S26E17: Discovery of Two Nearby Exoplanets That Might be Habitable // Psyche Mission Update // More Mars Ingenuity Helicopter

Transcript

[0:01] This is Space Time Series 26 Episode 17, for broadcast on the 8th of February 2023.

Coming up on Space Time, discovery of two nearby exoplanets that might be habitable.

It's all systems go for our first mission to an iron asteroid.

And more flights for NASA's Mars Ingenuity Helicopter.

All that and more coming up on Space Time.

Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.

[0:30] Music.

[0:46] Astronomers have identified two Earth-like planets orbiting the habitable zone of a nearby star system.

The two planets are orbiting the red dwarf star GALISE 1002, located 15.8 light-years away in the constellation Cetus the Whale.

That makes this a near-neighbor in astronomical terms.

The star has about 12% of the mass and 14% of the radius of our Sun and a surface temperature of 2,751 degrees Celsius.

The planets GALISE 1002b and c are both orbiting in the star's Goldilocks zone.

That's the region around the star where it's not too hot and not too cold, but just right, but liquid water, central for life as we know it, to exist on the planet's surface.

That's if the planet has the right kind of atmosphere.

The problem is there's been a lot of debate in recent years as to whether red dwarf stars are likely to host habitable worlds.

See, it's not just that these stars are smaller and cooler than the Sun, they have a different internal structure.

On the other hand, they also live an awful lot longer than stars like our sun.

In fact, we know of no red dwarf star yet that has ever died.

And because red dwarf stars live for such an awfully long period of time, there's plenty of time for life to evolve.

[2:05] But they tend to give off powerful stellar flares fairly frequently, especially in their youth.

And these flares could potentially strip off the atmospheres of any close-orbiting planets, and irradiate the planet's surface. And both these two newly discovered exoplanets are orbiting their host star extremely closely. Planet B, with a mass slightly higher than that of the Earth, is the nearer of the pair, taking just 10 Earth days to complete each orbit.

[2:33] Planet C is about a third more massive than the Earth and it takes about 20 Earth days to complete one orbit around the host star.

On the plus side, however, GAL10-02 appears to be a fairly mature star and may have gotten over its youthful stellar tantrums.

In fact, it's even possible that the early flaring of the star helped build up a variety of molecules on the planet's surface which could later be used during the star's quiet period by any developing life forms that might be present.

A report in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics says the planets were discovered using the radial velocity method, that is detecting slight wobbles in a host star caused by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planets.

As the planet moves from one side of the star to the other, it tends to ever so slightly pull the star away from centre.

And so from our point of view here on Earth, looking at the star through a spectrum to, The star appears to develop a slight redshift, as light waves coming from the star are slightly expanded.

And as the planet moves towards the near side of the star, that is the side facing the Earth, the star also is pulled ever so slightly in our direction, causing the light waves to contract somewhat in what's referred to as a blue shift.

These planetary tugs on Galise 1002 are tiny, just 1.3 metres per second.

[3:54] Equivalent to moving at just under 5 km per hour, about walking pace.

The radial velocity method, which also reveals how massive planets are, has yielded more than a thousand confirmed detections of exoplanets so far.

But it's not the most successful method.

[4:11] That honor goes to the transit method, where scientists watched for tiny dips in starlight caused by a planet crossing or transiting in front of the star as seen from Earth.

The transit methods yielded nearly 4,000 confirmed detections.

And it's pretty well confirmed that most, if not all, the stars you see up in the night sky probably have planetary systems orbiting them.

This is space-time. Still to come. It's all systems go for our first mission to an iron asteroid and more flights on the surface of Mars for the Ingenuity helicopter.

All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[4:49] Music.

[5:05] After a year-long delay, it now looks like all systems are go for the October launch of NASA's Psyche mission, the first to explore an iron asteroid.

The Psyche spacecraft is now in the cleanroom at NASA's Astrotech Space Operations Facility, near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The probe was powered on, connected to ground support equipment, thereby enabling engineers and technicians to prepare it for launch.

Teams working at Astrotech, as well as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are now communicating with the spacecraft and monitoring the health of its systems.

[5:41] Back in June 2022, at the heart of the COVID pandemic, NASA found that the late delivery of testing equipment and flight software for the Psyche spacecraft wasn't giving them enough time to complete required testing. And so they decided to delay the launch, with further windows available in 2023 and 2024, resulting in a potential rendezvous with the asteroid Psyche in 2029 and 2030 respectively. But by last October, NASA announced that Psyche would be ready for launch during the first of those windows, which was opening on October 10, 2023. And that would correspond with an arrival at the asteroid Psyche in August 2029. The Psyche spacecraft or launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Saki's target is a unique metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid built between Mars and Jupiter.

Scientists will study the asteroid Psyche using a suite of instruments aboard the Psyche spacecraft, including multispectral cameras, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers and magnetometers.

As for their target, 16 Psyche is a large M-type metallic asteroid.

It was discovered back on 17 March 1852 and was named after the goddess Psyche, one of the most celebrated characters in Greek mythology.

She was known as the goddess of the soul. Her name Psyche means breath of life and she was closely linked with the inner human world.

[7:10] Her beauty is said to have rivaled that of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

The prefix 16 simply indicates that it was the 16th minor planet in order of discovery.

It's the largest and most massive of the M-type asteroids and one of the dozen most massive asteroids known. It has a diameter of around 220 kilometres and contains about 1% of the entire mass of the main asteroid belt. Historically it was hypothesized that Psyche was actually an exposed metallic core resulting from a collision that stripped away the crust and metal of what was originally a much larger differentiated parent body that would have, been around 500 kilometers in diameter. So this planetesimal was growing, getting bigger and bigger when something really big hit it knocking off most of its mass and just leaving behind its metallic core.

Or at least that was the idea.

Then a second hypothesis claimed that Psyche was disrupted and gravitationally re-accreted into a mix of metal and silicate.

[8:14] In this case, it may have been a candidate for the parent body of mesocytoride asteroids.

They're a class of stony iron meteorites. But both these hypotheses have been put under the back shelf.

The latest studies show that Psyche may be a differentiated object, like Ceres or Vesta, but one that's experienced a strange type of iron volcanism known as ferrovolcanism, while it was still cooling.

If correct, the model predicts that this metal world would really only be enriched in those areas or regions, containing relic volcanic centers.

And as scientists carry out more and more studies in preparations for the mission, their observations attaining more and more debalts to that hypothesis.

[8:59] This report from NASA TV. There aren't many classes of objects left in our solar system that we haven't looked, at up close with a spacecraft.

And one of them that's left is the metal asteroids.

16 Psyche is an asteroid that orbits the sun out between Mars and Jupiter.

The reason that Psyche is unique is that it is metal rich.

It's believed that it may be a remnant core of an early planetesimal that was formed in in the very, very earliest parts of the formation of the solar system.

And after this planet started forming and this metal core formed inside of that, it, collided with other bodies that then stripped off the rocky mantle, leaving this core in place.

[9:46] This is the part of planets that we can't sample directly today.

It's too hot, the pressure is too high, our instruments would melt.

Can't drill a hole that deep in the Earth or other planets.

So how do we study the core of our planet?

Psyche gives us the opportunity to visit a core, the only way that humankind can ever do.

And it would be the first metal object that humankind has ever visited.

It'll take a number of years to get there.

Flies past Mars, gives us a gravity assist, uses our propulsion system to then slowly creep up.

We'll go into four concentrically smaller orbits to collect the necessary measurements that we need from our three primary instruments.

So our payload consists of a couple of imagers, which are cameras that take pictures of psyche.

[10:30] Also a gamma ray neutron spectrometer which allows us to measure the elemental composition of the surface of Psyche.

And then a magnetometer which will allow us to detect any magnetic field that's left at Psyche.

[10:41] If Psyche still has some sort of remnant magnetic field, that probably tells us it really was a core. It's a strong indicator.

We also use the radio on the spacecraft as an instrument so we can map out the gravity and map out the interior structure that way.

[10:56] We're using a particular thruster technology, Hall Effect thruster technology.

They operate five times more efficiently than normal rockets, so they use a lot less fuel, and is what allows us to get into orbit around this asteroid.

Solar electric propulsion has been around for quite a while and it has flown before, but we are continuing to push the boundaries.

We're going to have big five-panel fold-out solar panels that will provide the electricity for the thrusters, which use as propellant the noble gas xenon.

This will be the first time that Hall effect thrusters have flown in deep space.

[11:32] Studying the evolution of a planetary body is a detective story.

There's a magic to when you actually are on the launch pad and you say, we're go for launch.

And you feel like singing and dancing, and you feel like throwing up at the same time.

Let's go discover things about our solar system that we have no other way to do.

I think that it's fundamental to who we are and also who we should be.

[11:52] Music.

[12:07] And in that report from NASA TV, we heard from Psyche Project Manager Henry Stern from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Psyche Project Systems Engineer David Oh, also from JPL, Psyche Gravity Science Investigator Maria Zuba from MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Psyche Deputy Principal Investigator and Imager Instrument Lead Jim Bell from Arizona State University and Psyche Principal Investigator Linda Elkins-Tanton from Arizona State University.

This is space time. Still to come, NASA's Mars Ingenuity Helicopter knocks up another two flights in the skies above the red planet.

And later in the science report, researchers have developed a robot, that can quite literally shift between solid and liquid states, just like the second Terminator.

I'll be back. All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[13:00] Music.

[13:15] NASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter has notched up another two flights in the skies above the red planet.

The latest flights, 40 and 41, far exceed the original five test flights Ingenuity was designed to undertake on Mars in order to test the ability of small unmanned aerial vehicles, to fly on another planet. Ingenuity landed in Jezero Crater attached to the underbelly of the car-sized six-wheeled Perseverance rover back on February 18, 2021, undertaking its first test flight in the thin Martian atmosphere on April 3. From the air, Ingenuity provides scientists with a better understanding of the terrain which the Perseverance rover is passing through, acting as a sort of scout and picking up details of the rocky landscape that simply aren't visible from space. The 45-kilometre-wide Jezero crater is the site of an ancient lake bed, into which a river once flowed, leaving behind an extensive fan-shaped delta.

Flight 40 helped reposition the helicopter for future scouting missions, searching out, the way ahead for the Mars Perseverance rover. It lasted just over 85 seconds, travelling some 171 metres northwest at 3.2 metres per second and at an altitude of around 10 metres.

A week later Flight 41 saw the drone undertake a circuit loop, flying around for about 109 seconds, covering 183 metres.

[14:44] Imagery from the flight captured the helicopter's shadow dancing over the Martian sand dunes.

These ongoing operations are designed to demonstrate the tissue box-sized experimental helicopter's capabilities on the Martian surface. This is Space Time.

[15:00] Music.

[15:16] And time to take another brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week with a science report.

[15:23] A new study has found that most people who developed long COVID symptoms after a mild COVID-19 infection should see those symptoms resolve themselves within a year of their infection.

The findings reported in the British Medical Journal are based on a new Israeli study comparing the health of people who hadn't had COVID-19 with those who had but were not hospitalised over the course of 12 months.

So to say that while COVID-19 was associated with a long list of health conditions, these were more prominent during the first six months after infection and most were resolved after a year.

[15:58] A new study has found that people on the autism spectrum are more likely to experience cardiovascular and metabolic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol compared to their non-autistic peers.

The findings reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at data from 34 previous studies on autism, and found that on average, for every 10 non-autistic people who will develop heart disease, diabetes or high cholesterol, 15 or more autistic people will develop each of these conditions.

Autistic kids in particular were found to be at a higher risk, being 2.8 times more likely to experience diabetes and 2.5 times more likely to have high blood pressure, compared to non-autistic children.

The study concludes that there's now a growing body of research suggesting that autistic people have a far broader range, of physical health problems than previously thought.

[16:55] Scientists have designed miniature Legoman-like robots that can quite literally shift between liquid and solid states like some kind of tiny T-1000 Terminator.

The team put their magnetic and conductive robots through an optical course designed to test their mobility and shape-shifting characteristics.

The tests included jumping over motes, climbing walls, splitting in half and cooperatively moving objects, and escaping a tiny jail cell.

The good news is that none of the tests involve needing to kill John Connor.

Hasta la vista, baby. A report in the journal Matter says the researchers were inspired by sea cucumbers and hope the robots could be used in biomedical contexts such as removing foreign objects from the stomach or direct drug delivery.

[17:43] Samsung have just released their latest smartphone offerings with the new Galaxy S23 and it's all about the brilliant 200 megapixel adaptive pixel sensor camera.

But of course as well as more features, it also means more money.

[17:57] With the details we're joined by technology editor Alex Harov-Royt from ITY.com.

Yeah, they've launched the S23, the S23 Plus and the S23 Ultra.

Now of course the Galaxy S23 Ultra is the super duper flagship with the Silas from the old note line. The standout feature is a 200 megapixel main camera. There's four cameras on the back, one on the front and is now a double optical image stabilizer. Obviously, the 200 megapixels means you can really zoom in and see detail. They're using a quad pixel arrangement where they've increased the amount of light that can go into the pixels. It's really important to have a lot of light coming into those pixels so that the pictures are nice and bright. So, the double the brightness on 8K videos at 30 frames per second. They're also using object-based AI to analyze each detail in the frame, even down to minute facial features like hair and eyes. Even if you wear glasses, it'll realize the glass is part of your face. And they've also got a 360-degree audio recording feature. Obviously, they've, improved the things like battery life. And they're using a special Samsung edition of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is the SOC, the CPU that is powering this entire line.

It's also got the ability to do ray tracing in games.

[19:14] So the games and the shadows and the colors and reflections are that much more realistic.

Now the outright purchase prices are roughly speaking about 100 bucks more than last year.

Inflation has reared its ugly head. The S23 and S23 Plus, they have improved styling.

They've got some of the look and feel of the Ultra series.

[19:33] But of course, if you want the best of the best, that's the Ultra.

The Ultra has a 6.8-inch screen, so that's 0.1 inches bigger than the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the iPhone 14 Plus.

You also have this new Astro photography mode and high-polapsed mode.

There's incredibly beautiful star lines in the pictures.

The phone itself is so good. People like Steven Soderberg and Steven Spielberg have made movies on the iPhone.

Well Sir Ridley Scott has made a short movie with the Galaxy S23 Ultra It's Alex Zaharov Royd from ITWire.com.

[20:08] Music.

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