July 15, 2026

Cosmic Discoveries: Japan's Asteroid Encounter and the Life Potential of Europa

Show Notes
Transcript

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 84 Japan swoops past a cosmic snowman shaped asteroid Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft has just swooped past a tiny asteroid in deep space that’s shaped like a snow man. Revealing the secrets of the ice moon Europa A new study has shown that the Jovian Ice Moon Europa is reflecting radio signals in a strange unexpected way. What happens to Earth when the Sun dies A new study has provided astronomers with a glimpse of the future we’re likely to face when our Sun dies in around seven billion years from now. The Science Report Study’s show early risers have more nutritious diets than people who prefer staying up late. Australia shown to be home to a large chunk of the world's seagrasses, but is losing them rapidly. A new study claims Meta’s AI smart glasses could help people with low or no vision. Data centres found to have a far bigger carbon footprint than previously thought. Alex on Tech: Samsung Galaxy Z fold 8.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-with-stuart-gary--2458531/support.

The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:03.319
It's is Spacetime Series twenty nine, episode eighty four, for

2
00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:07.080
broadcast on the fifteenth of July twenty twenty six. Coming

3
00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:11.960
up on Spacetime, Japan swoops past a cosmic snowman shaped asteroid,

4
00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:15.919
revealing the secrets of the ice moon Europa and what

5
00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:18.600
will happen to the planet Earth when our Sun dies?

6
00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:22.519
All that and more coming up on Spacetime.

7
00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:36.880
Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary.

8
00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:47.799
Japan's Hiblsit spacecraft has just swooped past a tiny asteroid

9
00:00:47.880 --> 00:00:51.479
in deep space that shed like a snowman. Traveling at

10
00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:54.359
more than eighteen thousand kilometers an hour, the probe flew

11
00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:58.960
within eight hundred meters of the tiny Earth asteroid. The asteroid,

12
00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:02.320
called Torri Foon, was known to have an elongated shape,

13
00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:06.359
but its exact details were unknown until this flyby. Ground

14
00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:09.560
based observations suggested that it was a stony or silicon

15
00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:12.959
S type asteroid around four inch and fifty meters wide.

16
00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:16.599
These are high density asteroids that make him about seventeen

17
00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:20.200
percent of the entire asteroid population of our Solar System,

18
00:01:20.359 --> 00:01:23.680
making them the second most common type after carbonaceous C

19
00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:28.040
type asteroids. Images of the space rock taken by the hybris.

20
00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:31.840
The two spacecraft revealed what appeared to be a contact binary,

21
00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:35.280
two round objects, one bigger than the other, joined together

22
00:01:35.480 --> 00:01:39.640
and strewn with surface rocks and boulders. Contact binaries are

23
00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:43.239
composed of two separate asteroids that previously orbited a common

24
00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:46.680
center of gravity, eventually spiraling in towards each other and

25
00:01:46.719 --> 00:01:50.319
then molding together to form a single body. The Hibers

26
00:01:50.439 --> 00:01:54.359
two mission by JACKSA the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency was

27
00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:58.120
designed to demonstrate our mission managers could precisely control the

28
00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:01.599
dejectory of the spacecraft ever be needed to perform an

29
00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:06.400
asteroid deflection maneuver. It follows NASA's successful twenty twenty two

30
00:02:06.599 --> 00:02:10.159
dart Or double asteroid redirection test that changed the orbit

31
00:02:10.199 --> 00:02:13.199
of one hundred and sixty meters white asteroid Dimorphous by

32
00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:18.000
deliberately smashing into it with a spacecraft. Impact cameras Abord

33
00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:23.639
hier Bussa II studied Toifin's surface, including geographical features, its texture,

34
00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:28.400
and temperature, vital information for future planetary defense missions. See

35
00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.520
If astronomers need to deflect an asteroid at some time

36
00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:34.439
in the future by impact, the response won't be the

37
00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:38.280
same for every asteroid. It depends on whether the asteroid's

38
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:42.280
a rubble pile or a solid rock, and this is

39
00:02:42.319 --> 00:02:46.080
in the end of Jack's punetary defense efforts. The agency,

40
00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:48.879
together with the European Space Agency, are teeming up on

41
00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:52.240
another planetary defense mission, this one to explore the asteroid

42
00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:54.599
of Offits, which will pass close to the Earth in

43
00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:59.360
April twenty twenty nine. Launched back in twenty fourteen, Hibusat

44
00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:02.960
is already scientists by landing on and gathering material from

45
00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.199
the asteroid Rayugu, which was some three hundred million kilometers

46
00:03:06.199 --> 00:03:09.879
from the Earth. Six years later, it brought those samples

47
00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:13.080
to Earth, providing scientists with clues about what the Solar

48
00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:16.080
System was like at its birth some four point six.

49
00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:16.960
Billion years ago.

50
00:03:18.039 --> 00:03:21.400
After the Tory food mission, Hybussitu's next milestone will be

51
00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:24.240
in December twenty twenty seven, when it swings past the

52
00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:27.759
Earth on a gravity assist maneuver. Then in June twenty

53
00:03:27.759 --> 00:03:30.120
twenty eight, they'll swing past the Earth again and that

54
00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:32.479
will set it up for its next rendezvous with the

55
00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:35.919
asteroid nineteen ninety eight k Y twenty six in July

56
00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:38.759
twenty thirty one. A little bit the asteroid for a

57
00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:42.280
while and eventually land on it. The exact nature of

58
00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:45.280
nineteen ninety eight k Y twenty six is still unclear.

59
00:03:45.960 --> 00:03:49.840
Optical and radar observations suggest it's a water rich world,

60
00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.680
and since it's known to be a fast rotator, it's

61
00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:55.560
likely there'd be a single chunk of rock rather than

62
00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:59.520
a rubble pile asteroid. Needless to say, we'll keep you

63
00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:03.800
in form owned this is space time still to calm.

64
00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:07.280
Revealing the secrets of the ice moon Europa and what

65
00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:10.280
will happen to the Earth when our sun dies. Scientists

66
00:04:10.280 --> 00:04:12.000
may have gotten a bit of a glimpse from a

67
00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:15.360
distant star system. All that and more still to calm

68
00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:33.839
on space time. A new study has shown that the

69
00:04:33.959 --> 00:04:37.360
Jervian ice moon Europa is reflecting radio signals in a

70
00:04:37.399 --> 00:04:41.680
strange and unexpected way. The findings are providing intriguing new

71
00:04:41.720 --> 00:04:45.160
clues about this frozen world, which contains a global subsurface

72
00:04:45.240 --> 00:04:49.000
liquid water ocean hidden below an estimated twenty five kilometer

73
00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:52.800
thick ice sheet. The ocean is kept liquid by tidal

74
00:04:52.879 --> 00:04:56.800
heating caused by constant gravitational pulling and pushing on Europa

75
00:04:56.920 --> 00:04:59.959
as it orbits its giant host plot Jupiter and similar

76
00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:04.759
smaller gravitational perturbations caused by its many sister moons. These

77
00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:09.240
tidal interactions cause internal friction inside Europa, which is generating

78
00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:12.319
enough heat to melt the ice into water, producing more

79
00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:15.839
water than all the Earth's oceans combined, and it doesn't

80
00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:19.639
end there. Sighters speculate that that tidal heating could also

81
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:23.079
be generating geological features similar to the mid ocean ridges

82
00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:26.600
common in seas on Earth. On Earth, these mid ocean

83
00:05:26.639 --> 00:05:29.639
ridges are but unique life forms feeding on the chemicals

84
00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:32.639
being pumped out through formations such as hot springs and

85
00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:37.720
black smokers. Many sighters speculate that this hot chemical soup

86
00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:41.399
might be where life on Earth first began, and that

87
00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:45.079
raises the interesting possibility of whether the same thing is

88
00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:48.639
happening in the oceans of Europa. You see, if we

89
00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:51.360
do find life on Mars past or present, that could

90
00:05:51.399 --> 00:05:53.959
have been the result of meteorite contamination from the Earth.

91
00:05:54.079 --> 00:05:56.000
Or on the other hand, life on Earth may well

92
00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:59.399
have originated on Mars. That's because Mars and the Earth

93
00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:02.279
have been squat rocks for billions of years, so the

94
00:06:02.319 --> 00:06:06.800
possibility of cross contamination is always there. But the Jervian

95
00:06:06.839 --> 00:06:10.079
system is much too far away, so any life found

96
00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:13.680
there would likely have started independently, and if it starts

97
00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:17.360
independently on Europa, that means life could start anywhere in

98
00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:18.000
the universe.

99
00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:19.720
The preponderance of.

100
00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:22.439
Life we see in Star Trek might well be real.

101
00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:28.120
To discover more about Europa, astronomers use NASA's Goldstone radar

102
00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:31.839
and the US National Science Foundation's Greenbank radio telescope to

103
00:06:31.879 --> 00:06:34.800
carry out the most extensive radar study yet of the

104
00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:38.680
ice moon. By repeatedly pinging Europa with three point five

105
00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:42.040
centimeter radio waves, the authors measure how the moon reflects

106
00:06:42.199 --> 00:06:45.920
radar signals and confirm that its icy surface scatters radio

107
00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:49.560
energy in an unusually strong and complex way not seen

108
00:06:49.639 --> 00:06:54.439
on rocky worlds. Jupiter has four big Galilean moons i

109
00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:59.199
Owe Europa Ganny meaning Callisto, and those last three, Europa

110
00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:03.120
Gany meaning Colie, are especially intriguing to scientists because they

111
00:07:03.160 --> 00:07:06.079
all have icy outer shells and are thought to hide

112
00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:10.240
oceans of liquid water underneath. Of the three, Europa is

113
00:07:10.279 --> 00:07:13.759
a prime target in the search for habitable environments beyond Earth.

114
00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:17.959
Geologic features provide clues to how the ice shall underlying

115
00:07:17.959 --> 00:07:21.920
oceans interact, but these features only reveal what's happening at

116
00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:25.680
or near the surface. One of the studies authors, Tng

117
00:07:25.839 --> 00:07:29.240
from the University of California, Los Angeles, says radio waves

118
00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:32.720
can penetrate deep into the ice and determined features about

119
00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:36.600
its internal structure and purity. These new observations show that

120
00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:39.560
Europa's radar albedo, that is a measure of how bright

121
00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:41.800
it appears in radar, is much higher than that of

122
00:07:41.879 --> 00:07:46.360
typical planets and asteroids. The returning radar signal is dominated

123
00:07:46.399 --> 00:07:50.319
by the same circular polarization as the transmitted beam, and

124
00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:53.240
that's a hallmark of modible scattering inside clean.

125
00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:53.879
Porous ice.

126
00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:58.399
These properties strongly support an explanation known as the coherent

127
00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:02.519
backscatter opposition affair, in which radio waves bounce around inside

128
00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:06.199
the ice before returning to the telescope, dramatically boosting the echo.

129
00:08:06.879 --> 00:08:10.759
Because Gene colleagues observed Europa as a bistatic configuration with

130
00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:14.639
Goldstone transmitting in both goldstone and greenback receiving, it could

131
00:08:14.680 --> 00:08:17.680
also test how the coherent backscatter effect changes with the

132
00:08:17.720 --> 00:08:22.319
angle between transmitter Europa and receiver, and the authors found

133
00:08:22.360 --> 00:08:27.199
Europa's radar brightness stayed roughly consistent even when the angle increased.

134
00:08:27.879 --> 00:08:30.879
That implies that the bright back scattered peak must be

135
00:08:30.959 --> 00:08:33.639
broader than the range of the angles it's sampled, placing

136
00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:36.120
a limit on the depth that the radio waves diffused

137
00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:39.639
before being absorbed, and that depth limit offers a new

138
00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:43.279
constraint on how transparent Europa's ice is and that will

139
00:08:43.279 --> 00:08:47.120
help scientists interpret upcoming ice penetration radar data from mass

140
00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:51.000
is europa Clipper mission and the European Space Agency's Due spacecraft,

141
00:08:51.080 --> 00:08:54.639
which are both now on their way to the Jovian System.

142
00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:57.919
The new results also fill a three decades long gap

143
00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:00.559
is the last major radar study of your Back in

144
00:09:00.600 --> 00:09:04.039
the nineteen eighties and early nineties, and the authors found

145
00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:07.159
strong agreement between their measurements and those of the earlier

146
00:09:07.159 --> 00:09:11.200
results That reinforces the picture of Europa as an object

147
00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:14.639
with a very high radar reflectivity and strongly diffuse scattering,

148
00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:18.240
rather than the mirror like reflections seen on many rocky surfaces.

149
00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:22.679
This consistency increases the confidence that Europa's radar properties are

150
00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:25.840
stable over time and that both earth based and spacecraft

151
00:09:25.960 --> 00:09:29.519
radar measurements can be interpreted within a unified physical framework.

152
00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:34.159
Because the observing campaigns spanned many years. In viewing geometries,

153
00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:37.559
the authors asked whether Europe's radar brightness changed from one

154
00:09:37.559 --> 00:09:40.919
hemisphere to the other or with longitude, and they found

155
00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:45.080
that Europea's disc integrated radar properties are statistically consistent with

156
00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:48.679
remaining nearly constant as the moon rotates, which also agreed

157
00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:52.799
with the earlier observations. However, when the authors divided the

158
00:09:52.919 --> 00:09:56.759
data into leading and trailing hemispheres and performed statistical analysis,

159
00:09:56.960 --> 00:10:00.080
they saw a hint and not statistically conclusive, that the

160
00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:04.759
trailing hemisphere could be slightly brighter in one polarizing state. Now,

161
00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:08.639
if confirmed by future observations, that subtle difference could be

162
00:10:08.679 --> 00:10:12.399
related to how charged particles from Jupiter's magnetosphy a modifying

163
00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:15.519
the ice or affecting the formation of small scale surface

164
00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:19.960
structures that absorb le scatter radio waves. Whether that provides

165
00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:22.840
a catalyst for the formation of life is another question.

166
00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:26.360
In fact, the entire question of whether life does exist

167
00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:28.759
in the depths of the global seas beneath the Europe's

168
00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:33.799
icy surface is still open for debate. This report from MESSERTV.

169
00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:37.000
That's a great question, and it's a question that NASA

170
00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:40.639
will seek to answer with the Europa Clipper spacecraft. Europa

171
00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:42.919
is a moon of Jupiter. It's about the same size

172
00:10:42.919 --> 00:10:45.840
as Earth's moon, but its surface looks very different. The

173
00:10:45.879 --> 00:10:48.440
surface of Europa is covered with a layer of ice,

174
00:10:48.840 --> 00:10:51.320
and below that ice, we think there's a layer of

175
00:10:51.399 --> 00:10:55.840
liquid water, with more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

176
00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:59.480
So because of this giant ocean, we think that Europa

177
00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:01.759
is actually one of the best places in the Solar

178
00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:05.759
System to look for life beyond the Earth. Life as

179
00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:09.720
we know it has three main requirements. Liquid water. All

180
00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:12.480
life here on Earth uses liquid water as a basis.

181
00:11:12.799 --> 00:11:16.120
The second is the right chemical elements. These are elements

182
00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:22.120
like carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur. They're elements that

183
00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:24.799
create the building blocks for life as we know it

184
00:11:24.840 --> 00:11:28.120
on Earth. We think that those elements exist on Europa.

185
00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:32.600
The third component is an energy source. As Europa orbits

186
00:11:32.639 --> 00:11:36.679
around Jupiter, Jupiter's strong gravity tugs and pulls on it.

187
00:11:36.679 --> 00:11:40.080
It actually stretches out the surface and it produces a

188
00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:43.799
heat source called tidal heating. So it's possible that hydrothermal

189
00:11:43.799 --> 00:11:46.919
systems could exist at the bottom of Europa's ocean and

190
00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:50.519
it's possible that those could be locations for abundant life.

191
00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:54.480
So could there be life on Europa? It's possible, and

192
00:11:54.600 --> 00:11:58.559
Europa Clipper is going to explore Europa to help try

193
00:11:58.559 --> 00:11:59.759
to answer that question.

194
00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:02.120
That report from that's a TV we heard from the

195
00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:07.720
agency's punetary geologist, Cynthia Phillips. This is space time still

196
00:12:07.759 --> 00:12:10.440
to come what happens to the Earth when the Sun dies?

197
00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:13.759
And later in the science report, a new study found

198
00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:18.320
that data centers far more massive carbon footprints than previously thought.

199
00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:21.559
Seems they may be great for technology's advancement, but they're

200
00:12:21.600 --> 00:12:24.120
not good for the environment. All that and more still

201
00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:43.679
to come on space time. A new study that's provided

202
00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:46.120
astronomers with a glimpse of the future we're likely to

203
00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:49.240
face when our Sun dies in around seven billion years

204
00:12:49.279 --> 00:12:52.600
from now. The Sun will eventually run out of the

205
00:12:52.600 --> 00:12:55.919
core hydrogen it uses the fuse into helium, the process

206
00:12:55.960 --> 00:12:59.080
that makes the sun shine. When that happens, the core

207
00:12:59.159 --> 00:13:02.240
will contract, increasing in temperature and pressure until it gets

208
00:13:02.279 --> 00:13:04.879
hot enough to begin fusing helium in the core into

209
00:13:04.919 --> 00:13:08.000
carbon and oxygen. At the same time, a shell of

210
00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:11.559
hydrogen outside the core will begin burning. Now, all this

211
00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:15.360
increased temperature will cause the Sun's auter atmosphere to expand,

212
00:13:15.559 --> 00:13:18.840
becoming one hundred times bigger than it is now. As

213
00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:22.679
it expands outwards, the Sun's now bloated surface, being further

214
00:13:22.759 --> 00:13:25.759
away from the core, will start to cool down, turning

215
00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:29.639
our star into a red giant. Finally, then our bloated

216
00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:32.480
Sun will puff off its outer gaseous layers, which will

217
00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:36.559
float away as a planetary nebula, leaving behind its searingly

218
00:13:36.600 --> 00:13:39.320
hot stellar core about the size of the Earth called

219
00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:43.200
a white dwarf. Now, as the Sun transforms into a

220
00:13:43.240 --> 00:13:45.879
red giant, it will consume the inner planets of our

221
00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:48.879
Solar system, Mercury and Venus, and most likely the Earth

222
00:13:48.879 --> 00:13:51.559
as well. Even if the Earth does survive, it'll be

223
00:13:51.639 --> 00:13:54.559
roasted to a crisp. However, the fate of the more

224
00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:58.919
distant planets, especially the gas giants, is still unclear. Finding

225
00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:01.559
and studying planets that orbit around the remnants of Sun

226
00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:04.600
like stars after their death is a means astronomers have

227
00:14:04.840 --> 00:14:07.279
for learning what might happen to our Solar System in

228
00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:11.960
the far distant future. So astronomers using NASA's web Space

229
00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:15.279
Telescope now studied a distant star system made up of

230
00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:17.919
a white dwarf star about ten million years old, which

231
00:14:17.960 --> 00:14:20.639
is being orbited by a gas giant planet named w

232
00:14:20.840 --> 00:14:24.000
D eighteen fifty six B, which is somewhere between four

233
00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:27.039
point three and ten point nine times the mass of Jupiter.

234
00:14:27.759 --> 00:14:30.320
Their five dings are reported in the journal Nature. So

235
00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:34.240
this gas giant has a thick methane aerosol atmosphere and

236
00:14:34.320 --> 00:14:36.960
a Balmi temperature of between one hundred and seventeen and

237
00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:39.960
one hundred and thirty nine degrees celsius, which the authors

238
00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:42.080
say is quite a lot hotter than expected for a

239
00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:46.000
planet of the size. WD eighteen fifty six B was

240
00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:49.840
discovered in twenty twenty by scientists using NASA's tests Transitting

241
00:14:49.879 --> 00:14:53.480
Exoplanet Survey satellite and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

242
00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:55.960
It's orbiting its host white dwarf.

243
00:14:55.679 --> 00:14:58.720
Star WD eighteen fifty six plus five point thirty four,

244
00:14:58.759 --> 00:15:02.279
which is about eighty light years away from US. The

245
00:15:02.360 --> 00:15:05.120
studies lead author Ryan McDonald from the University of s

246
00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:08.240
Andrews says this planet is quite an odd ball. This

247
00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:11.200
is the first such discovery of an intact planet so

248
00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:15.279
closely orbiting its white dwarf host some fifty times closer

249
00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:18.200
than the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Now without doubt,

250
00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:21.240
had WD eighteen fifty six B originally been orbiting at

251
00:15:21.240 --> 00:15:23.559
that distance from its host, it would have been obliterated

252
00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:26.519
by the star. While it was a red giant sir

253
00:15:26.679 --> 00:15:29.440
begs the question how did it survive the death of

254
00:15:29.480 --> 00:15:32.039
its host star and end up in its current position.

255
00:15:32.879 --> 00:15:35.279
That's where McDonald and colleagues turned to the web space

256
00:15:35.399 --> 00:15:38.080
telescope to watch the planet passing in front of its

257
00:15:38.080 --> 00:15:40.639
star in a so called grazing transit. At the very

258
00:15:40.639 --> 00:15:44.000
top of the planet partially overlaps the star, and it

259
00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:46.879
was this transit which yielded the unique information about the

260
00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:51.000
planet's mass and temperature. Light from the star passed directly

261
00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:54.639
through the planet's atmosphere, picking up information about the atmosphere's

262
00:15:54.679 --> 00:15:59.039
chemical composition for arriving at the spectrographs the board web Also,

263
00:15:59.159 --> 00:16:02.200
during the transit, light from the star was partially blocked,

264
00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:05.840
but infrared light was blocked less than other wavelengths, and

265
00:16:05.879 --> 00:16:09.000
that difference was caused by infrared light being emitted by

266
00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:12.360
the planet from its own heat. The data indicated that

267
00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:14.720
the planet had a temperature of around four hundred kelvin

268
00:16:14.759 --> 00:16:17.080
about two hundred and forty degrees hotter than it should

269
00:16:17.159 --> 00:16:19.440
be if the only heat source was the light coming

270
00:16:19.480 --> 00:16:23.080
from the white dwarf. And it was this puzzling discovery

271
00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:25.679
that turned out to be the key which indicated how

272
00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:29.039
the planet must have reached its current orbit. Now there

273
00:16:29.039 --> 00:16:31.879
are two hypotheses to try and explain what happened. One

274
00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:34.159
is that the planet was swallowed by the host star

275
00:16:34.200 --> 00:16:37.360
as it was dying, but somehow managed to survive inside

276
00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:38.720
that bloated atmosphere.

277
00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:41.039
The other is that planetary.

278
00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:43.759
Migration took place due to the gravitational effect of other

279
00:16:43.799 --> 00:16:47.399
objects in the system. Now, this white Dwarf is actually

280
00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:49.879
part of a triple star system, and the two other

281
00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:54.559
companion stars could have influenced WD eighteen fifty six bees orbit. Now,

282
00:16:54.559 --> 00:16:57.200
the authors realized there was no source of energy present

283
00:16:57.279 --> 00:16:59.879
to generate the sort of heat the planets delivering today,

284
00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:02.759
so it must have been residual energy from an earlier

285
00:17:02.799 --> 00:17:05.400
time when the planet was heated, either from being engulfed

286
00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:09.440
within the Red Giant or during an inward migration. Using

287
00:17:09.519 --> 00:17:13.079
models of how substellar objects like WD eighteen fifty six

288
00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:15.759
be cooled down over time, coupled with a new data

289
00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:18.240
from web about the planet's mass and current temperature, the

290
00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:20.559
authors were able to project its temperature back in time

291
00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:24.440
and deduce how long ago heating must have happened. They

292
00:17:24.519 --> 00:17:27.519
concluded that the heating most likely happened between three and

293
00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:30.240
five point five billion years after the star became a

294
00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:33.559
white dwarf. So in this scenario, the planet was on

295
00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:35.799
a wide orbit that kept it safe from the star

296
00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:39.960
during its destructive red giant phase, but then migrated inwards

297
00:17:39.960 --> 00:17:43.519
to its present location much later on. And as the

298
00:17:43.559 --> 00:17:46.599
planet moved inwards, its interactions with a strong gravity of

299
00:17:46.599 --> 00:17:49.359
the white dwarf would have caused it to warm up considerably,

300
00:17:49.559 --> 00:17:52.079
and it's been cooling down again ever since.

301
00:17:52.839 --> 00:18:10.839
This is Space Time and time Out of Tech.

302
00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:12.839
Another brief look at some of the other stories making

303
00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:16.079
news in science this week with a Science report, Well,

304
00:18:16.079 --> 00:18:19.079
if you're a night owl like me, take heed. A

305
00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:22.759
new study claims early rises have more nutritious diets and

306
00:18:22.839 --> 00:18:25.720
use up more energy than people who prefer staying up late.

307
00:18:26.359 --> 00:18:29.720
A report in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition looked at diets,

308
00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:32.599
sleep times, and the health of some three hundred European

309
00:18:32.599 --> 00:18:35.960
and Pacific New Zealand women, finding a third, where evening people,

310
00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:39.200
over a tenth were early morning rises and more than

311
00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:42.400
half were in between us. Now, all their diets had

312
00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:45.119
similar amounts of fat pros in in carbs, but it

313
00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:48.160
turns out the night ours consumed less vitamins and minerals

314
00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:51.240
and they had higher health risks. The authors say this

315
00:18:51.319 --> 00:18:53.720
could be from eating and digesting at a time when

316
00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:57.079
buddies store rather than use energy, and that shows how

317
00:18:57.119 --> 00:19:00.240
your sleeping patterns relative to the day nights cycle can

318
00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:04.799
affect your health. A new study of sea grasses around

319
00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:07.240
the world has revealed that Australia is home to a

320
00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:10.279
large chunk of the world's sea grasses, but it's rapidly

321
00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:13.680
losing them. The findings, reported in the journal Nature, show

322
00:19:13.720 --> 00:19:16.440
that almost seventy percent of the world's shallow water sea

323
00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:21.079
grasses occur in five countries, the Bahamas, Cuba, Australia, the

324
00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:25.200
United States and Indonesia. The authors found that between twenty

325
00:19:25.240 --> 00:19:27.799
nineteen and twenty twenty, and again between twenty twenty three

326
00:19:27.839 --> 00:19:30.920
and twenty four, sea grasses declined by around one percent

327
00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:34.920
per year, with Australia and the Bahamas among the biggest losers.

328
00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:38.200
The authors found the majority of the world's sea grasses

329
00:19:38.279 --> 00:19:43.480
remain in areas which are outside protected marine parks. A

330
00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:46.680
new study has shown that Meta's AI smart glasses could

331
00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:49.319
help people with low vision, although they may be better

332
00:19:49.319 --> 00:19:52.119
for some task than others. A report in the Journal

333
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:55.640
of the American Medical Association involved the study six authors

334
00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:59.160
acting as their own subjects, testing the glasses for accuracy

335
00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:03.279
when performing various daily tasks. They found that smart glasses

336
00:20:03.319 --> 00:20:06.599
could identify common objects with ninety nine percent accuracy, but

337
00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:10.119
were less accurate in discriminating colors, the direction of objects,

338
00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:13.119
or how many objects there were. For reading, they are

339
00:20:13.160 --> 00:20:16.799
the highest accuracy with children's books, less accuracy with standard

340
00:20:16.839 --> 00:20:21.279
text and handwriting. In individual money identification, they were accurate

341
00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:25.480
with paper money, not so good with coins. A new

342
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:28.759
study has found that data centers, its dramatic expansion has

343
00:20:28.839 --> 00:20:31.960
been fueled by the artificial intelligence boom, have a far

344
00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:36.279
bigger carbon footprint than previously thought. The research by Alliance

345
00:20:36.440 --> 00:20:39.440
Trade showed that the sprawling, power hungry sites used to

346
00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:42.799
store critical IT infrastructure, such as servers, emitted some two

347
00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:46.480
hundred and eighty six million tons of carbon dioxide last year.

348
00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:50.200
It's fifty seven percent higher than estimates by the International

349
00:20:50.279 --> 00:20:53.960
Energy Agency. The study also found that AI, which currently

350
00:20:53.960 --> 00:20:56.359
accounts for between fifteen and twenty percent of the power

351
00:20:56.400 --> 00:20:59.440
consumption at data centers, is likely to climb that forty

352
00:20:59.480 --> 00:21:03.279
percent twenty thirty. Data center emissions are likely to more

353
00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:06.079
than double by twenty thirty, leading to an estimated one

354
00:21:06.119 --> 00:21:09.200
hundred and fifty four billion dollars in annual climate damages.

355
00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:13.160
That's up from sixty eight billion today. They're required between

356
00:21:13.160 --> 00:21:15.480
one point three and one point eight trillion liters of

357
00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:19.400
water by twenty thirty. It's comparable the Switzerland's annual water consumption.

358
00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:23.799
Seventy percent of global data emissions are currently concentrated in

359
00:21:23.839 --> 00:21:29.000
the United States and China. Samsung's about to launch it's

360
00:21:29.079 --> 00:21:32.599
new Galaxy Z Fold eight and Fold eight ultra cell phones.

361
00:21:33.240 --> 00:21:36.240
With the details, we're joined by technology editor Alex haharov

362
00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:38.440
Royd from Tech Advice Start Life.

363
00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:41.079
The actual launch is going to happen on July twenty seconds,

364
00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:42.640
so that's why we're going to find out the real news.

365
00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:45.920
But what is heavily rumored by all sorts of leaks

366
00:21:46.079 --> 00:21:48.640
is that Samsung will launch a phone that is going

367
00:21:48.680 --> 00:21:51.759
to be similar in dimensions to the iPhone fild or

368
00:21:51.799 --> 00:21:54.000
the iPhone Ultra that will come later this year, and

369
00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:56.079
it's a bit like a passport, So instead of having

370
00:21:56.160 --> 00:21:59.720
this taller aspect ratio than unfolds into a square, it's

371
00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:02.079
going to be like a passport where it's sort of

372
00:22:02.359 --> 00:22:04.559
shorter and squat and then we'll open up into like

373
00:22:04.599 --> 00:22:07.440
this little mini book and that is supposed to be

374
00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:10.119
more easier to hold in the hands. It's the style

375
00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:12.680
that Apple is going to launch. So of course Samsung,

376
00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:15.359
which is believed to make the screens for the iPhone

377
00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:17.759
Ultra when it launches later this year, I mean they know,

378
00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:20.599
but actually Samsung and Apple were not the first with

379
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:23.759
this form factor. Huawei had this form factor previously, so

380
00:22:23.960 --> 00:22:27.359
Samsung was also still supposed to have the squarish design

381
00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:30.079
of the Galaxy Fold. The question that nobody knows it

382
00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:33.559
is whether it will have stylus support, something that Samsung

383
00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:36.240
removed from the Galaxy Fold seven, which was very very thin,

384
00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:38.799
and they removed the digitizer layer. So look, we're going

385
00:22:38.839 --> 00:22:42.240
to find out more details about exactly what benefits of

386
00:22:42.279 --> 00:22:44.880
this particular form factor are from Samsung and how it

387
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:48.279
intends to showcase multitasking, Whether the Stylus is back, but

388
00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:50.880
this is going to be the new hyper foldable, this

389
00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:54.000
passport style device that opens up, and it's a different

390
00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:56.279
aspec rassure to what we've used to be seeing before.

391
00:22:56.279 --> 00:22:59.160
It's also expected to measure four point five millimeters thick

392
00:22:59.279 --> 00:23:02.359
and nine point five seven millimeters when folded, so it's

393
00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:05.039
definitely going to be an eye catching phone, and it

394
00:23:05.079 --> 00:23:08.160
will transform from having a smaller outside screen to having

395
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:11.319
this much larger tablet size screen. And the way these

396
00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:13.200

Cosmic Discoveries: Japan's Asteroid Encounter and the Life Potential of Europa

Listen On

Featured Episodes

Recent Episodes

Support On

Cosmic Discoveries: Japan's Asteroid Encounter and the Life Potential of Europa

Astronomy Daily Newsletter

Thank you!

Listen On

Featured Episodes

Recent Episodes

Support On