Antimatter's Secret, Osiris-Rex's Return, and Iran's Space Leap

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 118 *Does antimatter fall up or down in gravity? Does antimatter fall up or down under the influence of gravity? It’s been an age-old question among first year physics students the world over, and now we finally have an answer – it falls down just like regular matter. *NASA’S epic Osiris-Rex mission returns home NASA’s first ever asteroid sample return mission has arrived safely back on Earth parachuting down onto a US Military test range in the Utah desert. *Iran’s nuclear missile program advances another step Iran claims it’s launched a new spy satellite into orbit. The seven kilogram Nour-3 imaging CubeSat was launched aboard a Qased rocket by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. *The Science Report COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in Australian in 2022. Antarctic sea ice has reached a new record low winter growth -- its lowest since records began. The world’s most powerful X-ray laser: Skeptics guide to Australia's best psychic This week’s guests: Associate Professor Nick Timms, from Curtin University Sananda Sharma from JPL Mars Perseverance rover astrobiologist Rachel Kronyak from JPL Mars Perseverance rover science operations. And our regular guests: Science writer Jonathan Nally Alex Zaharov-Reutt from www.techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics Listen to SpaceTime on your favorite podcast app with our universal listen link: https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/listen and access show links via https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ Additionally, listeners can support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member through www.bitesz.supercast.com or through premium versions on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on our website at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is Spacetime Series twenty six,Episode one hundred and eighteen, we broadcast
on the second of October twenty twentythree. Coming up on Spacetime, does
anti matter fall up or down?As Osiris rex mission returns home and Irand's
nuclear missile program advances another step?All that and more Coming up on Spacetime,

(00:25):
Welcome to space Time with Stewart Gary. Does anti matter fall up or

(00:47):
down under the influence of gravity?It's an age old question among first year
physics students the world over, andnow we finally have an answer. Yes,
it falls down, just like wherematter. And after all, why
wouldn't it. Einstein's theory of generalrelativity says antimatter should behave exactly the same
as normal matter. After all,the forces are acting on an antimatter particle

(01:11):
by the effect of mass on spacetime don't change just because the particle now
has an opposite charge. But somehowhumans find it comforting to finally confirm the
answer by way of a unique experimentusing a cloud of antihydrogen atoms. Scitists
observed the antihydrogen mostly took a downwardpath, just like regular hydrogen would.

(01:34):
But although the answer seems simple.The experiment itself wasn't easy. According to
the standard model of particle physics,the foundation stirred upon which sciences current understanding
of the universe is based, equalamounts of matter and antimatter were produced when
the universe burst into existence thirteen pointeight billion years ago, in an event

(01:56):
these days referred to as the BigBang. Shows us there's almost no difference
between matter and antimatter other than theircharge, and when matter and antimatter come
into contact, they annihilate each other, producing high intensity gamma radiation. And
all this begs the question, ifequal amounts of matter and antimatter were produced
in the Big Bang, why didn'tthe universe annihilate itself in a sudden flash

(02:21):
of purple light as soon as itcame into being? And why do we
live in a universe filled with matterrather than antimatter. In fact, we
now have abundant evidence to show usthat the observable universe is made up almost
exclusively of matter. If there werelarge pockets of antimatter, it would annihilate
as soon as it came into contactwith the nearby matter, producing very highly

(02:44):
detectable, high intensity gamma radiation andthis has not been observed. Therefore,
figuring out how and why our universeended up with an abundance of only matter
rather than antimatter is one of thebiggest open questions in particle physics today.
In confirming that antimatter, just likeregular matter, is gravitationally attracted, the

(03:05):
finding also rules out gravitational propulsion asthe reason why atimatter is largely missing from
the observable universe. The experiment wascarried out by researchers from the International Anti
Hydrogen Layer of Physics Apparatus or ALPHACollaboration, located in Switzerland at CERN,
the European Organization for Nuclear Research,and their findings have now been published in

(03:28):
the journal Nature. Understanding the Natureof antimatter he not only helps scientists understand
how the universe came into being,but it can also enable new innovations never
before thought possible. And of course, beyond the practical and real, there's
the imagined, such as the atimatterfield, warp drives, and foote on
torpedoes of Star Trek Fame. Antimatteris completely real, but it's mysteriously scarce.

(03:53):
Alpha Collaboration member Jonathan would tell fromthe University of California, Berkeley,
says many indirect measures indicate that gravityindirects with antimatter just as expected, But
until this new experimental result came in, nobody had actually performed a direct observation
that could rule out or, forexample, that antihydrogen moved upwards as opposted

(04:15):
downwards in a gravitational field. Yourbody, the Earth, and almost everything
else scientists know about the universe areoverwhelmingly made up of regular matter, consisting
of things like protons and neutrons andelectrons. On the other hand, antimatter
is regular matters twin, though withsome other su properties. For example,
antimatter protons called antiprotons have a negativecharge while regular protons have a positive charge,

(04:43):
and antimatter electrons called positrons have apositive charge while regular electrons have a
negative charge. But because they annihilateeach other, antimatter is really hard to
test because once you make antimatter,you've got no way of holding onto it.
As soon as it touches as regularmatter that could be a container,
it could be the air, it'llimmediately annihilate. Another Alpha Collaboration team member

(05:06):
job for Jean, also from theUniversity of California, Berkeley says that for
a given mass, these annihilation eventsbetween matter and antimatter are the densest forms
of energy release known, so ina very real sense, it would be
the ultimate power source. The amountof matter used in the Alpha experiment was
small, so small that the amountof energy created by antimatter annihilations could only

(05:30):
be perceptible using very sensitive detectors,and so the team needed to manipulate the
antimatter very carefully in order not tolose it. Broadly speaking, in the
Alpha collaboration produced antimatter and then usedit to conduct a leaning tower of Pizza
type of experiment. Now, thatterm leaning tower of Pisa refers to the
kind of experiment carried out by Galileoback in the sixteenth century. His experiment

(05:55):
was designed to demonstrate the identical gravitationalacceleration of two simile ten vinously dropped objects
of similar volume but different mass NassaApollo fifteen as not. David Scott repeated
the exact same experiment on the surfaceof the Moon. Can we copied a
boat olver wind and in a commuterdrum in the ETV? Not quite Yeah,

(06:18):
I haven't put the solar wind inyet I will shortly. Oh,
I'll watch this. I'll have agood picture there. I've got the beautiful
picture Dame Well. In my lefthand, I have a fetter in my
right hand a hammer. And Iguess one of the reasons we got here
today was because of a gentleman namedGalileo a long time ago who made a

(06:39):
rather significant discovery about falling objects andgravity fields. And we thought that where
would be a better place to confirmhis findings and on the move, And
so we thought we'd try it herefor you. The feather happens to be
appropriately a falcon fetter for our falcon, And I'll drop the two up here

(07:00):
and hopefully go hit the ground atthe same time. How about that was
correct? And for the Alpha experiment, the anti hydrogen was contained within a
tall, cylindrical vacuum chamber with avariable magnetic trap called Alpha G. The
scientists reduced the strength of the trap'stop and bottom magnetic fields until the anti

(07:26):
hydrogen atoms could escape, and therelatively weak influence of gravity became apparent.
As each anti hydrogen atom escaped themagnetic trap, it touched the chamber walls
either above or below the trap andannihilated, which the scientists could then detect
and count. The researchers repeated theirexperiment more than a dozen times, varying

(07:46):
their magnetic field strength on the topand bottom traps in order to rule out
any possible errors. They observed thatwhen the weakened magnetic fields were precisely balanced
at the top and bottom, abouteighty percent of the anti hydrogen atoms nihilated
beneath the trap, a result consistentwith how a cloud of regular hydrogen would
behave under the same conditions. Inother words, gravity was causing the anti

(08:09):
hydrogen to fall down, not up. Despite some modest sources of antimatter,
like the positrons admitted from the decavepotassium in bananas, sitists don't see much
of it in the universe. However, the fact that the laws of physics
predict that atimatter should exist in roughlyequal amounts with regular matter remains a massive
conundrum these days, referred to asthe barrier genesis problem. One potential explanation

(08:35):
was that atimatter was gravitationally repelled byregular matter during the Big Bang. The
trouble is, these new findings suggestthat theory no longer seems plausible. Wartel
says that while they've ruled out atimatterbeing repelled by the gravitational force as opposed
to attract it, that doesn't meanthere isn't a difference in the gravitational force
on antimatter, and only a moreprecise measurement will tell the Alpha collaboration will

(09:01):
continue to probe the nature of antihydrogen. In addition to refining their measurement of
the effect of gravity, they're alsostudying how anti hydrogen interacts with electromagnetic radiation
through spectroscopy. If antihydrogen were somehowdifferent from regular hydrogen, that would be
a revolutionary thing because the physics lawsboth in the quantum mechanics would and gravity

(09:22):
say that behavior should be the same. But worth All points out, we
won't be sure until we actually dothe experiment, and let's face it,
that's what science is all about.This space time still to come, NASA's
epic Assiris REX mission returns home,and Irand's nuclear missile program advances yet another

(09:46):
sinister step. All that and morestill to come on space time, NASA's

(10:07):
first ever asteroid sample return mission hasarrived safely back on Earth. Parachuting down
onto a US military test range inthe Utah Desert. The Osiris REX sample
return capsule landed right on target,following at seven year six point two one
billion kilometer return journey to the halfkilometer wide nearer f asteroid BNOU recovery operations

(10:30):
helicopters one and two. I've arrivedat the herding location, so good news.
Our helicopters are ready to go andbegin those recovery operations just as soon
as we have confirmation of touchdown hereand as the sun begins to rise in
the West Coast, the SRC isgoing to be streaking across the atmosphere above
San Francisco, California, about eightytwo miles in altitude. It's gonna becoming
it hot over five thousand degrees fareknight almost a couple of seconds after it

(10:54):
hits that atmosphere that's about half aswarm as the surface of the Sun.
To give you some context, butdon't wear. Our sample will be safe
and sound within. We have aheat shield which is made of a phinilic
impregnated carbon ablater. It's a veryfancy term to describe what's going on with
this heat shield. It basically ablatesaway or burns away any kind of heat
flux that develops on that outer shell, making sure that our sample is safe

(11:16):
and cool within similar technology that weuse with astronauts coming back from the Moon
or any kind of other landers thatwe have going into planets and moons.
So we're just a couple of momentsaway from this key moment. It's going
to be very exciting next couple ofthirteen minutes here and you'll hear a couple
call outs come in from just nextdoor and or emission operations team as they
begin to get us ready for thiskey moment. It's a journey of three

(11:37):
point eight six billion miles getting reducedto the scale of mirror miles eighty two
miles above the surface of the Earthin San Francisco. A couple key events
are going to happen as soon aswe get into the Earth's atmosphere very quickly
in we're going to deploy our drogueparachute. This is for stability, stabilizes
our descent, and make sure thatwe are continuing to target that landing lips

(11:58):
that is here in the Utah Testtraining range. It is a thirty six
point five by eight mile landing lipsthat is here marked out for that recovery
operation. This team, i'll remindyou, just a few hours ago,
gave that command to release the SRCon this long journey. It's been on
its own for four hours. There'snothing we can do at this point.
It's coming in rain or shine tillSRC has entered the Ears atmosphere. ETTR

(12:20):
TRACKI assets he require, and herewe go. Start your top stopwatch.
Right now we are thirteen minutes ofentry, descent and landing as it enters
into Earth's atmosphere. The punishing decelerationthat spacecraft, that SRC is experienced right
now as it comes in at abouttwenty seven thousand, six hundred and fifty
miles an hour, glowing brightly inthe sky, and in just a few

(12:41):
moments we're going to reach peak heatingand peak deceleration. That's at thirty two
G forces punishing G force on ourSARCO. At this point we've entered in
over San Francisco, California, andare very quickly going to be approaching the
Utah Test and Training Range just alittle bit further to the east. Entry
was at pole still is experiencing maximumeating and maximum deceleration. So you just

(13:03):
heard right there. We're experiencing thatfive thousand degree fahrenheit maximum heating, burning
scalding hot on that heat shield thatis protecting our sample, with an end
maximum deceleration that is at thirty twoG force punishing deceleration from Earth's atmosphere,
the drag forces that are acting onthat SRC. Our next milestone will be
expecting that drogue parachute deployment that'll beat about one hundred two thousand, three

(13:26):
hundred feet altitude that will stabilize ourdescent and slow us from hypersonic to subsonic
speeds as we continue to target theUtah test and training range expected e O
milestone SRC commands drogue parachute deploy Sowe heard that command to deploy the drogue
parachute. At this time eight fortyfour am Mountain time, the Ocyrius APEX
spacecraft is at its closest approach toEarth that will be on to its extended

(13:50):
mission visiting the asteroid Epophus in theyear twenty twenty nine, continuing this incredible
mission at another world, and injust a few moments we should enter into
specially use airspace at approximately eight fortysix am. That's going to be at
ten miles off the deck here atUtaw testin Training Range. That SRC is
nearly three feet wide one point sixfeet into small objects, so quite a

(14:11):
challenge to track this as it comesSyrian to Earth's atmosphere. This area is
specifically chosen for this mission. It'sa wide open, vast desert space,
relatively flat, perfect to land thissample today. Our next milestone we should
be expecting main parachute deployment at aroundeight forty nine am mountain time ETL milestone.
We have some firm wow and afteran exhilarating streak across Earth's atmosphere,

(14:33):
is that orange creamsicle colored parachute justto delight, A sweet delight to see
in our sky here over the Utahtestin Training Range, just a few minutes
away from getting that sample from theother side of the Solar System. From
the surface of Asteroid Benuit sample siteNightingale to the rugged terrain of the Utaw
testin Training Range. Looks like windsare relatively low, not a lot of
rocking back and forth. Those parachutesseem to be perfectly smooth coming down that

(14:56):
parachute there continuing to descend the slightlittle bit of till back and forth of
our SARC as it comes to itsresting velocity of eleven miles per hours,
it makes that final descent that parachutedeployant was given internally by the spacecraft and
once that successfully lands, the teamswill begin the next crucial phase of this
mission, the sample recovery operations.They've been rehearsing for this moment for months

(15:18):
literally years really leading up to thiskey moment, and are ready to begin
those operations to get that SRC intoour portable clean room here and extract that
sample canister within the ground. Reallyclosing in now on that one as visual
on the scar the shute that isphenomenal and once again just setting the context

(15:39):
for this, when we first hitthe top of the atmosphere we were at
twenty seven thousand, six hundred fiftymiles per hour. We are now leisurely
decelerating under our orange parachute to elevenmiles per hour. Incredible amount of deceleration
there, as Earth's atmosphere really helpedus out quite a bit getting that initial
deceleration our drogue parachute initially stabilizing ourdescent, and then ultimately that main parachute

(16:02):
bringing us home Town has touched downand touchdown of the Osarus Rex sampler Turn
capsule, a journey of a billionmiles to asteroid Benue and back, has
come to an end, marking America'sfirst sampler turnmission of its kind and opening
a time capsule to our ancient SolarSystem. NASA chief Bill Nelson hailed the

(16:26):
mission, saying the samples contained aboardthe capsule will give scientists an extraordinary glimpse
into the beginnings of the Solar System. The mission collected an estimated tajn fifty
grams of regular from the ancient asteroid'srocky bouldesterns surface. The Saras Rex spacecraft
released its re entry capsule just overa day before touchdown at a distance of

(16:48):
over one hundred and eight thousand kilometersfrom Earth. The spacecraft itself then flew
past the Earth to continue on withits mission. It'll study another asteroid called
Apophus. Meanwhile, the re entrycapsule hurtled down towards the Earth's surface at
some forty five thousand kilometers per hour, using only atmospheric drag to slow down
enough for two successive parachutes to bedeployed, allowing the capsule to float down

(17:12):
to a gentle desert landing. Theonly concerned during the re entry was the
deployment of the main parachute, farhigher than originally anticipated. It deployed at
about twenty thousand feet or six thousand, one hundred meters instead of the five
thousand feet or fifteen hundred meters originallyplanned. The now black and meat a
wide tire size capsule, touched downgently under the rocky desert floor, only

(17:36):
to be quickly surrounded by waiting scientiststaking readings. After confirming the capsule survived
its journey was not breached, meaningits contamination seals were still intact, the
crew placed the device in a slingand transported it by a helicopter to especially
prepared nasiclean room I. Meanwhile,the Asius Rex spacecraft is continuing with its
mission. After releasing the re entrycap it fired up its engines and continued

(18:02):
on to the next part of itsjourney, a rendezvous with the asteroid Apophus.
Like Berneu, Apophus is a nearEarth asteroid. It'll pass within thirty
two thousand kilometers of the Earth intwenty twenty nine. Now it was originally
listed as a potential Earth impactor,but as more and more data on its
orbit came in, it showed thatit will miss the planet, not by

(18:23):
much less than the altitude of manysatellites, but it will be amiss.
Meanwhile, these samples from the asteroidBernou, and they've been flown aboard a
C seventeen globe mass to transport tothe Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
That's where they'll be dipped up andstudied. About seventy five percent of
the samples will be conserved for studyby future generations, with the remaining quarter

(18:48):
handed out to scientific teams across theUnited States and even overseas, including Australia,
with a team from Curtain University alsogetting some samples for experimentation. The
Curtain team of six researchers or allmembers of the Osiris REX science team,
will use sophisticated instruments to study thesamples and gain invaluable insights into the origins

(19:10):
of the Solar System and life itself. These asteroids are composed of the original
materials of the Solar System, gettingback some four point six billion years,
and they've remained relatively intact ever since. Bnou surprise scientists in twenty twenty when
the probe, during its spree ofcontact with the asteroid surface to collect its
samples, shockingly sank over a meterin the regular, revealing an unexpected low

(19:33):
density for the asteroid. Instead ofsolid rock, it's more like a kid's
pool filled with plastic balls. UnderstandingBernous composition is important, as this asteroid
has a one in twenty seven hundredchants of catastrophically slamming into the Earth in
twenty one eighty two. We nowknow Bernou is a rubble pile asteroid.

(19:53):
That means it's entirely made up offragments ranging in size from massive boulders bigger
than ours and are tiny grains ofdust. This detritus was all ejected during
the destruction of a much larger parrotasteroid. The social professor Nick Timms from
Curtain University's School of Earth and PlanetarySciences says Cyrus rex will reveal insights into

(20:15):
the molecular precursors of the origins oflife, and it contains water molecules locked
in its minerals. Berneux is alumpy C group asteroid, a carbonaceous and
volatile rich group that has been relativelyuntouched since formed, and so this gives
scientists a window to look back tothe beginnings of the Solar System. These

(20:37):
samples are some of the most pristineasteroid rocks available. Unlike meteorites that reach
Earth and quickly become contaminated by theplanet's atmosphere, surface material, water,
and biota, the Bernous samples arepristine and unblemished. So with Berneu,
scientists will be analyzing unsports samples fromsome of the oldest objects in the Solar

(21:00):
System. Tim says, we'll beadded to tell huge amounts about what happened
when the Solar System was nothing morethan dusting gas and the processes their broad
planets together and created the ingredients forlife on Earth. One of the benefits
of flying a spacecraft to these spaceobjects and asteroids is that we can bring
these rocky materials back to Earth withoutbeing contaminated by the Earth. Problem with

(21:26):
meteorites, isn't it no matter howfresh they are, they've still got earthly
contamination on the outside. Yeah,I mean, meteorites are great, they're
space rocks that made their own wayto Earth, which is very handy for
us, and we can go andcollect them from the Earth's surface. But
the longer they lie around on theEarth, then they can get earth contamination
by water or Earth's biological organisms andthings like that, And so the longer

(21:48):
they lie around, and more difficultit is for us to tell what signals
are from the space rock and whathas come from the Earth contamination. So
isolating the returned material from Benu isa really important thing because we can preserve
its integrity in terms of the chemistryof the rock types and the particles and
all of the molecules out there onthe asteroid. We can then see what

(22:10):
they're like without worry that it's beencontaminated from it. There must be special
precautions and procedures that need to befollowed. Yeah, absolutely, there's a
very long list of procedures that havebeen developed by the mission scientists to try
and achieve that. One of themain things is being handled and adored in
a special ultra clean laboratory. It'sbasically a huge what looks like a huge

(22:30):
fish tank or glass tank with holesin the sides where there are sort of
plastic gloves that people on the outsidecan reach inside the gloves then and handle
the material inside the big tank andthe tank that has been purged with nitrogen
gas so that as atmosphere doesn't contaminatethe sample, and that's a really important

(22:51):
step in trying to curate these samples. So some of the sample will be
stored away in very well sealed containersfor future signs to look at. When
you know, technology gets better andwe can discover more and more things that
we can't even fathom right now.They did that with the moon samples from
the Apollo missions, too, didn'tThey absolutely yes, And we met over

(23:11):
fifty years old. Even on thatI think I'm a fiftieth anniversary of the
Moon landings. They opened some ofthese samples for the first time, and
technology has changed so much in fiftyyears that a whole array of new techniques
can be employed to actually look atdifferent types of analysis and the chemistry of
the volatile elements and all sorts ofthings from the moon rocks that they recently

(23:33):
opened. So the similar sort ofthing will be happening to the Penu sample
too. Now we've had samples fromasteroids before. Curtain University were given samples
from the High buss Or two mission, and also maybe did you get Highbusser
as well? Were they samples fromthere? Yeah, we've been involved a
curtain involved in every single sample returnmission in the modern era. Really,

(23:56):
we also have got a long trackrecord at looking at the apollos amples from
the Moon as well, which isthe real privileged position to being. We've
developed expertise along the way. Sothe first asteroid to be visited by the
Japanese Space Agency, the Space AgencyJackson, was from an asteroid called Itakawa,
and there were only fifteen hundred that'sone thousand, five hundred specs of

(24:18):
dust returned from that one, areally small amount of material, and we've
been looking, yeah it didn't quitego right, but why when it arrived
back and they put it in asimilar clean laboratory and basically dusted out the
inside of the sample canister and theyfound fifteen hundred specs of dust which were

(24:40):
from the asteroid that's blown in there. And so we've been privileged enough to
look at those and examine those andfind quite a lot even though the tiny
specs. Our instruments are so hightech and highly tuned that we can get
lots out of material even that's small. And then more recently Ryugu, another
asteroid, was visited by E.Jackson, and the here was returned from
that only five point four grams,which is about the same weight as about

(25:04):
three plane card from a deck ofcards. So it's not very much material
in terms of weight, but thathas also been absolutely brilliant to see lots
of new information being derived and analyzedfrom those materials as well. Virus Rex
mission was very different. It almostgot eaten up by the asteroid because the
asteroid was so what's the term undense, Yeah, sack into it.

(25:29):
Yeah, I guess. I guessmy view of an asteroid when I was
as much younger as a kid,I guess was these are kind of solid
blocks of rock that kind of maketheir way around the Solar System. Yeah,
that kind of thing. But themore that we look out into space
with telescopes and visit these asteroids withspacecraft and bring bits back, we realize
that there are many of them arejust piles of rubble, that's like bits

(25:53):
of rock and dust, kind ofleftover bits and bobs from the early times
in the Solar System when the planetswere first formed, they've basically accreted together.
That means all of the bits ofstuck together, and now they's sort
of little bit round the Sun.And it's amazing that they're still around,
to be honest, because they're sofragile and just collections of rubbles. They
have little rock piles. Who've gotto think of them as almost like piles

(26:17):
of dust. Yeah, they callit soil, I guess, yeah,
regulate exactly so, and that's whatthe REX part in Osiris REX stems boys
regular explorer. It's quite a differenttype of material than I was envision as
a kid, but that's where sciencegoes. Even in my lifetime, I
understanding has changed incredibly about a neighboringobject. You'll be given a portion of

(26:40):
this material itself. Must be agreat honor to be selected as part of
the scientific team to examine these things. Are there certainly criteria that NASA are
looking forward or we want some ofto examine the chemical composition of any atmosphere
inside the asteroid or inside the regularthought in the magnetic field of the regular
thought, origins of the regular composition. How does that all work? Yeah,

(27:03):
that's a great question. Yes,that's how the mission scientists have assembled
the analysis team. And when Isay team, there are about two hundred
and thirty of researchers from around theworld who are closely involved in this the
samples that have been returned, andeverybody has a different role, and everyone
is bringing their own expertise and instrumentsthat they use in terms of measuring different

(27:25):
aspects of these materials. So thereare some of us who are looking at
the geochemistry of the minerals in thein the rocks and the dust to understand
more about, you know, howthey formed and when they formed, to
date them. There are some ofus who are looking at the arrangement of
all of the particles and texture andthe micro structure of them and figure out

(27:47):
how processes have happened to make allof these things stick together, and what's
happened to them since and if they'vebeen hit by other impacts and all of
those sorts of questions. And thereare yeah, lots of teams, not
necessarily early at Curtain, but aroundthe world who are looking at different aspects
of this, including the magnetic properties, including the organic molecules that we can

(28:07):
find. Are we're hoping to findin the sample, and so on and
so forth, and together we cananswer lots of different questions of which were
posed right from the outset of themission to start with. What are some
of those questions? They include awhole array of things. I mean,
there's quite there's a long list thatwe the scientists as it were, are
privy too. So I'll just submarizesome of them. I mean, the

(28:30):
asteroid is meant to be. Wethink a relic from the early Solar System
has formed, probably around about fourpoint five billion years ago, when a
very dynamic and violent part of theSolar System's history, and like I said,
the leftovers of planet formations. Soby looking at these articles and fragments,
we can maybe get some insights intohow planets formed and what happened to

(28:52):
the bits that didn't end up beingplanets. Some of the carbon rich material
and that we're hoping to see inthe sample will for molecules and compounds,
which are organics, things like aminoacids and things which ultimately the precurse of
building blocks or life as we knowit on Earth. So we can hopefully
get a glimpse of the variety andthe types of organic molecules that are out

(29:14):
there to help understand how Earth lifemight have evolved. We're also hoping to
see if the materials can be seento have water or other resources which can
potentially be used in future missions tohelp us explore space. If we land
on these asteroids, can we getwater out of the rocks and the material
to then sustain life to hop intoanother place, or helping to make fuel

(29:37):
for refueling stations for those sorts ofscience fiction sounding things. And the other
reason that we want to look atthis material is to figure out its physical
properties, it's strength, density,and so on and so forth. To
link through to how we can interpretwhat we can see through telescopes. Are
other asteroids that we can sense intheir solar system and SOPO cander ground truth

(30:00):
telescope observations with microscope observations and say, right, this rock to has that
kind of response in the telescope,and therefore we can see all these other
object we can make interpretations of thosethat were a lot more robust. And
also if we understand about things aboutstrength of the material and so on,
then we can think about how wecan maybe deflect asteroids in the future.

(30:22):
If any of them end up beingdangerous to the Earth by being in an
orbit which may one day impact theEarth. We can send spacecraft up there
to try and deflect asteroids out theway, to mitigate hazards that could be
disastrous if a rig one of thesethings hit to be very destructed in day.
They know, is of course oneof those asteroids, one of those
neuarth asteroids which do pose a creditablethreat. What two thousand, seven hundred

(30:45):
to one chance of fitting the Earth. That's not much, but it's there,
and it's yeah, we'll see howit's orbit goes. That's where things
like understanding the Yakovski effect comes intoit. Yes, that's right. So
the acecraft that ultimately delivered the sampleback to Earth spent a long time orbit
in the asteroid before it landed onit. Well, one to make measurements

(31:07):
of the three dimensional nature of theasteroid surface to figure out exactly where to
land, and that was a challengein itself. These things have bolders bigger
than cars, and no, they'revery rough surfaces and quite a challenging thing
to find a place for a spacecraftto go and sample without damaging it,
but also to look at its orbitalproperties, and how things like the Sun

(31:30):
illuminating one side of the asteroid andchanges its orbital properties as it heats that
side of the asteroid of and makesthe dynamics shift. And like you say,
those things were very poorly at thesouthern I think there've been leaps and
bounds in our understanding of just bythis spacecraft orbiting VENU for a long time
to get a lot more information abouthow all that works and those kinds of

(31:53):
phenomenon, and so it's really it'sbeen a really successful mission. It's very
quite phenomenal. One of the bigmiss stories about planet Earth is understanding where
the water came from. We don'treally know. Originally we thought it may
have come with the planet when itformed. Then the idea was that probably
came with comets. But when youstudy the water in comets and the water

(32:15):
in Earth, the ratios of hydrogento the ratios of hydrogen to a hydrogen
isotope or deuterium weren't right. Well, we did find that there are lots
of asteroids which had similar hydrogen todeuterium ratios to what we find here on
Earth. That'll be one of thethings I take at Situs we'll be looking
for with Benou absolutely, and that'sone thing that we can do very well

(32:39):
here at Curtain University is we havean instrument called an atom probe which can
basically reconstruct the chemistry, geochemistry andatomic structure on a nano scale, and
we can look at the surface ofthe particles that have returned and see how
the Sun has based planted radiation intothe into the sample and cause the sample

(33:07):
to change its geochemistry and that kindof process we've found out from looking at
samples from asteroid Etokawa has been instrumentalin planting things like hydrogen into the into
the surface of these asteroid particles,which then if you think, then they
get delivered to Earth and conform naturallyas meteorites which build up over a long
period of time. Is a veryviable mechanism of getting hydrogen. Smuggling hydrogen

(33:32):
from the Sun to Earth. So'sit's interesting to think that maybe some of
our water on Earth actually originated fromthe Sun. What else would you guys
be looking for? Do you guyshave a set list of target to Ramia.
Well, we have a vast arrayof instruments which are very tuned to

(33:52):
look at the kinds of problems thatwe might want to understand. We don't
quite know what we're going to get. We're still the very early stages of
unwrapping the capsule and seeing what samplesthere. So we're kind of ready for
a whole range of things depending onwhat we get. But one thing that
we've got great expertise in is datingrocks. We've been isn't the business of

(34:15):
dating rocks for a long time andmeasuring the radioisotopes and radioactive decay, figuring
out how old a particular mineral is, and then linking that back to how
it formed and when it formed andwhat's happened to it since. And so
we'll be looking forward to dating somebits of Benu and figuring out what happened

(34:37):
to them when they formed and whathappened to them, since it's something that
we do very well, is itor Yeah? The zircon is a mineral
that naturally contains a radioactive clock theuranium that decays to lead, and that's
found not in abundance but quite commonlyin rocks. From the type of rock

(34:59):
that we're expecting to get from Benu. Isn't perhaps going to have lots of
work on it in it, butthere are other isotope systems such as potassium
that decays to argon, which couldbe present in some of the materials and
some of the minerals in the samplesthat we're going to retrieve from benu.
And so we have a dating facilityhere from by a colleague of mine,

(35:20):
which is absolutely geared up for that. It's very destructive. It involves sending
the samples to nuclear reactor to itradiate them and then let them kind of
cool down a little bit, andthen they get blasted with a laser completely
destructively to then release the all ofthe argon gas at which we can then
measure and integure out hole that particlewas. So that's one thing that we're

(35:43):
hoping to do it curtain. Areyou looking for things like CIS and now
that's got nothing to do with theAmerican Spy Organization. No, that's true.
The AI stands for calcium aluminium inclusionsand they are some of the earliest
solids to form it in the solarsystem. There may even be tiny particles
and fragments in these samples which predateour sun. Exotic particles have arrived and

(36:10):
being embedded in the asteroid material fromother solar systems and the solar processes,
and these are called presolar grains,and they often stand out by being very
very different from the particles that area part of our solar system. They
have different isotopes and different geochemistry thatmake them shine out in our instruments very

(36:30):
well. And we can study thoseand figure out what kind of sun,
what kind of star that these camefrom, and what was going on in
those environments. But we don't exactlyknow what we're going to get yet.
We're hoping all of these components willbe in a sample from Benu and we'll
just have to wait and see.Let's a socio professor Nick Timms from the
Curtain University School of Earth and PlanetarySciences. And this space Time still the

(36:54):
calm arounds deadly nuclear emiss our programadvances another state, and later in the
science report, new details from theAustralian Bureau of Statistics show that COVID nineteen
was the third leading cause of deathin Australia last year. All that and
more still to come on space Time. Iran says it's launched a new spy

(37:30):
satellite into orbit. The seven kilogramNor three Imaging Cube SAT was launched a
border Quissade rocket by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Tran says the satellite was placed into
a four hundred and fifty kilometer highorbit. The Quissade is a three stage
rocket based on existing Irani in aNorth Korean medium range ballistic missile technology.

(37:52):
The launch vehicles being developed and testedas the delivery system for the Islamic Republic
secret nuclear weapons prom That program recentlyreceived a six billion dollar boost in funding
after the Biden administration released frozen Iranianassets as part of a deal broken by
Sweden for the release of American hostages. That money had been frozen following repeated

(38:15):
breaches of the twenty fifteen Vienna NuclearNonproliferation Treaty Accords agreed to by Teran.
A similar release of frozen funds wascarried out in twenty sixteen by the Obama
administration when Biden was Vice president.That netted RAN somewhere between fifty and one
hundred and fifty billion dollars. Thetrue total amount was never disclosed. This

(38:37):
latest launched by Iran was another directviolation of the Vienna Accords, which are
designed to prevent tay Ran from developingnuclear weapons or the delivery systems to launch
them, such as ballistic missiles.Last week, i Ran suddenly banned a
third of all United Nations nuclear weaponsinspectors from assessing the Islamic Republics suspected weapon

(39:00):
sites. The International Atomic Energy Agencyslam the unprecedented move as profoundly regrettable,
warning that it would harm the agency'sabilities to monitor the Islamic Republic's nuclear programs,
and just last month, the UNNuclear Watchdog said Iran had made no
progress on several outstanding nuclear issues,including reactivating surveillance devices that were disconnected by

(39:23):
Iran last year. The International AtomicEnergy Agency says Iran's total stockball of enriched
uranium is now more than eighteen timesabove the limits set by the twenty fifteen
Vienna Accords. It's now estimated tobe at least three thousand, seven hundred
ninety six kilograms, well above thetwo hundred two kilograms agreed to under the

(39:44):
Vienna Accords. The UN Nuclear Watchdogsays the Islamic Republic began using advanced centri
fusures to enrich uranium in September twentynineteen and in February twenty twenty one,
UN weapons inspectors found Iran had startedproducing uranium metal. Now that's a material
which is only used in nuclear weapons. It has no other use. Then

(40:07):
in April twenty twenty one, boththe German and Swedish intelligence agencies warned of
growing efforts by Iran to obtain nuclearweapons technology, and a report by the
International Atomic Energy Agency in May twentytwenty two found traces of enriched geranium at
three secret atomic weapons research facilities.Israeli intelligence says Iran now has enough weapons

(40:30):
gray geranium to produce at least fouratomic bombs. That's enough to destroy New
York, Washington, London and Paris. This is space time and time that

(40:58):
to take a brief look at someof the other story is making using science
this week with a Science Report.New figures released by the Australian Bureau Statistics
show that COVID nineteen was the thirdleading cause of death in Australia last year,
the deadly virus accounting for more thanone in twenty fatalities. This marks
the first time and infectious diseases appearedin the top five leading causes of death

(41:21):
since nineteen seventy, when influenza andpneumonia ranked fifth. The data shows COVID
nineteen was among the top ten leadingcauses of death in all states and territories
last year, ranging from the thirdleading cause in New South Wales, Victoria,
South Australia and the Australian Capital Territoryto the ninth leading cause in the
Northern Territory. The virus was thesixth leading cause in Queensland, with an

(41:45):
Australia and Tasmania. Official figures suggestsome seven million people of now being killed
by the COVID nineteen coronavirus since itwas first detected near China's Wuhan Institute of
Virology around September twenty nineteen. TheWorld Health Organization estimates the true death toll
is likely to be around eighteen million, with over seven hundred and seventy million

(42:07):
confirmed cases. Globally, Antarctic seaice has reached a new record low winter
growth, its lowest maximum extent sincerecords began. The findings, based on
satellite data from NASA and the NationalSnow and Ice Data Center, show that
sea ice reached a maximum extent atsixteen point nine six million square kilometers during

(42:29):
a time when sea ice cover shouldhave been growing at a much faster pace
during the darkest and coldest months ofthe year. That's one point zero three
million square kilometers below the previous recordreached back in nineteen eighty six. The
average maximum extent between nineteen eighty oneand twenty ten was eighteen point seven one
million square kilometers. Scientists are nowworking to try and better understand the cause

(42:52):
of the meager sea ice growth,which could include a combination of factors including
El Nino, wind patent changes andwarming ocean temperatures. The fact that sis
is melting at both poles reinforces warningsby scientists of a cycle called ice lbedo
feedback. You see, bright seaice acts like a mirror, reflecting most

(43:14):
of the Sun's energy that shines uponit, setting it back into space.
On the other hand, open oceanwater is darker, so it ends up
absorbing some ninety percent of the Sun'senergy that reaches it. With greater areas
of ocean exposed to solar energy,more heat can be absorbed. This warms
the oceans and further delays s icegrowth. The US Department of Energy Stanford

(43:38):
Linear Accelerator Center has just achieved firstlight on the world's most powerful X ray
laser. The upgraded line Act coherentlight source too ashes in a new era
of science, providing up to amillion X ray flashes per second that's eight
thousand times more than its predecessor.Work on the one point one billion dollar

(44:00):
project began thirteen years ago involving thousandsof scientists, engineers, and technicians.
The new X ray free electron laserproduces ultra bright, ultra short pulses of
X ray light that allows scientists tocapture the behavior of molecules, atoms,
and electrons with unprecedented detail on thenatural time scales on which chemistry, biology,

(44:21):
and material changes occur. It transformsthe ability of scientists to explore atomic
scale, ultra fast phenomena that akey to understanding a broad range of applications.
Scientists will now be able to examinethe details of quantum materials with unprecedented
resolution. Let's will drive new formsof computing and communications. It will reveal

(44:43):
unprecedented and fleeting chemical events to teachhow to create new sustainable industries and clean
energy technologies. It will allows scientiststo study how biological molecules carry out lice
functions, to develop new types ofpharmaceuticals, and to study the world on
the fastest time scale, opening upentirely new fields of scientific investigation. In

(45:05):
the process, opening up entirely newfields of scientific investigation, that's really in,
Skeptics have finally answered a question oneveryone's mind, just who is the
nation's best psychic? And the answeris all of them called to their own
descriptions. Following a recent flurry ofself promotion among the psychic community, Australian

(45:27):
skeptics decided to look at a numberof well known psychics to see exactly how
they rate. Timendum from Australian Skepticssays they found that each and every one
of the dozens of psychics they examinedinsisted that they were the best, and
many said all the others are abit chunky. The skeptics, being skeptics,
decided to look into the claims ofvarious psychics. Now recently we had

(45:47):
someone on TV who was promoting themselvesas an Australia's best medium or Austraiths best
psychic. I forget what he wassaying, certainly simply the best thought,
what are the rest like? Andso we did a spit of a survey.
We looked around websites and the mediacoverage of various psychics and things,
and we were trying to find outwho is Australia's best psychic and because what
we found out is they all arelexed according to themselves. They all say

(46:08):
that they are best astrais best psychicAustralius best medium, most trusted clear voyant
Australia's leading astrologer, and psychic Australia'smost trusted psychic medium. And it goes
and basically, no one says I'mthe second best psychic in Australia, and
certainly no one's going to say they'rethe worst. Because the other continuing theme
you find among psychics is virtually allthe ones you talk to will say,

(46:29):
yes, there's a lot of shocksout there, a lot of dodgy practition,
there's a lot of fakes, butbecause they're not one of them,
that one said they were the onlyone who wasn't a fake. Just because
you're the best psychic doesn't necessarily meanyou're real. That's very true. And
because there's a lot of people whohave the phone in psychic lines that we've
actually put skeptics into those psychic phonein lines. They went through the courses

(46:50):
and got the endorsements, which froma couple of friends of this and because
the courses didn't do anything, andthey became psychics online psychics, and they
were given a script as to whatto read out and how to keep person
on the line as long as possiblebecause they're being changed by time and they
had no real way of clarifying forthe qualifications of a particular psychic. There
qualifications of a psychic is a littlebit they were noxy moron. But there's

(47:14):
a course, well there's more aquestionnaire of course you answer the question there
are you psychic? Yet? Sobasically because the other thing about the skeptics
being spoil sports, as were notjust checked out, is the psychics are
the best. We also checked outhow good they are with us, not
just quantity of e quality of theirpredictions, like what are their predictions like
and being the spoil sports that weare. We went back through twenty one

(47:35):
years of psychics predictions, the sortof things you see that come up at
the start of the year in Januaryand thinks they whether say what's going to
happen? During the next twelve months. This was in magazines, on TV,
and radio, on their own website. I've actually all claimed the queen
was going to die, but theyclaimed the Queen was going to die every
year apart from the actual years shedied. They was that twenty year periods
she was the poor queen was goingto pop off all the time because they
missed the actual years she did die, so with its silly because she was

(47:59):
pretty old of the time. Theythink someone should have. They missed a
lot of other things too. Theymissed nine to eleven. They missed the
death of Michael Jackson. But thepredictions they did make, we went through
and sort of give you them upbetween vague like I feel there'll be an
earthquake somewhere. Well, there'll bea problem in the royal family. Yeah,
thank you. That's the bleeding obviousone. Sort of there'll be an
earthquake in California. Okay, thereis every day, but never mind.

(48:21):
And those that you can't check upthat McCole kiddon will be sick for a
few days. We should not goingto tell people basically something like that.
And now that down to those thatare actually accurate, and it was eleven
percent, which is but we also, because being the sports we are,
we also skeptics, made our ownpredictions. Gets us predictions. Please,
we've bret a lot more scientific thanthat, and we've got a higher percentage

(48:42):
right. We didn't do that good. I think it was about seventeen percent,
but at least we sort have gotmore so were right than it's even
the Professional Psychics Association members got lessthan eleven percent. It was a funny.
I'll think. I always think thatif my mechanic or my car mechanic
or my neurosurgeon is right eleven percentat the time, I'm going to choose
a differ one. But if they'reall right only eleven percent of the time,

(49:02):
I think there's something wrong with theindustry. And that's what our story
was on the psychic They all saythey're the best, and yet they always
get it. More times than not, they get it wrong. Is it
a rich industry to be it?Is? It is a rich industry.
This latest fellow who's been on acouple of TV shows and things, he
charges eight hundred dollars an hour.Yeah, and he's booked out until twenty
twenty five. Apparently he says,but he does do group sessons as well,

(49:23):
so maybe you can get in thereat a bit cheaper rate. Someone
estimated a couple of years ago theAmerican psychic industry there's worth about two billion
dollars a year, and that wasan underestimate because most psychics cash in hand,
passed palm with silver, that sortof thing, so they don't exactly
know how much was being spent onthe psychic. That's what they could uncover.
And yet there are firms there werebeing There's one firm that was being

(49:45):
suited had raised two billion dollars overa few years of offering automated psyche readings
and things, and because they've beenfound out, they gave back or canceled
the debt of five hundred million dollarsworth. That's one firm. It's a
huge industry and its for a lotof people, very lucrative for some people.
Probably your average neighborhood psychic with thecrystal ball and things who charges you
twenty bucks and those sort of peoplewith a shawl on. It was a

(50:08):
pretty ordinary sort it. But theyprobably believe it half the time. You
know, I believe what they're doing. Yeah, I don't think they're making
a fortune. But the person chargingeight hundred bucks is either obviously Astray's best
psychic or is the record. Youdon't want to say conky, but he
is. He's the one who walksaround with a frequency scanner from that little
sort of sort of radio size thingsand scanning back and forth across the frequencies,

(50:30):
not stopping, but then picks up. You pick up a little word
here or there, or part ofa word, because it doesn't stop on
the station. It just keeps goingback and forth. And he's using that
in semeties to speak to the debt. He said, Oh I hear a
word mark or something like that,or you know, actually do it a
dog with a list. It couldbe dog with the speech impediment. Yeah,
that's out and out obvious. ConHe's been on two TV programs,

(50:51):
rest and he's not be on sevenththirty Report and The Current Affair, which
is a best when allegedly serious newsprogram start into The seventh thirty Report was
basically talking about supposed shanks and conmentthat they gave him a good run,
and the character fea was about otherpeople complain about someone impersonating him that's timendum
from Australian Skeptics, and that's theshow for now. Spacetime is available every

(51:31):
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(51:53):
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(52:15):
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(52:37):
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(53:00):
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