S26E69: Unlocking the secrets of the first building blocks of life with iron particles

WEBVTT

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This is Spacetime Series twenty six,
episode sixty nine, for broadcast on the

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ninth of June twenty twenty three.
Coming up on Spacetime, Creating Life on

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Earth, Training for the first Mars
sample return mission, and Virgin Galactic now

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in countdown to its first commercial launch. All that and more coming up on

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Spacetime Welcome to Spacetime with Stewart.
Gary scientists have proposed a new scenario for

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the emergence of the first building blocks
of life on Earth some four billion years

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ago. The research, published in
the journal Science Reports, show how iron

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particles from meteors and volcanic ash could
have not only served as catalysts for converting

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a carbon dioxide rich early atmosphere into
hydrocarbons, but also a settle dihyde and

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formaldehyde, which in turn serve as
building blocks for fatty acids, nuclear bases,

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sugars, and amino acids. To
the best of our current knowledge,

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life on Earth first emerged just four
hundred million to seven hundred million years after

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the planet itself was formed four point
six billion years ago. Now that's a

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fairly quick development. Now, for
comparison, consider that afterwards it took about

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two billion years for the first proper
eukaryotic cells to form, that is,

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cells with internal structures. The first
step towards the emergence of life is the

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formation of organic molecules that can serve
as building blocks for organisms. Now,

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considering how fast life itself arose,
it would be feasible for this comparatively simple

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step to have been completed quickly as
well. The new research provided in this

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study presents a new way for such
organic compounds to form on planetary scales under

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the conditions prevalent on the earlier Earth. Now, the key supporting role goes

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to iron particles produced from meteorites,
which would act as a catalyst. Catalyst

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to substances as present speeds up specific
chemical reactions, but do not get used

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up during those reactions. It's sort
of like using tools in the manufacturing sector.

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Tools are necessary to produce something like
say a car. Once the car's

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built, you don't need those tools
for the car anymore, and instead they

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can be used to build the next
car. Key inspiration for this new research

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came from, of all things,
industrial chemistry, specifically oliver trapped from the

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Ludvik Maximilian's University in Munich and the
Max Bank Institute for Astronomy wondered whether the

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process for converting carbon monoxide and hydrogen
into hydrocarbons in the presence of metallic catalysts

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might also have been an analog on
the early Earth with a carbon dioxide ridge

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atmosphere. Trapp says that when he
was looking at the composition of the Campo

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del Cilium iron meteorite, which consists
of iron nickels and cobalt and tiny amounts

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of iridium, he realized that this
looked like a perfect catalyst. So the

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next logical step was to set up
an experiment to test the cosmic conversion of

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the catalyst. As well as studying
iron meteorites, Trapping colleagues also looked at

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the catalytic properties of volcanic ash particles. After all, the early Earth should

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have been full of lots of geological
activity, and so there should have been

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plenty of fine ash particles in the
atmosphere and on earth first land masses.

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The first ingredient for the experiments was
always a source of iron particles. Now,

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in different versions of the experiment,
those iron particles could be iron from

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an actual iron meteorite or particles from
an iron containing stone, meteorite or volcanic

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ash from Mount Etna. The ladder
as a standing for iron rich particles that

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could be present in the early day
Earth with its highly active volcanism. Next,

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the iron particles were mixed with different
minerals of the sort that might be

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found on the early Earth, and
these minerals would act as a supporting structure.

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Now, the fine volcanic ash particles
produced by volcanic eruptions, typically just

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a few micromedicine size ALFA meteorites falling
through the atmosphere of the early Earth.

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Atmospheric friction would have belated nanometicized iron
particles, and the surface impact of an

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iron meteorite or iron core of a
larger asteroid would produce micrometicized iron particles directly

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through fragmentation and nanometicized particles as iron
evaporated in the intense heat and later on

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condensed again in the surrounding air.
Now, since Earth's initial atmosphere didn't contain

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oxygen, the authors then followed up
with chemical reactions that removed almost all the

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oxygen from the mixture, and as
a last step in each version of the

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experiment, the mixture was brought into
a pressure chamber and filled with mostly carbon

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dioxide as well as some hydrogen molecules
in order to simulate what the atmosphere of

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the early Earth would have been like. Now, both the exact mixture and

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the pressure were varied between experiments and
the results were impressive. Thanks to the

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iron catalyst, organic compounds such as
methanol, ethanol, and acetaldehyde were produced,

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and also formaldehyde, and that's an
encouraging harbor a. Seed Aldehyde and

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formaldide in particular are important building blocks
for fatty acids, for nuclear bases themselves,

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building blocks of DNA, for sugars, and for amino acids. Importantly,

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these reactions all took place successfully under
a variety of different pressure and temperature

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conditions. So with these new results
it means there are now new contenders for

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how the first building blocks of life
could have formed on Earth, and that

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allows them to join the classic mechanisms
such as organic humo synthesis, near heart

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events on the ocean floor, and
electrical discharge through lightning in the methane rich

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atmosphere. This space time still to
come. Training for the first Mars sample

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return mission and virgin galactic now in
countdown to its first commercial launch that are

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more still to come on spacetime missions
to Mars have made many exciting discoveries that

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have transformed their understanding of the Red
planet orbit as landers and rovers have studied

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the Martian surface in great detail,
finding a free stride desert that billions of

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years ago would have been a warm, wet, habitable world capable of supporting

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life. But all these studies were
forced to use compact equipment and instruments that

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limit the amount of science that can
be achieved on any given mission. Clearly,

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the next step is to bring these
samples from Mars back to Earth for

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more detailed analysis in more sophisticated laboratories. There, Martian rocks can be analyzed

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but the most technologically advanced equipment,
allowing scientists to verify different results independently.

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In addition, as equipment improves and
new advances are made, samples can be

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reanalyzed and new information extracted. In
fact, that's happening right now with lunar

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samples brought back to Worth in the
nineteen and seventies by the Apollo astronauts.

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So bringing samples back from Mars on
a robotic mission is the next logical step,

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but it's not going to be easy. In fact, it will require

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multiple missions. It will be more
challenging and more advanced than any robotic mission

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ever done before. But at the
same time it'll also be an incredible precursor

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to future manned missions to the Red
planet, and right now there are only

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about another ten or so years away. Already, the European Space Agency in

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NASA are working to explore mission concepts
for an international Mars sample return campaign slated

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for the late twenty twenties. The
first part of this project's already underway,

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with NASA's car size six wheeled Mass
Perseverance Rover and its Ingenuity helicopter exploring jes

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Ro Crater collecting samples for eventual return
to Earth. Jesro Crater was chosen because

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it includes a giant river delta,
a place where sediment from further upstream can

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be collected, and the sort of
environment which would of harbored life had any

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ever existed on Mars. Half the
sample was being collected by the Mass Perseverance

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Rover are stored in a special cache
deep inside the machine. The rest,

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so called backups, have now been
carefully placed into depository on the Martian surface.

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There, the sample chips were imaged
from different angles and their exact location

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recorded. But collecting samples is one
thing. Getting them back to Earth it's

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quite another to achieve that feat at
least two more Earth to Mars flights will

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be needed. One will place an
Earth return orbit a spacecraft into Mars orbit,

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and the other will send a lander
to the red planet, which will

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touch down close to Perseverance. The
lander will carry its own helicopters and rovers

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in order to gather the samples collected
by Perseverance. It will then collect them

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and load them into a Mars of
scent vehicle, basically a small rocket also

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mounted on the lander. Once loaded, the Mars of centric or will launch

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back into space, performing what will
be the first lift from Mars, and

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then rondevoing and docking with the prepositioned
Earth Return orbiter. The samples will be

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sealed in a special by containment system
in order to prevent contaminating the Earth will

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unsterilized material. The samples will then
be transferred into an Earth entry capsule,

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which is mounted aboard the Earth Return
orbiter for the flight back to Earth.

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As the Earth Return orbiter approaches Earth, the Earth entry capsure will be jettisoned

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and with it the pressures samples.
Capsule will parachute down to the ground,

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from where the samples will be transported
to a special handling facility, and it's

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only in there that scientists will be
able to begin the real work of studying

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the Martian samples. An important part
of the mission it will be the detect,

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fetch and collect phase on the Martian
surface. Now it all sounds easy,

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but remember this will be happening two
hundred and ninety thousand million kilometers away,

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with its time delays and radiation interference, where anything that can go wrong

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will go wrong. Testing the technologies
for the mission is Laura Bylan, an

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ESS scientist with the Mars Sample Return
Campaign. Her work takes place on a

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rock strewn recreation of the Red Planet
at ESS Mars Yard in the Netherlands.

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The sample tubes being collected here are
exact replicas of the sample cases that NASA's

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Mars Perseverance roveries leaving on the Red
Planet. They're called REST an acronym for

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Returnable Sample tube assembly, but to
most Earth things they look more like lightsabers.

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Bielenberg's investigetting different sample tube collection strategies. See what works best. For

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example, the sample transfer arm and
the rovers will need to collect the tubes

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on the Martian surface, transport them
back to the Mars Ascent vehicle and then

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place them inside the rocket. Those
that can't be collected by the fetch rovers

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will be collected by the helicopters using
grappling hooks and cameras. It's a complicated

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and difficult mission. This report from
ESA TV. This task burd is on

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a barge finding samples on Mars,
detecting them, estimated the poles, bringing

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them back to Earth to then be
analyzed by scientists and figure out what Mars

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is made of. These kind of
tubes are already on board of Perseverance on

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Mars, and Perseverance is using them
to collect samples of the Martian surface and

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of regulars and it's stored inside the
tube. Well, it looks a bit

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like a lightsabery, doesn't it if
you look at it, So you could

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imagine just going like this and being
a lightsaber. But it's much cooler than

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that because it has actual Mars soil
in Europe either and now they are collaborating

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on this, so together we have
the smart Sample Return campaign in which we

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return the samples from Mars, and
Europe is playing its part by having the

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still the Sample Transfer arm which is
going to collect the samples from Perseverance and

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also samples that are dropped by the
marsalticopters and put them in the orbital sample

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to be flown back to Earth,
and that would be the first time in

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human history to actually bring back samples
from Mars. This is the Planetary Robotics

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lab. We have a beautiful mass
yard and this is what we test our

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robo prototype. So it takes an
image from a buffs with the enoughcom on

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the top and then in a second
step identify some key points in this tube

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image to get the post estimate of
the tube. You can never really recreate

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one hundred percent the outdoor lighting environment, but we try to have a mixture

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of direct lighting with our fresnel lens
with an LED and also some environmental indirect

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lighting with our lab lights. And
also to make it look more Mars like,

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we're using the Mars lap here than
we have where we have different types

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of terrain, so we have sand, we have big stones, we have

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pabbled, we have flagstones. It's
pretty amazing to think that you could contribute

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to finding out something about another planet
in our Solar System and to actually work

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on a robotic system or on the
resource that leads to a robotic system that

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actually flies to Mars in the end, that is pretty amazing. This spacetime

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still to come. Virgin Galactic now
in countdown to its first commercial launch.

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That are more still to come on
spacetime. Virgin Galactic has successfully carried out

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its first suborbital flight in nearly two
years, and is now set to begin

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commercial space tourism operations within weeks.
The mission aboard THESS Unity from Virgin Galactic

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Spaceport America complex in New Mexico followed
a series of safety upgrades the Virgin's growing

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flight of wing rocket planes you see. Its previous flight in twenty twenty one

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sparked an official Federal Aviation Administration safety
probe after the space plane dropped below it's

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assigned air space descent rate during the
glide back to the planet's surface. The

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FAA cleared the company to resume flight
only after safety modifications were carried out designed

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to keep the aircraft inside its flight
envelope. The Unity twenty five mission flew

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Virgin Galactic employees to an altitude of
just over eighty seven kilometers on what's considered

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the final shakedown test flight. The
next flight, the first for paying passengers,

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will carry members of the Italian Air
Force. Unlike its main competitors in

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the space tourism race SpaceX and Blue
Origin, who both launched air rockets vertically,

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Virgin Galactic launches its wings space planes
known as Spaceship twos from between the

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twin fuselage assemblies of a custom built
four engine jet aircraft mothership known as White

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Knight two. It has the advantage
of being able to take off horizontally from

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a conventional runway. Then, after
climbing to around fifty thousand feet, the

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Spaceship two rocketplane is released in what's
called a drop launch, quickly firing up

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its hybrid rocket engine and accelerating to
around MAC three as it climbs vertically on

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a ballistic trajectory that takes it just
below the thringing twenty eight thousand feet or

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one hundred kilometer high Carmen Line,
the internationally recognized official start of space.

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After a few minutes of weightlessness,
the world's best views taking in the blackness

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of space, curvature of the Earth, and the thin blue line marking the

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planet's life giving atmosphere. Gravity starts
to bring the journey back towards the ground,

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spacecraft eventually gliding to a conventional runway, landing roughly ninety minutes after launch.

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It's taken a long time to get
here, and it hasn't been without

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its problems. Virgin Galactic Space program
suffered years of delays, and there was

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that fatal twenty fourteen accident due to
pilot error, but it hasn't stopped enthusiastic

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space tourists wanting to go for a
ride. Virgin says it's sort of abound.

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Eight hundred tickets so far well.
Initially selling for around a quarter of

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a million dollars a seat, those
tickets are now going for an eye watering

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half a million dollars each, But
when you think about it, that's a

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bargain compared to SpaceX. There's Axiom
two space tourism passengers paid around eighty million

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dollars each for their ten day trip
to the International Space Station. This Space

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Time and Time out to take another
brief look at some of the other stories

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making news and science this week,
with a Science Report. A new study

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has shown how the COVID nineteen pandemic
has changed our drinking habits. A report

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in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review
has found that adult men those aged over

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thirty five were most likely to increase
the alcohol consumption during the early stages of

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the COVID nineteen pandemic. The numbers
are based on survey data and alcohol consumption

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across the UK, New Zealand and
Australia. The authors of the study catalog

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people into certain groups. Those who
drank alone made up around thirty two point

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three percent of the turtal, those
mostly drank in their household thirty six percent,

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those who drank alone and in their
household at seventeen point nine percent,

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those who drank mostly at parties three
point two percent, and those who drank

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everywhere one point one percent. The
authors say those who mostly drank alone report

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of the highest levels of alcohol consumption
or more social drinkers. Young people and

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women were likely to reduce their alcohol
consumption in the early twenty twenties. A

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new study says the bacteria that caused
the plague may have arrived in Britain much

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earlier than the Middle Ages. A
report in the journal Lectric Communications found three

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A. Cinepesta samples in people buried
in the British Early Bronze Age around four

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thousand years ago. Of the three
plague genomes, two came from an unusual

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mass burial site and one from a
single burial under a ring can monument.

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The detection of these genomes represents the
oldest evidence of the Black Death in Britain

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to date. The researchers say that
genomes do not include a specific gene that

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has been associated with a fleaborn bubonic
plague of the Middle Ages, so they

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think this older strain may not have
been transmitted by fleas. Ebonic plague killed

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between seventy five and two hundred million
people between thirteen forty six and thirteen fifty

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three. However, plague has also
been identified previously in Eurasia between five thousand

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and two thousand, five hundred years
ago, and the researchers say that the

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wide geographic spread suggest that the strain
of the plague is still easily transmitted.

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Globally, around six hundred cases of
plague is still reported each year, and

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despite treatment, the risk of death
is ten percent, but that goes up

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to seventy percent if you don't have
treatment. A new study shows that Australia's

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wild dingo populations have far fewer domestic
dog jenes than previously thought. The findings

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are reported in the journal Molecular Ecology, show that most dingo populations are purebreads

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rather than highbreads. The new research
challenges the view that purebread dingoes were on

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the decline due to cross breeding.
The new findings suggests that previous studies significantly

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over estimated the prevalence of dingo dog
mixes. Well, have you been enjoying

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the later sci fi zombie series though
Last of Us? You may be more

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than a little disturbed to learn that
it's based more on science than you're probably

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comfortable with. As timendum from a
Streen Skeptics points out, there really are

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fungal threats out there that compose deadly, even zombie like control over animals.

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Yes, there's fungal infections that can
create very very bad effects, and there's

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been for ages. There's obviously nothing
new, especially when you talk about Muldi

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bread or anything like that. Contaminated
rye is a big thing, as there's

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a disease called Saint Anthony's fire,
which is about rye contaminated by fungi and

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you get silos or you get it
in storage for various places. You make

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bread out of it or whatever you
make out of it, and that can

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lead to reduce blood flow, tissue
necrosis, which is pretty horrible central nervousness

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and over stimulated changes, a mental
state, hallucinations, depression, delirium,

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suicidal thoughts, intense pain, gangrein
and loss of limbs which is the necrosis.

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So the fungle is can be a
pretty serious thing. It's not just

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a bit of green stuff on your
toast you scrape off. The TV series

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00:20:04.839 --> 00:20:10.000
is about spreading zombie isn't via fungus, which is probably unlikely, But the

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thing is it is based on a
real fungus which has a real effect,

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which is something called afia called diceps
unilaterals. How's that I wrote it down

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00:20:17.400 --> 00:20:19.920
or more easily caught a sets which
is easy to say which affect ants.

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00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:23.200
And what happens is that this funguy
gets into an ant somehow and it's start

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to eat away at the ant until
basically it concens the whole nervous system of

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the ant, causes the ant to
climb up a plant hang around on a

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00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:36.000
little shoots or branches or whatever about
twenty five centimeters above the ground, and

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00:20:36.039 --> 00:20:37.839
when the fungus has had its way
with the ant, it then just drops.

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00:20:37.880 --> 00:20:41.559
The fungus just spreads and drops down. It's like a little sort of

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shower thing up the top and drops
down fungus onto the ground beneath, and

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00:20:44.720 --> 00:20:48.079
hopefully there's a more ant down there
and continues the cycle, et cetera.

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00:20:48.279 --> 00:20:52.039
That's what the people who wrote their
original game, The Last of Us based

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00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:53.240
it on, knowing so, well, that's a bad ants, but they

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00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:57.519
applied it and extended it into sort
of the good Zombies TV shirt. But

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the fungus does do these things,
not necessarily zombifying, but they can have

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00:21:02.799 --> 00:21:06.279
a very very bad effect. And
what this show is based on a prediction

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00:21:06.359 --> 00:21:07.799
made in the sixties that of viruses
are not going to be the big prop

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fung guy, it will be the
big problem. So there's a little bit

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00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:15.640
of science in there. There's a
lot more fiction and scary stuff and zombies,

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00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:19.920
but basically there are fun guy that
do horrible things to animals that necessarily

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mammals. There's a case of a
fun guy that attacks cicadas, it deploys

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00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:30.359
a hallucinogenic compound that makes the insects
fly wildly. Surprised me. There's I'm

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00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:33.599
dope and they release spores in every
direction. It's like a little crop dub

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00:21:33.640 --> 00:21:37.279
stuff. But that's only after the
fun guy has literally eaten the insects genitals

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and bottoms. That's the way to
get the fung guy out of the body.

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And then the male cicatas do their
little mating dance they seeing, et

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00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:45.119
cetera to attract females and they spread
the fungus that way. Not that they

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00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:48.039
can do much one for the genitals
and bottom has been eaten, but they

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00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:51.240
can sort of attract the female and
that can spread it. I mean,

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00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:55.279
obviously these wonders of evolution the way
they work, but it's a strange thing.

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It's a scary thing. Actually.
That's gymendum from Australian skeptics. And

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00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:19.880
that's the show for now. Spacetime
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