way that these work, you can

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use it to date rocks. So for young materials like fossils,

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carbon dating is quite a well known technique, and then

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for very old things we can use things like geranium,

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leads or strontium. But the other useful thing with these

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radiogenic isotope systems is that given that we know how

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long that these systems decay the half life, we know

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that quite well, we can actually knowing the age of

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the rocks as well. I was already dated them. We

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can get the sort of fingerprints of the rocks from

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when it crystallized, and because these are mantle derived rocks,

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the fingerprints that we measure and these rocks gives us

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the composition of the mantle. If we look at a

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range of these rocks, if we know that they're well

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preserved and has been really careful to select the best

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preserved materials and target them quite carefully, which is what

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we did, we can look at how this mantle composition

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changed through time. Because when the Earth kind of when

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it first formed, it would have been fairly uniform. Before

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we had these continents, it would have been mostly primitive

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mantles what we call it. Then, as the crust grows,

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as the mantle has melted, and as magmas come out,

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certain elements go into those magmas preferentially, which means that

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actually the composition of the mantle gradually changes through time.

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So that's what we're looking for. What we found from

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these rocks from the Murchisons is these really old three

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point seven billion year old and AUTHO site, is that

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the mantle composition was close to that of the bulk Earth,

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which means that there hadn't been much continental growth at

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all by that stage. But then what we found through time,

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so coming into three point five three billion years ago,

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we start to see the crustal signature emerge, which is

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what we call a depleted mantle signature. So what we

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found is that actually the growth of this continents it

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didn't start straight away quite a bit of time, So

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the first billion years of the Earth's history or so

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was probably not a whole lot of continental crust around

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at that stage.

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So the crust was formed as this convection took place

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in the matter, that's right, Yeah, and the lighter materials

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stayed on the surface. That's where we get a lot

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about granitic rocks.

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That's right. And on the modern Earth we know quite

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well how these processes formed. We have these plate tectonic

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systems operating with continents growing and then ocean neck crust

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betting producted and destroyed. But in the early Earth it

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might have looked really different, and we don't really know.

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There's lots of theories, but we don't know for sure

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whether it was a process similar to modern plate tectonics

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or something completely different. And probably the Earth looked very

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different to how it did today. It would have had

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a lot more ocean, a lot of just low lying

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the saltic lava, and then probably from about the three

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billion year ago, market started forming granite continents and large

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stuff from the ocean, and that became kind of more

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exposed and started becoming a bit more like the modern

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Earth over time.

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Gradually, did you do the analysis?

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We already knew the age of these rocks by uranium

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leads that had been done previously, actually back in the

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eighties and nineties for what we did with our strongti misotopes.

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Because these rocks have been very old, have been varied

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steps and brought back up, and fluids have gone through them.

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They've had a really complicated life, so we had to

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be able to target the domains that were fresh and

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preserve their magmatic compositions really precisely quite our high spatial resolution.

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So what we did we have a system that's called

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laser eblation mass spectrometry, So we have a mass spectrometer

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which is able to measure isotopes of the same elements,

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so different masses of the same element, and then we

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can look at the ratio of that and that's hooked

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up to a laser system, so we can go at

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quite a fine scale in these crystals which were imaged

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via various different microscopy techniques, and then we look with

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this labor and we can ablate quite small areas of

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these crystals out and then put that through a mass spectrometers.

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We did both that and then we also used essentially

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a dentistry thrill and we've drilled out slightly larger thection

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of these fresh crystals and we dissolve them up. This

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was done actually at the Universe of Bristol in England,

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so we used this little dentistry drill and drilled out

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the fresh bits of these crystals and then we dissolve

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them up in an acid and purified them, so we

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just had the elements that we wanted to analyze, and

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then again we was used the mass spectrometer for that.

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So really the key with these techniques is that you

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have to find with these really old socks that are

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super complicated, the best preserved areas that you can then

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target them really carefully and precisely. So that's what we did.

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There's a lot of debate about when play tectonics began.

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How does your research go towards resolving that.

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It's a very kind of contentious topic and there's a

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lot of debate around that, and there's one school of

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thought that that kind of argues that these processes began

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almost immediately, so that are formed four and a half

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billion years ago, and then straight away we started forming

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all of these these large contents. From our study, we

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think that it took a little bit longer to start.

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And the system that we've used, these strontium isotopes, it's

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not an approach that's been used before, but actually it

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shows a very similar result to other ISOs hope systems

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that have been previously applied to different types of rocks,

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So it kind of ties in and it agrees with

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these other results from different studies. Our point of view

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is that it probably took a little bit longer for

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these processes to really get going plate tectonics. We might

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have had something sort of similar to plate tetonics, but

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not exactly the same that it started beginning, and it

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probably was a bit of a slow transition.

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I would have thought plate tectonics triggered the formation of

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the continents, and you couldn't have continents unless plate tectonics

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was already happening. Am I right there?

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Or there's actually lots of other theories of other ways

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to make continents without plate tectonics, that's right, Yeah, So

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there's all sorts of names. Some researchers think that a

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process called sag duction. So we talk about plate tectonics

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as being like a plate to moving a laterally, but

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there could have been some sort of vertical system instead.

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So what that would mean is that we've got all

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of these lavas coming up and melting, and then they

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start forming these kind of second platforms or plateaus, and

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as these get sickened and thickened from gradual eruptions of

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more and more magnets, it gets hot enough at the

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base of these big piles to actually start melting and

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forming quintet magnets. So that's one method that could have

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made these early continents without plate tectonics.

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Is that what we see in kratons and hotspots.

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That's what we see particularly in the pilbra of Western

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Australia and then northwest of Western Australia. That's probably one

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of the best examples of that of how continents formed

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early on without any clear evidence of plate tectonics. That's

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right now you're.

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Looking forward to the return of humans to the Moon

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because that's where the oldest rocks on Earth have been.

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Found, absolutely, and it's been suggested previously that the best

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place to find these possibly this kind of had and

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records from the Earth is on the Moon itself, because

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we've got ancient rocks from the Moon that we've found

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on Earth's meteorites, And why couldn't it go the other

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way around, Why couldn't we have meteorites from the Earth

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sitting on the lunar surface, Which I think is a

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really interesting idea in terms of the studies that we

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did here with these Earth rocks. We did a comparison

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with these ancient lunar rocks, and because there is no

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plate tectonics operating on the lunar surface, the ancient crustal

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record of the Moon, these really really old rocks that

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formed not long after the Moon formed itself, have just

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been sitting there on the surface and they have been

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impacted by meteorite impacts that have been crushed up a bit.

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But we have this quite unique record from the Moon

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that we don't have from the Earth from this early period.

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So I'm very excited to see what future materials get

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brought back from future missions for sure.

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That's Matilda Boyce from the University of Western Australia and

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this is space time still to come. Scientists may have

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found the first tantalizing hints of a possible fifth force

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in nature, and satellites record twenty meters high waves socians

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or that and more still to come on space time.

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Scientists may have found the first tantalizing hints of a

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possible fifth force in nature. A report in the journal

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Physical Review Letters claims physicists using five calcium isotopes tracked

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how electrons lick between energy levels in excited atoms. These

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jumps reflect the shape of the nucleus, and they should

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also align in the smooth curve across isotobes known as

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a king plot. But the thing is they didn't. Instead,

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they consistently revealed a subtle, persistent deviation which could be

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a sign of a so far hypothetical force particle dubbed

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the eucalaboson. Now, if accurate, the new particle would have

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a mass of somewhere between ten and ten million electron vaults,

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and that would change the standard model of particle physics,

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which is the foundation stone of sciences understanding of the universe.

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The model describes the seventeen elemental particles that make up

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the cosmos. These include six flavors of quarks and six

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types of leptons, including electrons, muon, and towels, as well

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as three flavors of neutrinos. Also, there are five force

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particles called bosons. These include photons, which mediate the electromagnetic force, gluons,

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which mediate the strong nuclear force that's the one that

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holds protons and neutrons together, and the W and Z bosons,

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which mediate the weak nuclear force that causes radioactive de

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k These are known as gage or vector bosons because

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they have integer spin. Then there's the Higgs boson, which

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gives particles their mass through an all pervasive Higgs field.

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It has zero spin and is described as a scalar boson.

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The only force particle yet to be discovered is the

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hypothetical graviton, which, if it exists as an integer spin

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of two and mediates the force of gravitational interaction, and

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like the photon, the graviton is thought to be massless.

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The problem is there are many things the standard model

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of particle physics can't explain, such as the full theory

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of gravitation, or the existence of dark matter and dark energy,

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or for that matter, matter why there's more matter than

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antimatter in the universe. Some promising theories predict the existence

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of a new fifth force of nature alongside the full

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fundamental forces gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong weak nuclear force.

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For instance, it's thought that some unknown force could exist

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between neutrons and the atomic nucleus and electrons in the

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atom shell, and this force could be carried by a

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new particle, similar to how photons carry the electromagnetic force.

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Physicists normally conduct experiments using particle accelerators such as CERN's

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large hadron collider in Geneva to search for new particles

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beyond the standard model to try and explain these outstanding problems.

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That's how they found the Higgs boson that Physicists from

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the Eth Institute in Zurich took a different approach by

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searching for a new force between the neutron and the electron,

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using precision atomic spectroscopy to measure atoms with extremely high

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levels of accuracy. One of the statist authors, Lucahober says,

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if this force really does exist in the atom, then

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its strength would be portional to the number of neutrons

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in the atomic nucleus. So by experimenting with various isotobes,

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the authors hope to detect this hypothetical force. Isotobes are

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types of the same atom that differ only in the

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number of neutrons in the atomic nucleus. This means that

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isotopes have the same number of protons and electrons and

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are therefore chemically identical, but they each have different masses.

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As a result, the total force experienced by the electrons

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in different isotopes should vary slightly due to the different

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numbers of neutrons, and this can be measured by examining

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the energy levels on which the electrons move within the atom.

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So the authors expect the new force which cause a

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slight shift in the energy levels between different isotopes, and

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they can determine this energy shift by measuring the frequency

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of the light emitted when isotopes transition between two different

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energy levels. This measurement requires an ion trap, where electromagnetic

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fields hold a single charged isotobe in place and a

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laser beam then excite to a higher energy state. The

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authors use five stable, singlely charged calcium isotopes, each containing

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twenty protons, but with a number of neutrons ranging from

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twenty to twenty eight. They were able to determine the

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shift in energy levels of these isotobes with an accuracy

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of one hundred millihertz, which is one hundred times more

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precise than any previous measurements. They trapped two isotopes at

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the same time in the ion trap and then measured

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them together, allowing them to reduce the interfering noise during

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the frequency measurement. Wilder Zurich experiment looked for singly charged

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calcium isotopes. Researchers at the Physicalischer technichie Bundesenstalten Branchweg used

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the same isotopes but in a modibly charged state. The

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German group measured a different transition in these highly charged

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calcium ions, but with similar accuracy to the Ziric team,

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and a third group, this time at the Max Planck

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Institute in Heidelberg, measured the ratios of nuclear masses between

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these isotopes. In all, the authors found that existing models

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could only explain part of the deviation. Another possible cause

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is the little studied area of nuclear polarization, a type

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of deformation of the atomic nucleus cause by electrons. Calculations

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showed that nuclear polarization could be large enough to explain

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the measured nonlinearity within the limits of the standard model.

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The findings are important because they provide boundaries on the

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possible values of the mass and charge of this hypothetical

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particle which would be transmitting the new force. So the

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authors are now working to further improve the accuracy of

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their results by measuring a third energy transition in the

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calcium isotopes. That will allow them to expand the King

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plot from two dimensions into a three dimensional diagram, and

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that could help them overcome existing theoretical challenges and make

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further progress in the ongoing search for this new force.

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Needless to say, we'll keep you informed. This is space

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time still to come. Satellites record massive twenty meters high

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way on the Earth's oceans, and later in the science report,

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a new study warns that global carbon dioxide emissions are

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set to rise again this year. All that and more

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still to come on space time, It's been revealed that

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during recent storms, satellites recorded ocean waves averaging nearly twenty

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meters high, the largest ever measured from space. Moreover, the

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satellite data is now revealing that ocean swells act as

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storm messengers. Even though the storm itself men ever make landfall,

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its swell can travel vast distances and bring destructive energy

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to distant coastlines. Driven by wind. Waves are the most

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powerful during storms, Yet the greatest threat to coastlines often

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doesn't come from the storm itself, but from the long

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swells that carry wave energy far beyond the storm's reach.

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These long waves radiator cross oceans, and their properties such

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as wave period or the timing between crests, reveal the

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storm's size and strength. For example, the twenty second period

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means a large wave arrives every twenty seconds. To shed

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new light on storm waves and ocean swirls, scientists combine

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data from the relatively new French us Swatz satellite with

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the CCIIC State projects decades long record, which incorporates measurements

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stretching all the way back to nineteen ninety one. This

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record merges data from satellites such as Surreal Jason three,

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the Copernicus Sentinel three A and three B, as well

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as the Sentinel six BIOSAT and Cipho SAT. Scientists not

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only confirm the exceptional nature of storms in twenty twenty

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three and twenty four, but also focused on the scale

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of swells in remote ocean areas, measuring the properties of

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waves in storms before they become swells. They analyze data

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from the Swart's bascraft collected on the twenty first of

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December twenty twenty four, during the peak of Storm Eddy,

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the largest storm in terms of average wave height over

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the past decade, and it generated a new record wave

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height of nearly twenty meters in the open ocean. Beyond

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measuring the wave height, the authors were also able to

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track the storm's swell radiating across more than twenty four

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thousand kilometers of ocean from the North Pacific through the

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Drake Passage all the way to the Tropical Atlantic between

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December twenty first, twenty twenty four and January the twenty sixth.

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This shaar. The new findings, reported in the Journal and

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the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are the

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first to directly offer observations which validate in the American

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wave models in extreme conditions, in the process correcting existing

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wave energy calculations. Now, scientists had long believe that very

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long ocean waves carried substantial amounts of energy as they

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propagated across ocean basins, but these new findings also demonstrate

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that the energy content of these waves has been systematically overestimated.

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This means that more energy than expected is actually concentrated

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in dormant storm waves, rather than being distributed among the

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longest waves. The model shows that the highest waves of

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the past thirty four years occurred in January twenty fourteen,

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when Atlantic storm hercules produced twenty three meter high waves

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which caused severe damage from Morocco through to Ireland. This

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space time and time that to take another brief look

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at some of the other stories making news in science

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this week with a science report. New data from the

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csro's twenty twenty five Global Carbon Budget Report suggests that

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carbon dioxide emissions are set to rise again this year

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and that the limit warming of one point five degrees

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celsius could be reached within the next four years. It

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found global carbon docs and emissions from fossil fuel use

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