S27E19: Saturn's "Death Star" Moon Hides a Watery Surprise

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:04.839
This is Spacetime Series twenty seven,
Episode nineteen, for broadcast on the twurfth

2
00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:10.199
of February twenty twenty four. Coming
up on Space Time, Astronomers discover a

3
00:00:10.279 --> 00:00:15.880
surprise in a death star shaped moon, Gino's latest spectacular close flyby of the

4
00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:22.359
volcanic world of Io, and new
revelations prove organic compounds in asteroids can be

5
00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:27.600
formed in colder regions of space.
All that and more coming up on space

6
00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:50.479
Time Welcome to Space Time with Stuart
Gary. Astronomers have discovered a young,

7
00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:55.600
subsurface liquid water ocean below the icy
crust of Saturn's tiny moon, Mimas.

8
00:00:56.280 --> 00:01:00.119
Until now, Mimas's biggest claim to
fame was the huge Impact crater in its

9
00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:04.719
northern hemisphere, which gave the little
moon the appearance of the infamous death star

10
00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:10.439
in the movie Star Wars. Now, a report in the journal Nature claims

11
00:01:10.439 --> 00:01:15.200
a review of data from NASA's Cassini
mission indicates the four hundred kilometer wide Moon

12
00:01:15.319 --> 00:01:21.719
contains a global subsurface ocean beneath its
frozen crust. The data suggests this underground

13
00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:26.560
ocean still very young by geological standards, just five to fifteen million years old.

14
00:01:26.200 --> 00:01:30.680
The studies. Lead author Valery Laney
from the Observatoire de Paree says the

15
00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:36.760
astonishing discovery makes mima sur prime target
for studying the origins of life in our

16
00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:41.920
solar system. The moon's heavily created
surface gave no hint of the hidden ocean

17
00:01:41.959 --> 00:01:47.120
beneath. The discovery adds Mimers to
the exclusive club of moons in our Solar

18
00:01:47.159 --> 00:01:51.519
system that are now known to have
internal oceans, including Saturn's ice Moon and

19
00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:57.959
Soladus, and the Jovian Galileo Moon's
Europa Ganny meeting Callisto. But the unique

20
00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:02.200
difference here is the remarkably young age
of Mimas's ocean. The young age has

21
00:02:02.239 --> 00:02:08.120
been determined through detailed analyzes of Mimas's
title interactions with satin. The discovery of

22
00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:15.439
an unexpected irregularity in Mimas's orbit suggests
that the ocean formed very recently. As

23
00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:19.560
a result, Mimas provides a unique
window into the very early stages of ocean

24
00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:23.240
formation and the potential for life to
emerge. You see here on Earth,

25
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:30.840
wherever scientists find water, they find
life. This space time still to come.

26
00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:36.520
Juno's latest spectacular close flyby of the
volcanic word of Io, and confirmation

27
00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:40.680
that organic compounds found in asteroids can
be formed in cold regions of space.

28
00:02:42.439 --> 00:03:02.800
All that and more still to come
on Space Time NASA is Juno's spacecraft has

29
00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:08.400
just completed its second closed flyby of
the volcanic Jervian moon Io, revealing stunning

30
00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:15.879
erupting volcanoes blasting iridescent blue eject at
deep into a velvet black sky. It

31
00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:19.639
was the second close encounter with this
violent world in a row, the other

32
00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:24.360
being Juno's previous orbit in December,
and like the December encounter, JUNO swooped

33
00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:30.599
down within fifteen hundred kilometers of the
molten rock and sulfur covered moon. Io

34
00:03:30.759 --> 00:03:34.879
is the most volcanically active place in
the Solar System. It's a world where

35
00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:39.319
instead of weather reports, it'd have
geoscience reports, with fresh volcanic activity in

36
00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:45.199
the north mountain forming in the east
and new lava lakes forming in the southwest.

37
00:03:45.879 --> 00:03:49.560
JUNO is studying the three thousand,
three hundred and sixty kilometers wide world

38
00:03:49.599 --> 00:03:53.639
and its pot marked surface to determine
if Io's active volcanoes are powered by a

39
00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:59.960
global magma ocean beneath its crust.
Based on current models, scientists believe that

40
00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:05.479
it magma ocean results from gravitational tidal
forces generated as ioorbit's Jupiter and is constantly

41
00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:12.080
being stretched and crushed by the gas
giant's overwhelming gravitational pool. Then there's the

42
00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:16.279
pull of the other Galilean Jovian moons
as Io undertastes its orbit. All this

43
00:04:16.519 --> 00:04:20.600
causes what's known as geological flexing,
and that results in a build up of

44
00:04:20.639 --> 00:04:26.160
heat, which causes rocks in the
moon's interior to melt. It's actually very

45
00:04:26.199 --> 00:04:30.079
similar to what Europa and the other
icy moons are understood to be experiencing,

46
00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:33.839
where tidal flexing leads to hydrothermal activity
in the core mantle boundary region, melting

47
00:04:33.879 --> 00:04:39.839
the rock solid water ice into liquid
to form a subsurface ocean. Io is

48
00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:44.319
the fourth largest moon in our Solar
System and is slightly bigger than Earth's moon.

49
00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:49.279
iOS volcanism is responsible for many of
its unique features. Its volcanic plumes

50
00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:55.800
and lava flows produce large crustal changes
and paint the surface in various subtle shades

51
00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:59.560
of yellow, red, white,
black, and green. Arriving in the

52
00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:03.439
Jovian System in twenty sixteen, Juno's
the first mission to study Jupiter up close

53
00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:09.639
from orbit since the Galileo spacecraft studied
the gas giant and its satellites between nineteen

54
00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:15.000
ninety five and two thousand and three. JUNO has been looking deep below Jupiter's

55
00:05:15.079 --> 00:05:19.360
dense clouds to investigate the planet's magnetic
field, its composition, at its structure.

56
00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:25.360
This data is hooping scientists address serious
questions about how Jupiter formed, for

57
00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:29.600
that matter, the origins of our
Solar system see. As well as being

58
00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:32.040
the biggest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter is also believed to be the

59
00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:36.279
oldest planet, having formed just a
million years after the Sun and roughly fifty

60
00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:42.279
million years before the Earth. Before
Juno arrived, most scientists proposed one of

61
00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:46.199
two scenarios for the formation of Jupiter. Now, if the planet accreated first

62
00:05:46.279 --> 00:05:49.600
as a solid body, it would
have consisted of a dense core, a

63
00:05:49.639 --> 00:05:56.120
surrounding layer of fluid metallic hydrogen with
some helium and extending outwards to about eighty

64
00:05:56.120 --> 00:06:00.000
percent of the radius the planet.
And then there's an outer layer of atmosphere

65
00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:04.639
consisting primarily of molecular hydrogen. Now, alternatively, if the planet collapsed directly

66
00:06:04.680 --> 00:06:10.120
from the gaseous protoplanetary disk which formed
the Sun. It was expected to completely

67
00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:15.360
lack a core, consisting instead of
a denser and denser fluid predominantly molecular and

68
00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:18.519
metallic hydrogen all the way to the
center. However, the data from the

69
00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:24.040
junomission shows that Jupiter actually has a
diffuse core that mixes into the mattel,

70
00:06:24.199 --> 00:06:29.240
extending for about thirty to fifty percent
of the planet's radius and comprising heavy elements

71
00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:32.600
with a combined mass seven to twenty
five times that of the Earth. This

72
00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:38.639
mixing process could have arisen during its
formation or the planet accrete its solids and

73
00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:42.879
gases from the surrounding nebula. Alternatively, it could have been caused by the

74
00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:46.920
impact of a planet of about ten
Earth masses a few million years after Jupiter's

75
00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:51.759
formation, which would have disrupted an
originally solid choviing core. Outside the layer

76
00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:58.560
of metallic hydrogen lies a transparent interior
atmosphere of hydrogen. At this depth,

77
00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:01.920
the pressure and temperature will above that
for molecular hydrogen. In this state,

78
00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:06.120
there are no distinct liquid in gas
phases. Instead, the hydrogen is said

79
00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:12.040
to be in a supercritical fluid state. The hydrogen and helium gas extending downwards

80
00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:16.319
from the cloud layer gradually transitions into
a liquid in deeper layers, possibly resembling

81
00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:21.680
something akin to an ocean of liquid
hydrogen and other supercritical fluids. Physically,

82
00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:28.079
the gas simply becomes hotter and denser
as the depth increases. Since twenty twenty

83
00:07:28.079 --> 00:07:30.800
one, JUNO has been on its
extended mission phase, where it's been making

84
00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:35.480
flybars of some of Jupiter's largest moons, including Ganymede, Europa, and now

85
00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:44.000
Io. This space time still the
Coum conformation that organic compounds in asteroids can

86
00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:48.399
be formed in colder regions between the
stars, and the asteroid that impacted near

87
00:07:48.399 --> 00:07:54.040
Berlin identify it as a rare or
bright All that and more still the corm

88
00:07:54.639 --> 00:08:15.240
on space time, a new study
is confirmed that some organic compounds, including

89
00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:22.079
those discovered inside asteroids, may have
originated in cold interstellar space environments. Until

90
00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:26.240
now, organic compounds were thought to
have formed in hot regions near stars.

91
00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:31.680
The new findings are reported in the
journal Science have ourbened fresh possibilities for studying

92
00:08:31.720 --> 00:08:37.799
life beyond Earth. The study has
been analyzing organic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic

93
00:08:37.879 --> 00:08:45.000
hydrocarbons or PAHs. Polycyclic Aromatic hydrocarbons
are organic compounds made up of carbon and

94
00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:48.240
hydrogen that are common on Earth,
but are also found in celestial bodies like

95
00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:54.000
asteroids and meteors. The authors had
been looking for samples from two different asteroids,

96
00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:00.440
the asteroid Ryugu, a nine hundred
meter wide potentially hazardous neroth asteroid belonging

97
00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:05.639
to the Apollo group, which was
visited by the Japanese Aerospace Expiration Agencies Hyabusa

98
00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:09.960
II sample return mission in twenty eighteen, and the Murchison meteorite, which fell

99
00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:15.039
to Earth near the Victorian rural township
of Murchison back on September twenty eighth,

100
00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:18.919
nineteen sixty nine. Two of the
studies authors, Letty Gryce and Alex Holman,

101
00:09:20.039 --> 00:09:24.960
from Curtain University's WA Organic and Isotopic
Geochemistry Center, had performed controlled experiments

102
00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:31.519
on Australian plants, which were then
isotopically compared to PAHs from both fragments of

103
00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:35.039
Ryugu and Murchison. They were looking
at the bonds between light and heavy carbon

104
00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:41.039
isotopes to reveal the temperature at which
they were formed, and they found that

105
00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:46.799
some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from both Ryugu
and Murchison were found to have had different

106
00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:52.360
characteristics. The smaller ones likely formed
in cold outer space an interstellar environment,

107
00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:58.360
or bigger ones probably formed in warmer
environments like near a star or in sight

108
00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:03.960
a celestial body. Hormon says,
understanding the isotopic composition of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

109
00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:09.679
helps oun rebel conditions and environments in
which these molecules were created, and that

110
00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:15.960
offers insights into the history and chemistry
of celestial bodies like asteroids and meteors grisiers.

111
00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:20.799
The findings provide new insights into how
organic compounds formed beyond the Earth and

112
00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:24.120
where in space they're likely to come
from. Quite a few years ago,

113
00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:30.240
we did a series of burn experiments
with Australian plants where we actually burn the

114
00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:37.120
plants and collect the polycyclocharomatic hydrocarbons which
have been formed on the land through use

115
00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:43.879
as a comparison of a terrestrial Earth
sauce for these polycyclicaramatic hydrocarbins and they were

116
00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:52.480
measured alongside the patches from the asteroids
and the Merchison meteorte sample to confirm that

117
00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:58.120
the source of the phatches in the
asteroid and as a comparison of like temperature

118
00:10:58.120 --> 00:11:05.480
associated combustion of plant material that was
used as a reference point. I would

119
00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:09.679
say to compare the other PAHs in
the asteroids. So we provided quite important

120
00:11:09.759 --> 00:11:16.200
information in terms of what the isotopes
would be. So those pH is formed

121
00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:22.120
on land tell me about PAHs are
very common organic molecules because they're very stable

122
00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:26.720
and easily formed by a variety of
different processes. On Earth, they're normally

123
00:11:26.759 --> 00:11:31.159
formed in high temperature processes, for
example the combustion of plant material, and

124
00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:35.919
also in other areas such as hydro
thermal high temperature events under the ocean like

125
00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:39.759
in DC hydrothermal events, also when
the formation of oil and gas under high

126
00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:43.559
temperature and pressure. They can be
formed in space. These are generally considered

127
00:11:43.559 --> 00:11:48.080
to be formed in again high temperature
processes, such as the areas surrounding stars

128
00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:52.399
at the degree celsius, but it
was also has been theorized that they could

129
00:11:52.440 --> 00:11:56.399
be formed under low temperature processes within
the interstellar medium between stars, but this

130
00:11:56.519 --> 00:12:01.080
had never been confirmed experimentally. What
this work was designed to achieve. Was

131
00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:05.440
it able to achieve that? I
guess it was the samples that were brought

132
00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:11.559
back from royugu were subjected to a
very advanced analysis of the distribution of isotopes

133
00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:15.799
in the phs, the light and
heavy aspects of carbon and how they bonded

134
00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:20.279
together using the advanced and instrumentation available
at Caltech where these study was based,

135
00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:24.279
and these were able to determine the
temperature that the phs were formed them and

136
00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:28.000
they did find that certain phs in
royugu and metrocine were formed at low temperature.

137
00:12:28.120 --> 00:12:33.639
What processes in low temperature would would
do that uldrabol, radiation and shock

138
00:12:33.679 --> 00:12:37.080
waves as well. Let's go back
to the work you guys did to establish

139
00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:43.840
the PAHs, the organics that you
burned to achieve that pieces can be from

140
00:12:43.080 --> 00:12:48.159
leaf litter and a wood particularly,
so just like you would do with a

141
00:12:48.159 --> 00:12:54.840
wood fire, so you burn and
then the pahi are actually formed through the

142
00:12:54.960 --> 00:13:01.240
combustion process. The either topic signal
of fragments reflect the typed plant that's being

143
00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:05.879
burnt, so the carbon verding TABN
twelve would reflect the type of plant material.

144
00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:09.159
So for example, if there's a
tree like a temperate tree such as

145
00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:15.399
the eucalyptus, it uses a particular
pathway before the synthesis compared to something like

146
00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:20.320
semisex graps, which uses a different
pathway because leads from a very hot environment,

147
00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:26.360
and therefore you can these different plant
types factionate the carbon verding carbon twelve

148
00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:30.879
of the C or two taken means
differently and that is reflected of what in

149
00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:35.200
the pH hs that are emitted from
the combustion process. The other importance of

150
00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:39.440
these burn experiments we did is we're
done in a controlled chamber and the temperature

151
00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:43.840
of the burn was very precisely monitored, so we were able to provide a

152
00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:48.039
sample of PAHs that we could say
were produced at this temperature, at these

153
00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:50.879
high temperatures, So that gave the
researchers at katch Like a known point to

154
00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:56.039
compare their samples against, to compare
with these ones from the asteroids and the

155
00:13:56.120 --> 00:14:00.879
metal meteorite formed at higher low temperatures, because they have these known hytis to

156
00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:05.159
compare against. Were you informed whether
or not that Ryego and Murchison had the

157
00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:09.320
same isotopic signatures The results in our
Ego and medicine, some of the PAHs

158
00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:13.000
were found to have been formed at
the low temperatures that they were theorriving,

159
00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:16.200
but others were found to be formed
at high temperatures. Yeah, most of

160
00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:20.600
the from the ash of the plant
is olympic different through the rag and the

161
00:14:20.679 --> 00:14:24.840
meicane, but there is quite a
distinct difference between them. Tell me about

162
00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:31.399
Curtain's organic and isotopic geochemistry center.
I'm actually a laureate feller who investigates organic

163
00:14:31.559 --> 00:14:37.879
in very ancient fossils in soft tissues. Organic from the original organisms that are

164
00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:43.559
like the different types of natural product
precursors which are preserved in soft tissue.

165
00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:48.039
These can be from modern right through
to about six hundred million years old.

166
00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:54.320
So I'm looking at exceptionally well preserved
fossils in geological samples through that program,

167
00:14:54.360 --> 00:15:01.159
and we actually make fossils in the
laboratory using micropilmat and actually fossilized material as

168
00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:07.240
well, so we're really understanding the
processes of different motor fossilization and geological record.

169
00:15:07.480 --> 00:15:11.600
We also work on my extinction events, so the big five extinction events

170
00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:18.720
in geological history, including the largest
epatic extinction two fifty two million years ago.

171
00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:22.159
We look at the organics in rocks
other time and track changes in the

172
00:15:22.279 --> 00:15:28.600
environment and changes in the ocean and
atmosphere by using isotops and organics in the

173
00:15:28.679 --> 00:15:33.320
rock, and we've worked on the
Chicks Loop impact crater from the Gulf of

174
00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:39.440
Mexico. We have the core material
here we've published looking at what happened within

175
00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:43.840
the day after the impact at Chick
Saloop and how quickly MicroB your life and

176
00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:48.639
life recovered after that event. Is
the iridium line from chick salute from the

177
00:15:48.679 --> 00:15:52.759
impact? Does it change much in
its chemical signature? Actually, it's not

178
00:15:52.919 --> 00:15:56.840
seen all around the world. We're
actually going to be working on samples from

179
00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:03.919
New Zealand shortly and be interesting to
see whether there's actually an a rhythium layer

180
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:07.600
there because that's never really been investigated. So that's further away from the chicilic

181
00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:15.879
side. Asia. No. I
think large beause the deposits that would be

182
00:16:15.960 --> 00:16:23.559
spanning that interval our need to involve
ocean drilling projects and drilling deeply and places

183
00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:30.720
where likely it might be Large Hole
Rise or the Great Australian Bite where we

184
00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:36.879
would perhaps stand into that interval.
So it's more accessibility to getting samples is

185
00:16:36.919 --> 00:16:41.960
the biggest issue in Australia. Your
research has also looked at more recent plants.

186
00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:45.919
Tell me about that. We've actually
developed the technique to be able to

187
00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:52.480
capture volatile organic compounds from conversion experiments
with control burms and determine the origin of

188
00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:57.320
those organic So, for example,
we can take atmospheric emissions and actually we've

189
00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:03.919
developed a technique where you can actually
collect those organics onto our resinens, then

190
00:17:03.079 --> 00:17:08.880
analytically exhort and measure the composition and
the isotopic composition, which is not an

191
00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:14.440
easy tax. And there you heard
Clyttie Gryce and Alex Holman from Curtain University's

192
00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:21.359
WA Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Center.
And this space time still to come.

193
00:17:21.799 --> 00:17:26.279
The asteroid that impacted near Berlin last
week identified as a rare all bright,

194
00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:30.279
and later in the science report,
paleontologists have uncovered the fossilized remains of a

195
00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:34.599
new species of pterosol on the isle
of sky. All that and more still

196
00:17:34.599 --> 00:17:55.559
to come. On space time,
scientists have identified fragments of an asteroid that

197
00:17:55.640 --> 00:18:00.200
crashed towards near Berlin last month.
The findings by researchers with the new zi

198
00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:04.000
Inferna Kundan showed the space rock to
have the mineralogy and chemical composition of an

199
00:18:04.079 --> 00:18:10.240
albright type of chondrite. The results
are based on an initial examination using an

200
00:18:10.279 --> 00:18:15.559
electron BM microprobe. The findings match
observations of the fireball's color made by astronomers

201
00:18:15.599 --> 00:18:21.240
who described it as it streaked through
the atmosphere. Astronomers knew it was coming

202
00:18:21.279 --> 00:18:26.119
because they detected the meta white asteroid
just three hours prior to its atmospheric entry,

203
00:18:26.279 --> 00:18:30.240
cataloging it as twenty twenty four BX
one. BX one was first spotted

204
00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:34.880
and then tracked by the Concol Observatory
in Hungary. That data was then fed

205
00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:40.960
to NASA's Scout and ESI's Mercat Asteroid
Guard Impact has the assessment systems, which

206
00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:45.519
then predicted its trajectory and confirmed that
it definitely was an Earth impact. Scientists

207
00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:51.400
and meteorite hunters then followed its progress
during its entry phase and calculated its likely

208
00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:56.279
impact location, adjusting for strong winds
faint Many people in Berlin and across central

209
00:18:56.319 --> 00:19:00.160
Europe were also able to witness the
fireball, and many of them filmed it.

210
00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:04.680
After breaking up in flight, small
fragments eventually made their way to the

211
00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:11.240
ground west of Berlin. Peter Jeniskins
from the Seti Institute says the meteorites were

212
00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:15.559
difficult to identify because from a distance
they looked like any other rock on Earth.

213
00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:21.799
Albrights look more like gray granite.
They consist primarily of magnesium silicates and

214
00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:26.519
statite and forster rite. Unlike other
meteorites, which usually have a thin crust

215
00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:30.559
of black glass from atmospheric heat,
these meteorites have a mostly translucent glass crust.

216
00:19:32.079 --> 00:19:34.880
The name Albright comes from the village
of Aubreeze in France, where a

217
00:19:34.920 --> 00:19:41.720
similar meteorite fell to Earth back in
September eighteen thirty six. Only eight asteroids

218
00:19:41.720 --> 00:19:45.279
have ever been detected before their impact
with's atmosphere. The first of these discoveries

219
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:48.400
took place in two thousand and eight, and four were discovered in just the

220
00:19:48.480 --> 00:20:07.359
last two years. This Space time
and Time that to take a brief look

221
00:20:07.359 --> 00:20:10.559
at some of the other stories making
news in science this week with a science

222
00:20:10.599 --> 00:20:15.680
report. A new study by the
Raw society Open Science says more needs to

223
00:20:15.720 --> 00:20:19.880
be done to stop animal cruelty during
transport. Dozens, maybe hundreds of animal

224
00:20:19.880 --> 00:20:25.319
deaths have been recorded on board a
live export ship carrying more than fifteen thousand

225
00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:29.839
animals, which is now making its
way back to Fremantle in Western Australia after

226
00:20:29.880 --> 00:20:33.440
being left adrift for over a month. The federal government took until last week

227
00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:37.759
to decide what to do with this
ship, which had been left stationary in

228
00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:41.119
heat wave of conditions because of attacks
by Yemen's Islamic hootie terrorists in the Red

229
00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:45.960
Sea. The problem is the Albinesy
Labor government has failed to keep its election

230
00:20:47.119 --> 00:20:52.559
promised to ban the inhumane practice of
live animal exports. Now are reporting the

231
00:20:52.599 --> 00:20:56.680
journal of the Raw society Open Science
shows that British and Canadian scientists studying livestock

232
00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:03.240
transportation regulations in five English speaking Western
jurisdictions, including Australia, Canada, New

233
00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:06.960
Zealand, the EU, and the
United States, have found that existing laws

234
00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:11.839
are simply too vague or insufficient to
prevent animal cruelty. The author's examined evidence

235
00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:17.960
relating to four major risk factors,
including journey duration and space allowances, finding

236
00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:23.480
regulations simply failed to adequately protect the
animals. They say increased inspections and training

237
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:29.519
for transporters needs to be substantially improved
for the sake of animal welfare. Of

238
00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:33.680
course, the Albenzi government could stop
all this by simply keeping its election promise

239
00:21:33.799 --> 00:21:38.680
and banning the transport of live animals
altogether. A new study conducted at the

240
00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:44.920
Westmead Institute for Medical Research has solved
a complication that could occur following an experimental

241
00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:48.160
procedure to repair damaged heart muscles.
Right now, when a heart muscle is

242
00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:52.400
repaired using stem cells, there is
a risk of developing an abnormal heart beat.

243
00:21:53.079 --> 00:21:56.119
Now, a report of the journal
Nature is found a way to identify

244
00:21:56.240 --> 00:22:00.640
cells that are likely to have the
abnormal beat, and that a combination of

245
00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:07.799
therapy of existing drugs can control and
potentially stop the abnormality. Palaeontologists on the

246
00:22:07.799 --> 00:22:12.519
Isle of Sky have uncovered the fossilized
remains of a new species of pterosaur,

247
00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:18.279
the famous extinct cloud of flying reptiles
that lived during the Age of dinosaurs.

248
00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:25.440
A report in the General Vertebrate Paleontology
says incomplete but three dimensionally preserved fossilized remains

249
00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:27.960
have been uncovered, including parts of
the shoulder, wings, legs, and

250
00:22:29.039 --> 00:22:33.799
backbone. Names Apter Avenzi, the
fossils date back to around one hundred and

251
00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:37.839
sixty eight to one hundred and sixty
six million years ago. The discovery was

252
00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:42.759
quite a surprise as most of its
close relatives are from China. Cloud seeding

253
00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:47.640
is a type of weather modification that
aims to change the amount of type of

254
00:22:47.680 --> 00:22:52.599
precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing
substances into the air that serve as cloud

255
00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:57.720
condensation makers or ice nuclei, which
then alter the microphysical processes within the cloud.

256
00:22:59.319 --> 00:23:03.640
Whether clouds is effective in producing a
statistically significant increase in precipitation is still

257
00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:08.480
a matter of academic debate, and
as Tim Mindum from Strands Skeptics points out,

258
00:23:08.559 --> 00:23:12.920
there are some serious concerns associated with
the chemicals being used to see the

259
00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:18.200
clouds. It's an interesting thing,
is though, obviously, or need to

260
00:23:18.279 --> 00:23:19.960
rain in certain places that they are
drought, written places, et cetera,

261
00:23:21.079 --> 00:23:22.839
Cross agriculture, all that sort of
stuff. They need rain, and that

262
00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:27.039
encourages systems to create the rain to
help the rain along, whether it's lightning

263
00:23:27.079 --> 00:23:30.680
rods, or whether it's sort of
rain dancers, or whether it's firing cannons

264
00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:34.759
into the air. The cloud feeding
idea has a little bit more scientific basis

265
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:38.279
to it. The idea that you
go up into a plane and you drop

266
00:23:38.359 --> 00:23:45.359
little granules of various sort of chemical
combinations and they form as you do with

267
00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:48.319
creating a pearl an artificial pearl.
You put a grain of sand in something

268
00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:52.599
and the pearl builds around it.
Supposedly, these chemicals that are in the

269
00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:56.039
air, and they include sodium chloride
or calcium chloride or silver either depending on

270
00:23:56.079 --> 00:24:00.839
the cloud you're putting this into,
they will sort of draw droplets to the

271
00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:03.880
now create a drop around this.
Drain is chemical. You have to have

272
00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:06.279
a cloud, so you can't just
do it in the open air. And

273
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:08.240
I think for my understanding of it, and it is a sort of an

274
00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:11.839
interesting area, but it's sort of
as there's still a lot of mystery about

275
00:24:11.839 --> 00:24:15.279
it or uncertainty. You're basically pushing
a cloud into raining. I don't think

276
00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:19.400
you can make rain out of a
clear air or a cloud that's basically not

277
00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:22.359
going to go anywhere. And so
you know, there might be some basis

278
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:26.759
to it the places your cloud seeding
might be going to rain anyway, perhaps

279
00:24:26.759 --> 00:24:30.279
not exactly there, or perhaps something
exactly with the amount of rain that you

280
00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:33.519
might get through cloud feeding. I
do know that CSIRO, the common Well

281
00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:37.319
Scientific Industrial Research Organization in Australia,
did do a lot of studies, so

282
00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:40.720
there's something they came up with.
Yes, yes, maybe, but but

283
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:45.720
they did get a lot of information
a water divining, was it not a

284
00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:51.400
water divining, and that particularly one
they stopped. Yeah, but what they

285
00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:53.880
what someone does point out, and
this particular discussion of cloud setting that came

286
00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:57.440
out recently, was that some of
the chemicals that are used can be dangerous

287
00:24:57.480 --> 00:25:00.519
in their own right. They can
cause clue et cetera, especially when you're

288
00:25:00.519 --> 00:25:04.920
sort of trying to get your triggering
ice production. In super cool clouds use

289
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:08.200
silver io dyed and silver eye dyed, and that was the most common seed

290
00:25:08.200 --> 00:25:11.440
element, wasn't usually Yeah, Yeah, and that that can be poisonous and

291
00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:15.559
it certainly can be polluting. So
you might be getting rain, but you

292
00:25:15.640 --> 00:25:18.160
might be doing a lot more damage
at the same time. The trouble with

293
00:25:18.200 --> 00:25:21.680
cloud seeding is that it does have
a downside, and a serious downside,

294
00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:23.599
so that you might be sort of
putting more things in the air that you

295
00:25:23.680 --> 00:25:26.759
don't want and then getting rain out. Would you do one simply getting the

296
00:25:26.839 --> 00:25:30.440
rain to fall over potentially over a
different area to where it was going to

297
00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:34.079
fall anyway. Yeah, there were
stories of conspiracies actually in the was the

298
00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:40.960
sixties or fifties with a supposedly cloud
seeded cloud in the Gulf of Mexico and

299
00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:45.079
would rain over the gulf rather than
on a central American country that the Americans

300
00:25:45.079 --> 00:25:48.440
didn't want to do. Well,
we didn't want that nation to do or

301
00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:52.039
to ruin their banana crops. Well, they probably couldn't find any poison cigars

302
00:25:52.039 --> 00:25:55.680
for Castro at the time, that's
right. Yeah. And this other story

303
00:25:55.799 --> 00:25:59.440
was that China was supposedly clearing pollution
out of the air by doing this cloud

304
00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:19.279
setting before the Basic Olympics. That's
tremendum from Australian skeptics. And that's the

305
00:26:19.319 --> 00:26:25.480
show for now. Spacetime is available
every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple

306
00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:30.440
Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Google
podcast, pocker Casts, Spotify, acast,

307
00:26:30.680 --> 00:26:36.799
Amazon Music, bytes dot Com,
SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast

308
00:26:36.839 --> 00:26:41.920
download provider, and from space Time
with Stuart Gary dot com. Space Time's

309
00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:45.640
also broadcast through the National Science Foundation, on Science Zone Radio and on both

310
00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:51.319
iHeartRadio and tune In Radio. And
you can help to support our show by

311
00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:56.680
visiting the Spacetime Store for a range
of promotional merchandising goodies, or by becoming

312
00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:00.279
a Spacetime Patron, which gives you
access to triple episode commercial free versions of

313
00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:03.720
the show, as well as lots
of bonnus audio content which doesn't go to

314
00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:08.559
air, access to our exclusive Facebook
group, and other rewards. Just go

315
00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:14.000
to space Time with Steward Gary dot
com for full details and if you want

316
00:27:14.039 --> 00:27:17.359
more space Time please check out our
blog or you'll find all the stuff we

317
00:27:17.400 --> 00:27:21.119
couldn't fit in the show, as
well as heaps of images, news stories,

318
00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:25.440
loads of videos and things on the
whereby find interesting or amusing. Just

319
00:27:25.480 --> 00:27:30.079
go to space Time with Steward Gary
dot Tumbler dot com. That's all one

320
00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:33.079
word, and that's Tumbler without the
E. You can also follow us through

321
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:37.799
at Stuart Gary on Twitter, at
space Time with Steward Gary on Instagram,

322
00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:42.359
through our Spacetime YouTube channel, ad
on Facebook. Just go to Facebook dot

323
00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:48.400
com forward slash space Time with Stuart
Gary. You've been listening to space Time

324
00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:56.880
with Stuard Gary. This has been
another quality podcast production from bytes dot com.