Aug 26: 'Oumuamua likely not an alien spaceship, rocket debris, 2 billion-year-old asteroid, and more...
Quiet supersonic aircraft, and Brian Cox talks about black holes
On this week's episode of Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald:
'Oumuamua's strange behaviour has a natural explanation, no aliens needed
In 2017, an object from interstellar space whizzed through our solar system and swung by the Sun. As it did so, strangely, it began to accelerate. That led to scientists coming up with exotic explanations, including an artificial — or alien —means of propulsion. Now, Jenny Bergner, an astrochemist from the University of California, Berkeley, thinks she has a better explanation. She argues 'Oumuamua's odd acceleration is due to a never-before-seen, yet completely natural phenomenon. Her research was published in the journal Nature.
Read more about the new explanation of 'Oumuamua's movement.
Proliferation of rockets raises fears that the sky is falling
Recently, the uncontrolled re-entry of a Chinese rocket booster closed airspace above Spain – and it wasn't an isolated incident. The growing number of rocket launches around the world has increased the risk that eventually, people will be killed or injured by re-entry debris. Bob talks to astronomer Aaron Boley about evaluating the danger, and strategies for reducing the risk.
A crater in Africa was caused by an asteroid twice the size of the one that killed the dinosaurs
New analysis of a two billion-year-old heavily eroded crater in Africa suggests it's the remnant of the biggest impact in the geological record. The reconstruction indicated an asteroid 25 kilometres across struck the Earth creating a 300-kilometre diameter crater, and initiating an early ecological catastrophe for the simple microbial life that inhabited Earth at the time. The study team included Natalie Allen from the departments of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and the work was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
Where's the Kaboom? NASA's new quiet supersonic plane is getting ready for lift off
Engineers behind NASA's new X-59 supersonic airplane are hoping the design of their new aircraft design will overcome the pesky problem that's hobbled the development of supersonic airliners: sonic booms. Noise concerns led to stifling regulations of supersonic flights over land, which limited the deployment of supersonic airliners like Concorde. Craig Nickol, the Senior Technical Advisor for the Integrated Aviation Systems Program at the NASA Langley Research Center, said their new aircraft design should produce a soft thump instead of a boom. This experimental aircraft won't carry passengers, but could demonstrate a technology for future commercial airliners. They are gearing up for their first test flight, which may only be months away.
WATCH: A time lapse of the construction of NASA's X-59 experimental supersonic plane
UK science star Brian Cox's new book explores how we might live in a black hole
Physicist Brian Cox has become a globally famous science communicator because of his gifts for making complex subjects approachable. In his latest book, Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe, Cox tackles the enormous challenge of reconciling the fundamental clash of principles between gravity on a large scale and quantum theory. The professor of particle physics from the University of Manchester and the Royal Society told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald how advances in his field are forcing us to consider a deeper view of reality.
