Speaker 1: This is Spacetime Series twenty nine, episode ninety three, for
Speaker 1: broadcast on the fifth of August twenty twenty six. Coming
Speaker 1: up on Space Time, the strongest evidence yet that Bettlegurs
Speaker 1: is not alone is the mighty Andromeda galaxy dying and
Speaker 1: the most volcanically active world in the Solar System. All
Speaker 1: that and more coming up on space Time.
Speaker 2: Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary.
Speaker 1: Astronomers have finally demonstrated that the red supergiant star Bettlegurs
Speaker 1: has a binary companion star about two to three times
Speaker 1: the mass of our Sun. The findings, reported in the
Speaker 1: journal Astronomy in Astrophysics provides the strongest evidence yet that
Speaker 1: one of the biggest and brightest stars in the night
Speaker 1: sky as a faint Stella companion, Bettlegirls b orbiting the
Speaker 1: primary star located somewhere between five hundred and thirty and
Speaker 1: six hundred and forty three light years away. Bettle Girls
Speaker 1: is the brightest star in the constellation of Ryan the
Speaker 1: Hunter and represents the scorpion sting on Oryan's shoulder. It's
Speaker 1: the ninth brightest star in the night sky and one
Speaker 1: of the largest and most luminous stars visible with the
Speaker 1: unaided eye, commonly called beetlejuice. Don't say it three times.
Speaker 1: Its name has been tortured through centuries of mispronunciations. It
Speaker 1: originally started as ipdal Jaza, meaning the hand of the
Speaker 1: big Man in Arabic, big man being a ryon the hunter.
Speaker 1: Bettle Girls began its life around ten million years ago
Speaker 1: as a spectral type O B blue star. Calculations of
Speaker 1: Bettlegirls's mass range from slightly under ten to a little
Speaker 1: more than twenty times that of our Sun, with some
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand times the Sun's brightness and around eleven
Speaker 1: hundred times its diameter. In fact, if Bettle Girls were
Speaker 1: placed at the center of our solar system, its surface
Speaker 1: would extend almost as far out as Jupiter, thereby engulfing
Speaker 1: the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the main
Speaker 1: asteroid belt. Bettle Gurls is now a bloated old semiregular
Speaker 1: variable red supergiant. Red supergiants are the largest stars in
Speaker 1: the universe in terms of volume, although they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: the most massive luminous. After spending billions of years fusing
Speaker 1: hydrogen into helium in their cores, a star's core hydrogen
Speaker 1: supply eventually runs out, and the balancing act between nuclear
Speaker 1: fusion pushing out gravity pushing in stomps and gravity wins.
Speaker 1: The huge mass of the star crashing down on the
Speaker 1: core causes a dramatic increase in core pressure, consequently temperature
Speaker 1: that triggers helium in the core to flash, which causes
Speaker 1: the helium to start fusing into carbon and oxygen. At
Speaker 1: the same time, the hydrogen rich region around the stellar
Speaker 1: core has moved down towards the core into a region
Speaker 1: where temperatures and pressures are high enough for hydrogen fusion
Speaker 1: into helium to commence in the shell around the core. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the increasing core temperature results in increasing luminosity, and the
Speaker 1: resulting radiation pressure from shell burning causes the outer diffuse
Speaker 1: gaseous envelope of the star to expand to hundreds of
Speaker 1: times its previous radius. As the now bloated star's chromosphere
Speaker 1: or visible surface, moves further away from the core, it
Speaker 1: cools down, turning redder. Hence the star becomes a red giant.
Speaker 3: Sun.
Speaker 1: Like stars, eventually lose the outer envelope, which continues expanding outwards,
Speaker 1: forming a planetary nebula. This ultimately exposes the star's white
Speaker 1: hot stellar core as a white dwarf, which will slowly
Speaker 1: cool over the eons. However, stars with masses more than
Speaker 1: a round eight times that of our Sun experience a
Speaker 1: very different fate. Unlike the Sun, their fusion cycle doesn't
Speaker 1: end with helium fusing into carbon and oxygen. They've got
Speaker 1: enough mass to fuse carbon and oxygen in their core
Speaker 1: into progressively heavier and heavier elements, while shell burning around
Speaker 1: the core also fuses progressively heavier and heavier elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, nickel,
Speaker 1: and eventually iron. These stars have become red super giants. Now,
Speaker 1: no matter how massive a star is, it can't fuse
Speaker 1: iron into heavier elements, and so once again gravity wins,
Speaker 1: causing the entire mass of the start to collapse down
Speaker 1: onto the core. The collapse is so powerful that the
Speaker 1: billions of tons of material causes a rebound, and the
Speaker 1: star explodes as a core collapse supernova so bright it
Speaker 1: briefly outshines an entire galaxy. The star eventually ends up
Speaker 1: as either a neutron star or an even stranger object
Speaker 1: called a black hole. Singularities of infinite density and zero volume.
Speaker 1: With the lures of physics a science understands them no
Speaker 1: longer apply, and this will be the fate of Bettle Girls.
Speaker 1: In fact, it could explode as a core collapse or
Speaker 1: type two supernova any day now, which in astronomical terms
Speaker 1: means it could be tomorrow or a million years from now.
Speaker 1: Whenever it happens. When it does explode, it'll temporarily outshine
Speaker 1: all the other stars in the galaxy, and it'll be
Speaker 1: clearly visible in the daytime sky here on Earth, and
Speaker 1: that'll be a fascinating experience. Star seen by humans to
Speaker 1: go super and ova in our galaxy was Tiger Star
Speaker 1: in the year fifteen seventy two, and that was before
Speaker 1: the invention of the telescope. This new study is lead
Speaker 1: author Miguel Montagas from the Paris Observatory, says astronomers of
Speaker 1: look for potential companions as a possible explanation for Bettelegirls's
Speaker 1: regular changes in brightness. Two studies published in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four predicted that the companion would be furthest from Bettlegirls
Speaker 1: in December of that year, and hence easier to spot,
Speaker 1: so Montagas and colleagues used the European Southern Observatories very
Speaker 1: large telescope the VLT in December of twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: and spent several months observing the star, and eventually they
Speaker 1: obtained the clearest image ever of what likely is Bettelegirls By.
Speaker 1: Montager says he was concerned he didn't have the sensitivity
Speaker 1: in his instruments that detech Bettlegirls b because it was
Speaker 1: thought to be too similar to the Sun in brightness
Speaker 1: and so it would be obscured by the primary stars glare.
Speaker 1: But it turned out to be at least two to
Speaker 1: three times the mass of the Sun and so it
Speaker 1: could be directly imaged, meaning the light from the star
Speaker 1: itself was detected. While there has been some early evidence
Speaker 1: of the possible existence of a companion star, including a
Speaker 1: possible direct detection by the Gemini North telescope in Away,
Speaker 1: this is the strongest evidence for and the clearest image
Speaker 1: jet of Bettleghost be now to be certain the companion's
Speaker 1: really there, the authors still need to observe it in
Speaker 1: a year's time on the other side of the star,
Speaker 1: but Montegas believes this very little space left for doubt.
Speaker 1: A few years back, Bettlegoes was the subject of attention
Speaker 1: from astronomers around the world when it visibly started dimming.
Speaker 1: It quickly went from being the ninth brightest star in
Speaker 1: the sky being the twentieth brightest. As we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: as an evolved super giant star, Bettlegoes is expected to
Speaker 1: explode as a supernova any day now, and so that
Speaker 1: dimming led some to suspect that this could be what
Speaker 1: was about to happen, but observations by Montegas and colleagues
Speaker 1: eventually determined the star was simply being obscured by a
Speaker 1: cloud of dust. This is space time still to come.
Speaker 1: Is the mighty Andromeda galaxy dying and the most volcanically
Speaker 1: active world in our Solar System? All that and more
Speaker 1: still to come on space time. A new study has
Speaker 1: found that star formation appears to be winding down in
Speaker 1: the nearest big neighboring galaxy, Andromeda. The new findings reported
Speaker 1: in the Astrophysical Journal, based on observations by NASA's Hubble
Speaker 1: Space Telescope. Astronomer's study Andromeda because it provides them with
Speaker 1: an opportunity to examine its stellar populations in great detail,
Speaker 1: leading to a better understanding of the past of galaxies
Speaker 1: like our own. The Andromeda galaxy M thirty one is
Speaker 1: located about two and a half million light years away,
Speaker 1: and like our own Milky Way, it's a spiral galaxy.
Speaker 1: It's close enough and big enough to be seen with
Speaker 1: the unaided eye from dark skies. It's the largest member
Speaker 1: of our local galactic group, with around twice the diameter
Speaker 1: of our Milky Way, spanning some two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand, two hundred and sixty thousand light years across.
Speaker 1: That compares to the Milky Ways diameter of between one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand and one hundred and twenty thousand light years. However,
Speaker 1: astronomers now suspect the two galaxies probably have similar masses,
Speaker 1: with both weighing roughly eight hundred billion to one point
Speaker 1: five trillion times a mass of our Sun. The new
Speaker 1: observations indicate star formation in Andromeda has undergone a five
Speaker 1: hundred million year decline, with an even steeper drop in
Speaker 1: the last forty million years. The findings are based on
Speaker 1: data from two Hubble surveys, the panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury
Speaker 1: and the pan chromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern treasury. Together, they've
Speaker 1: mapped two thirds of Andromeda's disc in ultra sharp detail.
Speaker 1: In total, the author has measured about two hundred million
Speaker 1: individual stars across the galaxy, giving them a detailed picture
Speaker 1: of andromedais past activity. One of the studies authors, Ben
Speaker 1: Williams from the University of Washington, says astronomers need to
Speaker 1: measure the individual stars because they're the fossil record of
Speaker 1: the galaxy's formation, and Hubble is the only telescope that
Speaker 1: can provide high enough spatial resolution over a large enough
Speaker 1: area to be able to do that. In Andromeda. The
Speaker 1: key is that massive stars are bluer and shorter lived,
Speaker 1: or less massive stars are redder and longer lived. As
Speaker 1: a result, areas that have experienced recent star formation tend
Speaker 1: to have a larger fraction of blue stars, or areas
Speaker 1: with less recent star formation typically have a reader population.
Speaker 1: So Williams and colleagues divided Andromeda's images into thousands of squares,
Speaker 1: each spanning roughly three hundred light years per side. They
Speaker 1: determine the history of star formation within each pixel in
Speaker 1: order to gain a comprehensive view of the galaxy's past.
Speaker 1: Previous research showed that the Andromeda galaxy experienced a dramatic
Speaker 1: burst of star formation around two billion years ago that
Speaker 1: was likely due to a past interaction or merger with
Speaker 1: another galaxy, but since then star formation has steadily declined.
Speaker 1: Astronomers measure the rate of star formation in terms of mass,
Speaker 1: or the amount of gas and dust converted into stars
Speaker 1: every year. The authors calculated that five hundred million years
Speaker 1: years ago, Andromeda form stars at a rate of about
Speaker 1: one solar mass per year. That's about the same as
Speaker 1: the Milky Way today. However, formation rate dropped in Andromeda
Speaker 1: to about half of that figure by about forty million
Speaker 1: years ago. The current rate is now plummeted even further,
Speaker 1: to just a fifth of the mass of our Sun
Speaker 1: per year. They also examined whether that decline was consistent
Speaker 1: across the entire galaxy, were just concentrated in certain specific areas,
Speaker 1: and they found that much of the recent star formation
Speaker 1: occurred in a start forming ring located around thirty two
Speaker 1: thousand lay years from the galaxy center. As a result,
Speaker 1: much of the decline they measured was driven by decreasing
Speaker 1: activity within that ring, rather than being the result of
Speaker 1: reduced material from which new stars can form. The authors
Speaker 1: think the declines are more likely to be a natural
Speaker 1: winding down from its previous, more active state. Williams and
Speaker 1: colleagues also investigated whether there was any connection between the
Speaker 1: decreasing activity and Andromeda. At its proximity to the satellite
Speaker 1: galaxy Messia thirty two. M thirty two separated from Andromeda
Speaker 1: by about sixteen thousand light years in the plane of
Speaker 1: the sky. However, it's three D location in space is uncertain.
Speaker 1: As a result, astronomers are unsure if or when it
Speaker 1: might have interacted with Andromeda in the past. Survey data
Speaker 1: from the panchromatic hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury allowed the authors
Speaker 1: to study the history of star formation and Andromeda in
Speaker 1: and near M thirty two, and they found this area
Speaker 1: showed signs of decreased star formation compared to other regions.
Speaker 1: The timing of this decrease, which the study finance began
Speaker 1: roughly sixty million years ago, could help constrain when M
Speaker 1: thirty two interacted with Andromeda's disc The authors say they
Speaker 1: can't explicitly say they're seeing a decrease in star formation
Speaker 1: because of M thirty two, but hey, it's right there,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely the most likely suspect. This is space
Speaker 1: time still to come, the most volcanically active word in
Speaker 1: the Solar System, and later in the science report, a
Speaker 1: new study wards that mining is now a threat and
Speaker 1: more than twelve thousand species across the planet. All that
Speaker 1: and more still to come on space time. NASA's Guno
Speaker 1: spacecraft has provided the first measurements of the temperature below
Speaker 1: the surface of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io. The findings, reported
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets, shows significant heating
Speaker 1: within the shallow subsurface of what is the most volcanically
Speaker 1: active world in our Solar System, collected during two close flybys.
Speaker 1: The data also shows that most of Io's surface is
Speaker 1: remarkably smooth and composed of material with very low density.
Speaker 1: Io's extreme volcanism is powered by tidal heating. See the
Speaker 1: Moon's constantly being stretched and squeezed by the immense gravity
Speaker 1: of its host planet Jupiter as it travels in its
Speaker 1: slightly elliptical orbit around the gas giant, then the refurther
Speaker 1: grap vitational tugs during its journey from its sister Jovian moons.
Speaker 1: Io is the innermost and smallest ob Jubiter's for Galilean moons,
Speaker 1: but the three thousand, six hundred and sixty kilometer wide
Speaker 1: world is still slightly larger than the Earth's moon. Until now,
Speaker 1: virtually everything astronomers know about Io's tidal heating has come
Speaker 1: from infrared observations, which can really only sense the temperature
Speaker 1: of the surface. But these latest findings are based on
Speaker 1: data collected by Juno's microwave radiometer. JUNO Principal investigator Scott
Speaker 1: Bolton from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas,
Speaker 1: says the surprising discovery that we can see below the
Speaker 1: rocky Moon's surface as important implications for studding volcanoes here
Speaker 1: on Earth. He says June's taught scientists that if they
Speaker 1: look with a microwave radiometer instrument near a volcano on Earth,
Speaker 1: they might see similar signatures in the subsurface temperature gradients,
Speaker 1: providing new information and our Earth volcanoes work. Juno's microwave
Speaker 1: radiometer was designed by Bob to peer beneath Jupiter's cloud
Speaker 1: tops in order to investigate the dynamics and composition the
Speaker 1: gas giants deep atmosphere. Its six microwave antennas act as
Speaker 1: a single instrument simultaneously detecting microwaves at a range of
Speaker 1: different wavelengths. During Jurney's extended phase, It's provided scientists an
Speaker 1: opportunity observe three of the planets, so called Galilean moons,
Speaker 1: gain he made, Europa and Io. So far, only Callisto
Speaker 1: has been left out of the study. They're called Galilean
Speaker 1: moons because they were first observed by Galileo Galilee when
Speaker 1: he turned his telescope onto the orb of Jupiter. Seeing
Speaker 1: the Moon's orbiting around Jupiter, Galileo realized that the Earth
Speaker 1: and all the other planets in the Solar System were
Speaker 1: simply doing the same thing around the Sun, a discovery
Speaker 1: which ended with him not only being sentenced to house
Speaker 1: detention by the Catholic Church for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: but he was also forced to renounce his discovery on
Speaker 1: pain of death. Yet even then, under his breath he whispered,
Speaker 1: and yet it moves, referring to Earth orbiting around the
Speaker 1: Sun rather than the Earth's centric view of the universe
Speaker 1: favored by the Catholic Church at the time. Bolton says
Speaker 1: each wavelength within the microwave radiometer explores different depths providing
Speaker 1: a new way to characterize the deb atmosphere of the
Speaker 1: giant planets, as well as the subsurface crusts of icy
Speaker 1: and rocky moons. At Gannymeat in Europa, Geno explored tens
Speaker 1: of kilometers below the surface, assuming that ice shells were
Speaker 1: mostly pure water, but the ability to probe the volcanic
Speaker 1: rock on Io was an unexpected discovery. During flybys on
Speaker 1: de seven thirtieth in twenty twenty three and February thirty,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, the Genos spacecraft came within fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: kilometers of iOS surface.
Speaker 3: Bolton and colleagues.
Speaker 1: Found that everywhere they looked, they saw temperature increases of
Speaker 1: roughly five degrees celsius every few centimeters, a fast steeper
Speaker 1: gradient and solar heating alone can explain, and that suggests
Speaker 1: only two likely explanations. Either the heat is right steadily
Speaker 1: through a conductive crust, or the signal could be coming
Speaker 1: from cooling lava flows cap by roughly ten meters of
Speaker 1: solidified crust, covering about ten percent of the Moon's surface
Speaker 1: at any given time. Bolton says Io provides a unique
Speaker 1: window matter how tidal heating works throughout the cosmos a
Speaker 1: fundamental process providing energy and heat to worlds that could
Speaker 1: be orbiting far from the hearth star. This process not
Speaker 1: only it creates the most volcanically active world in our
Speaker 1: Solar system, but it also fuels the subsurface oceans on
Speaker 1: the ice moons of the giant planets like Europa, Enceladus.
Speaker 3: And Ganny Made.
Speaker 1: Another major insight gained from Juno's two flybys of Io
Speaker 1: is just how smooth the little world is. For these findings,
Speaker 1: the Moon was known for its tall mountains, but the
Speaker 1: new observations indicate that apart from this visible topography, the
Speaker 1: surface features expansive smooth patches that can stretch for hundreds
Speaker 1: of kilometers or more. Because Uno flew by overlapping regions
Speaker 1: of Io at different angles, you alsos are able to
Speaker 1: map just how the surface reflects marcrowaves, showing them just
Speaker 1: how flat this distant world really is. But of course
Speaker 1: Io has an ever changing geography. Living on Io, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have weather reports, you'd have geological reports, with lava
Speaker 1: lakes forming in the north, mountain building in the south,
Speaker 1: ground solidification in the west. This report on Geno's mission
Speaker 1: to Jupiter comes from NESTV.
Speaker 4: Humanity has had its eyes on Jupiter for surgeries. First
Speaker 4: telescopes and in recent decades, eight deep space pros were
Speaker 4: used to examine the largest planet in the Solar System.
Speaker 3: Equipped with unique sensors.
Speaker 4: JUNO looked deeper into the planet's structure than ever before
Speaker 4: to find out the answers to basic questions about Jupiter's
Speaker 4: makeup and how it formed.
Speaker 5: Juno's looking for how Jupiter formed and really how planets
Speaker 5: are made in general. We're very much looking for the
Speaker 5: recipe for planets. The special thing about JUNO is is
Speaker 5: we're really looking at one of the first steps, the
Speaker 5: earliest time in our Solar System's history, right after the
Speaker 5: Sun formed. What happened that allowed the planets to form?
Speaker 5: And why are the planets slightly different composition than the Sun.
Speaker 4: Jupiter is so far away from Earth, then, even when
Speaker 4: it's at as closest to us, it will still take
Speaker 4: a radio signal moving at the speed of light about
Speaker 4: thirty four minutes to cross the distance.
Speaker 1: Pretty challenging missions, pretty challenging payloads. I'd say it's pretty robust.
Speaker 6: So it's those kind of challenges with making sure you
Speaker 6: do all the little things necessary to maximize the opportunities
Speaker 6: that you get.
Speaker 4: Aside from distance, Jupiter offers unique challenges to a spacecraft,
Speaker 4: such as a radiation field rivaled in intensity only by
Speaker 4: the Sun.
Speaker 5: We have a box in the middle of the spacecraft
Speaker 5: that we call a vault, and it's made out of titanium,
Speaker 5: and that shield all the electronics from these hazardous radiation
Speaker 5: and we're very much an armoured tank going to Jupiter.
Speaker 4: Justice JUNO is building on the knowledge gained with past
Speaker 4: missions to Jupiter. Future missions will build on Juno's findings.
Speaker 5: If we could start to understand the role that Jupiter
Speaker 5: played and how the planet formed and how that eventually
Speaker 5: governed the creation of all the other planets and Earth
Speaker 5: and maybe even life itself, then we know a little
Speaker 5: bit about how to look for other Earth like planets
Speaker 5: maybe orbiting other stars, and how common those might be,
Speaker 5: and the roles that those giant planets that we see
Speaker 5: orbiting the other stars play.
Speaker 6: Really, all these missions that LSPs involved in, the NASSAS
Speaker 6: involved in are all precursors to the bigger picture of
Speaker 6: getting humans out beyond low Orth orbit to Mars, to
Speaker 6: an asteroid and be honest.
Speaker 1: And in that report, from MESSATV. We heard from JUNA
Speaker 1: Principal investigator Scott Bolton from the Southwest Research Institutions, San Antonio, Texas,
Speaker 1: as well as GUNO Launch Director Omar Bayes and JUNO
Speaker 1: Mission Manager John Culvert, both from NASSA.
Speaker 3: This is Space Time and time out to.
Speaker 1: Take another brief look at some of the other stories
Speaker 1: making US and science this week with a science report.
Speaker 1: A new study warns that mining is now a threat
Speaker 1: to more than twelve thousand species across the planet, which
Speaker 1: includes almost six thousand that are already listed is threatened.
Speaker 1: The findings, published in the journal Cille Report Sustainability, overlaid
Speaker 1: the space where mining occurs across the planet and noted
Speaker 1: that twenty eight percent of the ranges of threatened species
Speaker 1: overlap with those areas that are being mined. The authors
Speaker 1: say at least one hundred species have some seventy five
Speaker 1: percent of their ranges overlapping in these areas. That's despite
Speaker 1: mining not being recognized as a threat by the International
Speaker 1: Union for Conservation of Nature. They also found that future
Speaker 1: planned mining sites could expose over three thousand threatened species
Speaker 1: to the risks involved around mining sites, eighty three percent
Speaker 1: of which don't have a mining related threat designation. A
Speaker 1: new study claims taking fecal capsules could help people with
Speaker 1: insomnia get a good night's sleep. A report in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Internal Medicine claims a trial involving forty people
Speaker 1: who had chronic insomnia disorder were given either a placebo
Speaker 1: or an antibiotic trip and to clear their gut microbiome,
Speaker 1: and then fecal pills to recolonize their intestinal tract. After
Speaker 1: a month, the participants receiving the fecal pills showed greatly
Speaker 1: improved sleeping patterns compared to those on the placebo. The
Speaker 1: subjects taking the pills also reported feeling that their sleep
Speaker 1: had improved for up to six months after taking them.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Despite Australia's air being relatively unpolluted compared to other parts
Speaker 1: of the world, a new study is found that there's
Speaker 1: a clear link in the Great Southern Land between air
Speaker 1: pollution exposure and the risk of ending up in hospital
Speaker 1: with lung and hard issues. The findings, reported in the
Speaker 1: journal Public Health Research and Practice, used national air pollution
Speaker 1: estimates from twenty sixteen and hospitalization data from one thy
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty five Public Health areas between twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen and twenty seventeen, representing some twenty three million, two
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty six thousand and forty six people. The
Speaker 1: authors found higher exposure to pollution particles smaller than two
Speaker 1: point five nanometers together with nitrogen dioxide was consistently linked
Speaker 1: with increases and hospitalizations for these issues.
Speaker 3: A new study has.
Speaker 1: Found that people who spent an excessive amount of time
Speaker 1: online tend to be more stressed, have worse moods, and
Speaker 1: neglected other parts of their lives. A report in the
Speaker 1: General plus one monitored the daily Internet use of some
Speaker 1: nine hundred German adults for two weeks. The authors found
Speaker 1: temptation was the biggest thing pushing subjects to go online. However,
Speaker 1: although excessive Internet users had worse moods, spending time online
Speaker 1: didn't improve how they felt. Telstra, Australia's largest telco, is
Speaker 1: expanding its relationship with Elon Musk's Starling broadband satellite network.
Speaker 1: Right now, the starting constellation includes some teny four hundred
Speaker 1: and thirteen satellites in low Earth orbit, and Telstra wants
Speaker 1: to take advantage of that. With the details of the
Speaker 1: new Telstra Starlin deal We're joined by technology editor Alex
Speaker 1: saharov Royt from Tech Advice Start Life.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well the calling of the first for Australia satellite
Speaker 7: to mobile connectivity expands from text to apps. Now before
Speaker 7: you suddenly think, oh, you know I can get a
Speaker 7: high speed bandwidth from the sky, No, this is for
Speaker 7: low data uses. And they were the first launch satellite
Speaker 7: messaging in Australia. This was to send messages beyond the
Speaker 7: range of their mobile network. But now they're rolling out
Speaker 7: access to select satellite apps to eligible consumer and small
Speaker 7: business customers. So this is where their collaboration with Stalin.
Speaker 7: There's now a selection of satellite optimized apps and this
Speaker 7: includes things like navigation apps, Apple Maps, Google Maps, all trails,
Speaker 7: messaging apps including I Message, What'sapp, Facebook Messengers, Signal and
Speaker 7: Google Messages. You've also got weather apps Apples Weather, ACU
Speaker 7: Weather and Google Weather, and then also Google Fitness and
Speaker 7: of course the Mind telstra app. And these are apps
Speaker 7: that have been specifically optimized to send and receive data
Speaker 7: over what is effectively intermittent satellite connectivity. Over what'sapp. You
Speaker 7: can do voice and video calls, but it's going to
Speaker 7: drop out. You just want to send text messages, but
Speaker 7: eventually you will have a lot more direct to device
Speaker 7: capability from updated Stylink and other satellites are designed to
Speaker 7: connect directly the mobile phones and give a proper higher
Speaker 7: bandwidth experience. And this will work with iPhone thirteen on
Speaker 7: newer the new Samsung Galaxy S twenty six, and it
Speaker 7: will expand to some of the older Galaxy range by
Speaker 7: the end of the year. It's really for people who
Speaker 7: are outside of the mobile network, and it will mean
Speaker 7: that over the next few years you will have a
Speaker 7: lot more services connecting directly to satellites without needing a
Speaker 7: special SAT phone. And it's kind of put into question
Speaker 7: what you need to be connected to your local provider
Speaker 7: forman there will come a time when starling elon must
Speaker 7: well just have a global plan, and you're already talking
Speaker 7: about wanting to buy existing telcos for their spectrum or
Speaker 7: bidding on spectrum services so that he can have terrestrial
Speaker 7: and satellite connectivity. And imagine if you just had a
Speaker 7: global plan through Staralink that worked with any phone would
Speaker 7: pretty cool.
Speaker 1: During the thirteenth test flight or the Starship. On board
Speaker 1: that starship, we're twenty test versions of the Starlink Version
Speaker 1: three satellites. They're a little bit bigger than the current
Speaker 1: version two and they're the ones that will in fact
Speaker 1: allow every cell phone to become a satellite phone for voice, video, everything.
Speaker 1: And that's how close we are. We just need to
Speaker 1: get more of those satellites up there.
Speaker 7: And look, the thing about the satellites is that I mean,
Speaker 7: I remember when three or four years ago Elon was
Speaker 7: talking about launching version two satellites. So here we are
Speaker 7: in twenty twenty six is launching version three. And these
Speaker 7: satellites they're not permanent fixtures in space. They slowly get
Speaker 7: out of all but I mean the only supposed to
Speaker 7: last five or six years before they have to be
Speaker 7: de orbited. Anyway, that's why it keeps launching the new
Speaker 7: satellites all the time and replacing them with more advanced
Speaker 7: ones which have these extra capabilities every time I launched
Speaker 7: a new one. As you just explained, well after a
Speaker 7: certain period of time, there'll be a Version four and
Speaker 7: a Version.
Speaker 1: Five, and that's part of what Starship's all about. Whereas
Speaker 1: a Falcon nine can launch maybe twenty twenty eight satellites
Speaker 1: in a single bounce, the Starship will launch sixty at
Speaker 1: a single go sixty satellites each launch. That's pretty yeah,
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 7: And that's how, of course, you build out the constellation quickly.
Speaker 7: I mean, we did have the situation where a couple
Speaker 7: of months ago Jeff Bezos Blue Origin satellite, which was
Speaker 7: meant to launch a bunch of the next gen Amazon
Speaker 7: Leo satellites that nd N and Australia onced upgraded sky
Speaker 7: Muster network with And I mean that explosion blew up
Speaker 7: a whole stack of those satellites and blew out most
Speaker 7: of the launch pad with it. I was reading that
Speaker 7: it normally takes twelve to eighten months to rebuild a
Speaker 7: launch pad, but Blue Origin is determined to get it
Speaker 7: up by the end of the year, by December twenty
Speaker 7: twenty sixth.
Speaker 1: The Russian said that problem too. A couple of months ago,
Speaker 1: when a Sawyers launch destroyed the launch pad. The Sawyers
Speaker 1: was fine, the rocket was fine, the launch pad it
Speaker 1: had gone to whatever launch pad heaven there is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank god. It will be at least two years before
Speaker 1: they could get people back into space, because this was
Speaker 1: their only launch pad designed to carry manned spacecraft. Yet
Speaker 1: in nine months they completely replaced it and they were
Speaker 1: back up and running. So Jeff Bezos saying he'll do
Speaker 1: it before the.
Speaker 3: End of the year, Yeah, I believe that. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean what I read was it'll be approximately
Speaker 7: six months and it's going to be just enough launch
Speaker 7: pad for the launch. I mean, I'm sure they'll keep
Speaker 7: upgrading it, but you need to get the Amazon Leo
Speaker 7: satellite constellation up and running, and to do that you
Speaker 7: need another rock.
Speaker 1: Dude. I remember as a kid watching James Bond Double
Speaker 1: seven Moonraker and thinking to myself, how ridiculous private people
Speaker 1: having their own launch systems. Now it's happening. It's no
Speaker 1: longer science fiction yesterday. Science fiction is today science fact.
Speaker 7: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1: That's Alexeharov Rout from Take Advice, Start Life, and this
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