Uranian Auroras and Planetary Defense: Unveiling Cosmic Mysteries

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The space-time series 29 episode 28

for broadcast on the 6th of March, 2026.

Coming up on space-time.

Mapping the mysterious upper atmosphere of Uranus.

Ace's planetary defense fly-eye telescope

and NASA's scathing report on Starliner.

All that and more coming up on space-time.

Welcome to space-time with Stuart Gary.

A new study has mapped the upper atmosphere of the distant world of Uranus for the first time.

The new three-dimensional map, reported in the journal geophysical research letters,

reveals how the ice giant's unusual magnetic field

shapes spectacular auroral activity above the planet's cloud tops.

Astronomers observed Uranus finially a full rotation,

detecting the faint glow from molecules

up to 5,000 kilometers above the clouds.

The new work provides the most detailed picture yet

of where the planet's auroral activity forms

and how energy moves through its atmosphere.

It also confirms that Uranus' upper atmosphere

has continued to cool over the past 30 years.

Auroras occur when energetic particles become trapped

in a planet's magnetic field and strike the upper atmosphere,

releasing energy that creates a signature glow.

Using NASA's web-space telescopes infrared spectrograph,

the authors map down temperature and density of ions

in Uranus' ionosphere, a region where the atmosphere becomes ionized

and interacts strongly with a planet's magnetic field.

The measurements reveal that temperatures

peak between 3,000 and 4,000 kilometers above the cloud tops,

while ion densities reach their maximum

around 1,000 kilometers up.

The studies lead author, Pollitzer-Ranty,

from Northumbria University,

says it's the first time scientists

have been able to see Uranus' upper atmosphere

in three dimensions and trace how energy moves

upwards through the planet's atmosphere

and even see the influence of its lopsided magnetic field.

You see, Uranus' magnetosphere is one of the strangest

in the solar system.

Unlike Earth, where the planet's magnetic field

is relatively aligned with the planet's rotational axis,

Uranus' magnetic field is tilted by nearly 60 degrees

and offset from the planet's center.

Why do you, the planet also rotates on its side?

And all this means Aurora sweep across the surface

of Uranus in really complex ways.

The web observations detected two bright

auroral bands near Uranus' magnetic poles,

together with a distinct depletion of emission

and ion density between them, a feature

likened to how magnetic field lines guide particles

through the atmosphere.

Similar dark origins have been seen at Jupiter,

where magnetic field geometry controls particle flow.

The web data also confirmed that Uranus' upper atmosphere

is still cooling, extending a trend

that began back in the early 1990s.

The team measured an average temperature of around 426 kilvons,

about 150 degrees Celsius,

lower than values recorded by ground-based telescopes

or previous spacecraft observations.

This is space-time.

Still to come, the European Space Agency's

fly-eye planetary defense telescopes

and NASA's scathing report,

unbowing starliner spacecraft.

All that and more still to come, on space-time.

The European Space Agency's fly-eye planetary defense telescopes

are hunting for space rocks heading towards Earth.

Asteroids, comets, and meteors

pose a constant threat to our planet.

And it's not a case of if another space rock hits the Earth.

It's a case of when.

So, current inhabitants of this planet

need to learn how to keep themselves safe from the next big one.

The Chicksaloupe asteroid impact is probably

the most famous space rock to hit this planet.

The 10-kilometer-wide asteroid crashed into the Earth

in what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula,

some 66 million years ago, causing a mass extinction event

that killed over 75% of all life on Earth,

famously including all the non-avian dinosaurs.

While extinction event impacts a rare,

small and medium-sized space rocks are far more common,

and they can still do a lot of serious damage

when they hit the Earth.

Now while some of these asteroids hit the ground,

others disintegrate in the Earth's atmosphere,

what's called an air burst,

like the one which caused the Chilna Blinks

to vent in Russia back in 2013.

They can create explosive events,

resulting in shockwaves that shattered glass

and splinter wood, damaging or destroying buildings,

and injuring anyone who happens to be in the way of the debris.

The term near-Earth object or near

refers to any natural celestial body,

like an asteroid, comet or a meteor,

whose orbit brings it close to that of planet Earth.

So far, more than 36,000 near-Earth objects have been identified,

and 1700 of them are on the European Space Agency's risk list,

meaning they merit much closer follow-up observations.

And that's where the European Space Agency's

Planetary Defense Office comes in.

It's designed to understand the current and future position

of near-Earth objects relative to our planet.

It will estimate the likelihood of an Earth impact,

assess the consequences of any possible impact,

inform relevant parties such as governments

and national emergency response agencies,

and develop methods to try and deflect

hazardous asteroids, comets and meteors away from the Earth.

To help achieve these goals,

this is developing a network of fly-eye telescopes

designed to scan the sky's forrogastaroids, comets and meteors,

automatically flagging any that pose an impact risk.

Fly-eye was inspired by the compound-eye structure of an insect.

It uses a single mirror inside the telescope,

collecting light from a full-filled view of the sky.

And it then feeds those photons to a pyramid-shaped beam splitter

with 16 facets, which then divides it all into 16 separate tubes.

The secondary lenses inside these tubes

focus the light on individual cameras,

subdividing a region of the sky into 16 smaller images,

the grant a higher level of image quality

over the telescope's large field of view.

By placing fly-eye telescopes in both the northern and southern hemispheres,

the entire sky can be scanned every 48 hours.

So far, 256 centimeter test bit telescopes

are primarily used to test data processing,

currently being developed for the fly-eye telescope array.

One of the telescopes is located in Madrid,

another at the La Silla Observatory in Chile

at the European Space Agency's partner organization,

the European Southern Observatory.

This report on fly-eye from ESA TV.

Hi, I'm Kelsey Brennan-Wassels for ESA Web TV.

We join you from Milan, Italy at OHB, Italy,

where a new high-tech telescope to detect asteroids is being built.

Traditional telescopes have a narrow field of view,

which makes hunting for threatening asteroids

a slow and tedious process.

But the fly-eye has 16 individual cameras,

mimicking the structure of a fly's compound eye

to offer an extra wide field of view of 44 square degrees.

With this field of view, the telescope

will be able to detect asteroids at risk of hitting Earth

in as little as a week in advance.

An additional three telescopes are foreseen

to be produced and placed in complementary locations

around the globe to increase coverage

and improve the efficiency of the network.

Once this first fly-eye telescope is completed,

it is destined for Mount Mufara

on the Italian island of Sicily.

The telescope has to be mounted,

has to be associated to an equatorial mount.

Equatorial mount is a particular mount

that allows to avoid that during the exposure time,

the stars track and the stars in this way remain fixed

in their position when we take a picture from the telescope.

And while the telescope is taking its pictures,

it's important that the structure is very stiff

in order to reduce vibrations that could blur the image

and thus reduce the capability to detect very faint objects

in the night sky.

And in that report on fly-eye from ACTV,

we heard from fly-eye senior article

in Jean-Marco Tiorini from OBEH Italia.

This is space time.

Still to come, NASA's scathing report

on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft

and later in the science report,

it seems warmer weather is causing humpback whales

to swim closer to shore in the process,

becoming more likely to be entangled in fishing equipment.

All that and more still to come on space time.

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Nasser is finally released its report

into the many failures of Boeing's CST100 Starliner spacecraft

and its findings are scathing.

The investigation blame what it called

engineering vulnerabilities in Starliner,

along with internal agency mistakes,

which resulted in a botched mission

that left two astronauts stranded in space.

The report found that Starliner is less reliable

for crew survival than other manned spacecraft.

And that Nasser should not fly another crew on Starliner

until all the technical issues are fully understood

and corrected.

And importantly, its problematic propulsion system is fixed.

Following the premature mothballing

of its highly successful space shuttle fleet

after SDS 135 back in 2011,

Nasser awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX

under its commercial crew program

for two independent spacecraft systems

to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

SpaceX developed a dragon spacecraft

while Boeing offered the Starliner.

Nasser also established similar programs

for the delivery of cargo to the orbiting outpost

under a separate resupply contract

with SpaceX and orbital sciences

later Northrop Grumman winning those contracts

with a dragon and Cygnus cargo ships.

So far, dragon cargo was undertaken 36 missions

to the space station while Cygnus has carried out 23.

And the crew version of SpaceX's dragon

has proven to be just as successful

with some 23 manned missions now under its belt.

But the record for Boeing's Starliner

is far less attractive.

In fact, it's downright appalling.

There've been just two unmanned test flights,

the first of which almost ended in disaster.

And the one manned test flight

that surf had been undertaken

had to be abandoned halfway through

marooning the crew on the International Space Station

for seven months.

The Nasser report says

Starliner faced challenges both during its unmanned

and more recently manned missions.

Nasser administrative Jared Isaacman

says the technical difficulties encountered

during docking with the International Space Station

were very apparent.

He says Starliner has lots of design

and engineering deficiencies

that need to be corrected.

But for him, the most troubling feature

revealed by the investigation wasn't the hardware,

but the decision making and leadership

at Nasser and Boeing.

Isaacman says beyond technical issues,

it's clear that Nasser permitted

overarching program objectives

to influence engineering and operational decisions.

The ensuing investigation identified an interplay

of combined hardware failures,

qualification gaps, leadership missteps

and cultural breakdowns

that created risk conditions inconsistent

with Nasser's human flight safety standards.

Starliner was launched on June the 5th, 2024

on its first manned test flight

to the International Space Station.

Originally planned to be a 14-day mission,

the flight was eventually forced at to 93 days

after propulsion system failures hit the spacecraft in orbit.

Because of the loss of spacecraft maneuverability

as they approached the International Space Station,

Nasser has now classified that test flight

as a type A mishap.

That's the same classification

as the deadly challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters.

While there were no injuries

in the crew eventually regained control prior to docking,

the decision to give it the highest level

classification designation recognizes

that there was a potential

for a significant possibly fatal mishap.

After reviewing the flight data

and then conducting ground tests

at the White Sands missile range in New Mexico,

Nasser decided to return the spacecraft to Earth empty

with no crew on board.

Starliner did eventually land safely at White Sands

in September 2024.

But the stranded crew were forced to remain on station

until March 2025,

when a dragon spacecraft was sent up

by Boeing rival SpaceX to rescue them.

This is space time.

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And time out of tech,

another brief look at some of the other stories

making using science this week with The Science report.

The United States Department of War has selected Pratt & Whitney

to power its new 6th generation stealth jet fighter, the F-47.

The XA-103 adaptive cycle engine was selected

ahead of General Electric's XA-102 power plant.

The three-stream adaptive cycle design

design can direct air to the bypass 3rd stream for increased fuel efficiency and cooling

or to the core and fan streams for additional thrust and performance.

The engine thrust hasn't been disclosed, although it's expected to be somewhere in the

35,000 to 40,000 pounds of thrust class.

The new F-47 Fighters expected to reach speeds in excess of Mach 2.2 and have a ceiling

of 65,000 feet.

All that's comparable with the current F-22 Raptor, currently considered the best air superiority

fighter ever built.

But the F-47 will also support more advanced systems, including AI integration, drone coordination

and potential future-directed energy capabilities.

Eventually, the F-47 War replaced the F-22 Raptor.

It's expected to undertake its first test flight in 2028 with operational entry currently

targeted for the following year, the US Air Force plans to procure an initial 185 aircraft.

The new study has found that warmer weather is causing humpback wells living off the

west coast of the United States to become entangled in fishing equipment more frequently.

The findings reported in the General Plus climate show that high-SE surface temperatures

are pushing wells closer to shore as they follow their food supplies.

The authors found a 300% increase in fishing gear and tacklements during warmer years.

The study shows that during major marine heatwave events such as 2015 and 2016 record numbers

of entanglements were recorded.

And scientists have finally figured out what makes sneakers squeak.

Using high-speed imaging, the authors found that when basketball shoes slide on a polished

court, the resulting squeak is caused by deformations in the soft material rippling across the

surface.

The findings reported in the General Nature used high-speed imaging to capture the rubber

sols pulsing in bursts across the court, finding the pitch of the squeak matches the red

of the burst, which is determined by the stiffness and thickness of the shoe sole.

In additional experiments with other samples, the authors showed that if a soft surface is

smooth, the pulses are irregular and produce no sharp sounds.

Whereas rigid surfaces, like the grip patterns on sport shoes, produce consistent pulse

frequencies resulting in high-pitched squeaks.

And these findings aren't just bellybutton fluff.

They could also provide new insights into the effects of a range of friction situations

from synthetic materials to geological fault lines.

It's been revealed that a lab at the University of California Los Angeles was studying psychic

abilities ghosts and auras during the 1970s.

The Paris psychology lab conducted experiments on telepathy and other psychic abilities.

But as the skeptics Tim Menden points out, the big problem was that the researchers were

true believers rather than neutral scientists searching for the truth.

He was a fellow who studied psychology at California State University who also said he experienced

psychic abilities.

He became an assistant, a researcher assistant, which is like saying, I've got someone

who believes something trying to prove that the belief is true.

That's a problem.

There are other people who have psychic abilities they claim and this one person who referred

to who volunteers, as he also went out and decided that someone he studied had been

dealing with polo guys and that sort of stuff.

So you have to be careful of people with a prior belief acting as your neutral umpires

in a scientific experiment.

It eventually closed after a while and it sort of disappeared.

A bit of that's why it's a bit of an unknown psychology laboratory, as opposed to others.

There was Stanford Research Institute, had a long-running one that was funded by the CIA,

CIGA, Sam Targ and put off with it for a long, long time and some of them are still commentators

on the field.

Harvard had a, maybe Duke University who had a long-running laboratory to test psychic abilities

way back to the 20s.

He was one of the uses of the Zina cars, the X and the Y, X and the Square and the Circle

and that sort of stuff.

It's been more famous for parapsychology labs, none of them have produced definitive evidence

of psychic ability.

That's not to say that these things weren't legitimate at the time because the idea is

to find out if they were because we didn't know.

That's right, that's right.

That's perfectly good to do that and with some of the skeptics which endorse, do some

proper scientific evidence, but watch out for the way you're doing it.

And in many cases, these things were particularly slack.

I mean employing someone who believes in this thing as your assistant who is going to be

testing people means it's the vibe in this, right?

That's not good.

Allowing your subjects to wander freely and they're being tested as happened with Yuri

Geller in the SRI test is not good practice and there are people who go there and look

at it.

Yes, do the testing, but do it properly, please.

And when you look at the test situation, you find there's a lot of loophole and holes

in the theories of the practices, which ends up impacting negatively on the results that

they supposedly have.

That's the skeptics team, Mindham and this is Spacetime.

And that's the show for now.

Spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through bytes.com, SoundCloud,

YouTube, your favourite podcast download provider and from Spacetime with StuartGarry.com.

Spacetime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio

and on both I Heart Radio and Tune in Radio.

And you can help to support our show by visiting the Spacetime store for a range of promotional

merchandising goodies or by becoming a Spacetime patron, which gives you access to triple-up

episode commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of bonus audio content which

doesn't go to where, access to our exclusive Facebook group and other rewards.

Let's go to Spacetime with StuartGarry.com for full details.

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