#443: Mars' Mega Lake & ISS Archaeology Mysteries

Hi there, How are you going? Andrew Dunkley here, Great to have your company again on another edition of Space Nuts. Coming up on this episode, we're going to be looking at well, Mars. Gosh, when was the last time we did that? About a week ago, But a good reason for it, because they've made a discovery that is mind blowing. Lots of things on Mars are bigger than they are on Earth, even though it's a much smaller planet. This is one of those. We're also talking archaeology nowhere. When you talk archaeology you're thinking of people digging around in the dirt looking at bones. No, they're looking at dirty socks on the ISS, amongst other things, or maybe not specifically socks, but the International Space Station. Yes, and the link between science fiction and real science. There's a fascinating story that talks about that as well. All coming up on this edition of Space Nuts. Fifteen, Channel nine Ignition Space Nuts or three two. One Space Nurse's when I report it real good and here to discuss it all and talk about the shopping list from last week is Professor Fred Wat's, an astronomer at Large. Hello Fred, Well, there's bacon, there's corn flakes. The soap. All of the shopping list from last week, so I need to talk about. That's all processed food, even the soap. Yes, even the soap. Yeah, apparently cut do you eat as well? Yeah? I did when I was a kid. I was a pretty stupid kid there. But apparently it's very good for catching mice, is soap. I'm told, Well, there you go. That's interesting. Yes, I don't know how true it is. But when you try it, throw it at the mice, or you put it on the on the mouse trap, then okay, maybe it's the smell that it's them in and bang, Well that's right, it could be. Yes, I don't know for certain. Shall we just get started, because we've got a lot to get through as we should. Okay, let's do that. Our first story today involves the red planet Mars, and as I mentioned at the very beginning, it's a place with some of the biggest things in the Solar System, the biggest mountains, the deepest canyons, and now it looks like the largest lake. It's a really fascinating place for all of those reasons and more for it. Yes it is, and in some ways this is a bit surprising because we know that probably most of Mars is northern Hemisphere in ancient times, and by that I mean three to four billion years ago, probably had water on it. It probably had an ocean that basically covered it. We don't know whether that ocean lasted a long time, whether it was something temporary or whether it's sat there for hundreds of millions of years, but it definitely had its effect on the landscape. But this story is from actually it's kind of the equatorial region of Mars. In fact, it's actually in the southern hemisphere that we're talking about, so not that far south of the equator. I think from about minus twenty five degrees. What we have there is a much more highland region of Mars. That's where a lot of craters are, where there are a lot of mountains, and it's a region that you wouldn't expect to be home to large bodies of water. But images from the European Space Agency's Mars Express, which has been photographing Mars from above, I don't know, probably about the latter the best part of certainly more than ten years, probably more like fifteen years. Mars Express has not only photographed the surface of Mars, but also as it is obviously the planet. It's got ground surface radar, so you get very accurate topographical maps. And it's by studying those maps that scientists based at a number of institutions in Europe have What they've done is they've looked very carefully at the top topography of a region which is quite a large region of Mars that encompasses several regions, the Ariadnes Colleaise, the Gorgonum Chaos, the Newton Crater, Caralis Chaos. All of these are zones on Mars. Turns out though, that you can lump them all together and you can draw a contour around them, and you can also from that workout that that was once a shoreline, and from that you can establish that and it's not just the appearance of this. I think the chemistry actually also backs this up. But you can work out that there was a very large lake there which has a name. It is called Lake Ridania uh and Lake Ridania, as I said, three times bigger than the biggest lake on Earth, which is the Caspian Sea. So it's a colossal body of water, or it would have been when it was wet. It's not wet now, but the evidence is all there, and there's so much geological support for this idea that to some extent is surprising that we haven't been talking about it before. But yes, much is being learned about this region of Mars, and it may maybe maybe that it also involved geothermal activity, you know, when when when that water was there, there may well have been geothermal vents on the on the floor of that lake which have given rise to some of the interesting history of the minerals that we find on that region. So, yeah, really interesting story from a planet that is the planet that keeps on giving, really, isn't it? Mars? Yeah, so three times bigger than the Caspian Sea, which is the biggest inland body of water on Earth, and it measures three hundred and seventy one thousand square kilometers, So we're talking what one to one point two million square kilometers. Of water something of that sort. That's correct, you know, about one point once million kilometers is the estimate from the scientists who have done this work. It's you know, it is. When you think of a body of water like that, you think in terms of oceans. It's not an ocean. It's basically bounded by land, unlike the ocean in the northern hemisphere, which certainly was bounded on its southern border, but probably covered the polar region as well. So it is. Yes, it's what you could perhaps call an inland sea or a lake, but whatever it was, it's a lot of water and right, really quite extraordinary evidence for its existence. To the paper that we've been looking at, and there's a very nice summary of this Universe Today website that shows some of the evidence as to why we now believe that this lake existed. Yeah, it shows that it confirms I suppose previous theories about the abundance of water on Mars. Do we have any idea what kind of water it might have been? Has that sort of been probably wet because it's salty. Look, it might have had Because of the fact that we, you know, the scientists have really looked very closely at the minerals that have been deposited on the floor of this extinct lake, in particular chlorides around the shoreline, and which may be related to the you know, volcanic activity, the suggestion is that it would have been quite rich in minerals. So, yes, salty is probably a good way, a good way to describe it. It's there some very interesting chemistry. That's that I think is being studied in relation to this so very fine piece of work. It could it have existed long enough for some kind of microbial life to exist. Sixty four thousand dollars question there it is maybe it could, you know, maybe you could find evidence of life there. And I suppose the reasoning will be very similar to why Perseverance is in jesuro Crater at the moment, because that's a place where there was a definitely was a river Delcha Delta, which is thought to have deposited material brought down from a long river system, quite a long way actually from the region we're talking about at the moment, but it's a place where you expect the sediments to have been dropped to the floor of the crater in the case of jesuro Crater, and they might carry evidence of microbial life, as we talked about not very long ago. And it's possible that this lake, Lake Eridania might also have the same sort of properties that may be the sediments on its bed, which in some cases were almost to kill a meter below the surface. It's a deep lake, it's not just a shallow stretch of land, so that there may be evidence to be gained if somebody felt like sending a spacecraft there to have a look. Oh yeah, it sounds like it's a prime target for future investigations. Oh yes, yeah, and the volcanic activity went along with it, and may well have you know, we talk about volcanic activity in the depths of our ocean where life is abundant, so you could that kind of scenario have existed in this particular lake on Mars. Who knows. We're talking about a time frame of three to four billion years when this lake existed, but it took a long time to disappear. From what I can tell, I. Think that's right. And you know, that's one of the areas of interest in terms of research on Mars. How long did it take for Mars to become a dry, cold, and dry world rather than a warm and wet world. In fact, it's a question we've had from Space Not's listeners as well. How long did that process take? And it probably took quite a long time, And it may have occurred in episodes Andrew where you've got a wet period and then a dry period, and then a wet period and the dry period just gets up a bit longer than the last one was, and before we know where you are, you've tried the whole thing, and we'll never really be able to play a movie of that, but I'm sure the evidence will build up as to what kind of duration these water systems had. Yes, indeed, imagine if humanity had time to evolve on Mars and then came to the realization that their planet was dying. That would be a horrible thing to discover. Fiction story does that, The stuff does a bit. Yeah, Yes, it's called three body problem. Yes, that's what it's about. But yeah, I mean imagine if we right now made that discovery. We are not yet technology technologically capable of doing anything about it in the short term, and we certainly are in a position to say, all right, let's leave because this place is you know, not going to be worth hanging around. Well, there's some there's already one person who thinks like that, but the odds are that you you know, you'd have a very long lead time for that kind of thing, and just hope your technology catches up, which it probably would. Yes, yes, indeed, all right, as Fred said, if you would like to read up on that story, a great article on Universe today dot com. There's a space that's Andrew Dunkley with Professor Fred Watson Space Buds. Now Fred to our next story, and that is archaeology. Our archaeology is the study of historical artifacts to learn about the people and places of the past. That's a pretty loose definition. There's all sorts of variations in what archaeology is and what it's trying to achieve. But we generally think about people with the little brushes and spades, digging around the dirt looking for triceratops skulls and digging around the ruins of Pompeii, for example. But this is archaeology with a difference. This is photographic archaeology courtesy of the International Space Station and it's on board Cruise as they changed and did their work over the last two and a half decades, and they're coming up with some interesting stuff there. Indeed, actually one of the authors of this work is an Australian colleague, actually somebody I know not terribly well, but I do know. Her name is Alice Gorman. She's very well known as a space archaeologist here in Australia. She's at at Flinder's University. So that is, you know, the preface to what I think is a really interesting piece of work. And you know, what has happened is that the Alice and her colleagues have applied standard archaeological methods to a very non standard environment, namely the space station. They've basically divided the space station up into one meter squares, or the surface area. And that's what you do in archaeology. You divide your archaeological site into a grid of one meter squares, and then you take excavations of some of those squares, which are known as test pits, and so you diggip it one meter square and that gives you a sample of what kind of stuff there is in there. And so the scientists have done this work have obviously collaborated very strongly with the crew of the International Space Station, which itself is a movable feast because in the twenty three years or twenty four years that it's been inhabited, something like two hundred and eighty people have visited it. So lies my mind, I wouldn't never have put it at that many. Wow, Yeah, it's a lot. So that's. Large number. You know, some of the recent inhabitants have been not co opted, but have been collaborating with the archaeologists to do what archaeologists do. And what they've done is laid out five what they call sample areas, which are roughly a meter square, to follow standard archaeological practice. And there's a very nice conversation article about this, so I'm going to read from that because I think it's probably better than I could put it. We chose the square locations to encompass zones of work, science, exercise, and leisure. The crew also selected a sixth area based on their own idea of what might be interesting to observe. And there's a actually a nice acknowledgment there. The study was sponsored by the International Space Station National Laboratory. And what what they've done is they've they've given the Space Archaeology Exercise a name. It is an acronym in the app. I love this so good one, isn't it. It's the Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment or. Square that's very clever, be there or be square that's right, square, And yeah, what they've found is really interesting. Some of the areas that they've sampled are very busy areas. You know on the way from one part of the space station space station to another. There's a rather a rather nice summary here in the conversation article. The space station is cluttered and chaotic, cramped and dirty. There are no boundaries between where the crew works and where they rest. There's little or no privacy. There isn't even a shower, So you know what, that sentence actually reminds me of of the Vogon destructor fleet because full of old mattresses, metrices. It's probably like that anyway. So they've analyzed. The conversation article that these authors have written analyzes the first two squares and one I'm reading again. One was located in the US No. Two module, where there are four crew births and connections to the European and Japanese labs visiting spacecraft often dock here. Our target was a wall where the maintenance work area is located. There's a blue metal panel with forty valcro squares on it and the table before for fixing equipment or doing experiments, and NASA intended the area to be used for maintenance. However, we saw hardly any evidence of maintenance there and only a handful of science activities. In fact, for fifty of the days covered by our survey, the square was only used for storing items, which may not even have been used there. So it's because the amount of valcro there, you know, that made it just made it perfect for storing things. It says close to half all the items recorded, forty four percent were related to holding other items in place, So it's amazing. Yeah, I suppose one of the things they've discovered from all of this is that if they're going to build space stations in the future, and they probably will, they need to consider things like storage. I mean, even when we were selling our last house, one of the feed back things was where's all the storage? We need storage, want more storage. Well, it sounds like it's exactly the same for the ISS, and it's only being discovered through the people who've lived and worked there for the last twenty plus years, and you're seeing things that were built with certain intent not being used for that purpose. Adams, Yes, that's right, Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, they might have to sort of redo the blueprints on future space stations to deal with the needs of those who are living and working there. And another example was I think it was like a vanity case that someone had that spent sixty days stuck or worn near the near the bathroom or whatever near the toilet. That's right. They never found out who owned it, no, no, but it was just there. So that's the second area that they analyzed. It was perhaps some more interesting. It was sort of where the exercise machines were and the toilet, and it's a passage way to the cupular window, which is one of the best places probably on the space station. So again there was a wall with no particular function, but it got everything stored on it, including this anonymous toilet bag that we just mentioned, so really very interesting to find that. And I think you're right, you know, you highlighted the right thing. It's all about storage put things. It also shows how humans take advantage of the opportunities of the space they have to deal with whatever needs they have, so you know, and I think it changes from person to person, and with two hundred and eighty plus people going up there and more to come, because I think they're not going to bring the ISS down for another few years yet. But it's it's a case of all right, I'm new, I need to find space from a staff and you you adapt and that's what's being revealed in this archaeological study which is being done. I think you said through photographs. People on board taking photographs of these these particular one meter square spaces to see how they evolve and change. And it is fascinating stuff and a one off opportunity really, because when that space station's over and done with, all that information will be gone. That's correct, absolutely, But you know your your reasonings right on the money, Andrew that the given things like the Gateway space station, which is planned to be in orbit around the Moon, a sort of gateway resource for people to dock with before they take the journey down to the Moon's surface, all of this archaeology is going to directly into all the sort of meanesses that need to be included in the Gateway station. The ounce is probably going to be exactly what you said, storage storage, storage. And when you haven't got much room, I suppose you do have to take advantage of whatever opportunity is available. And if someone's built a wall with stacks of velcrow on it, yeah, well it's going to be it's going to be a very tantalizing opportunity to put your stuff rather than use it for what it was built for, which I think in this case was supposed to be maintenance. Yeah, very very interesting indeed, and it is a good article. I actually read the whole thing start to finish and absorbed it all. On the conversation site, you're listening to space Nuts Andrew Dunkley with Professor Fred what's an. Space nuts? Now to. A genre that I am much invested in, and that's science fiction. But this is a story about science fiction and science fact and how they have sort of collaborated and dovetailed so beautifully together. This is a really great story for him, it is. And it's I'm going to let you talk to this one because it's very much up your you know, up your street. But basically it's a researcher is actually a director of researcher leb Destro Physique and Marseille down there in the south of France is a gentleman by the name of Saul. What's here. So he's done this work investigating, you know, the relationship between science and science fiction, especially in gets the backdrop of the era that we live in now, where you've got misinformation, you've got deep fakes, you've got you basically basically attempts to or science. All of that sort of thing, you know, the good old conspiracy theories, all of that is distorting our view of what science is all about. And so it's an interesting context in which to put this study of the relationship between science fiction and science fact. Yeah. I think there were two keystone things that came out of it, and that is that science fiction has a place in that it can inspire people to look into careers in science. Even though science fiction is what it is, it's you know, the imaginations of writers and filmmakers for that matter, coming out in paper or on an ebook, or on a TV or a big screen. But it does have a place in the scientific community because it has been successful in an inspiring people to get into those fields of education or those fields of expertise. That's what I'm trying to say. The other keystone to come out of this is that science fiction can also educate. Even though the stories are coming from some incredible minds, they have been built on the back of real science, and so they educate. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series is a very good highlight in terms of teaching people about not just what Mars is like, but what it could be if we developed technology to turn it into a livable planet, which is what the Mars series was all about. The movie Interstellar was created using real science they used and some of it was pretty well stretched. And the Martian was science fiction film, but it was so close to being really possible because of the consultations they did with scientists and astronomers, it looked feasible in many respects. So there's a lot that works in and around science fiction and science coming together, and I think this is a really great story. And when you look at some of the early science fiction writers, they didn't have the science to back up their imaginations. They had to think outside the box. And even some of the really early ones that predated the rocket era came up with rocket ships as they are today. I mean, yeah, so their brains worked in incredible ways. And as someone who's written science fiction, I never I just let my imagination run while. But I'm not in the caliber of the Isaac Asimov's and Arthur C. Clarks of the world, who are some of the greatest of all time and have written some of the classic sci fi stories. But I've tried to work it into what could be conceived as feasible if it ever came to be, which it probably won't. But that's the nature of science fiction. But some of the homework that goes into these stories is based on real science, and some of the people who are working in science today have been inspired by stories from the imaginations of great people. And that's what this is all about. And I think it's fantastic stuff. I really am. I'm delighted by this story, to be honest. I mean, going back to that old chestnut, my all time favorite science fiction story, the movie that came up in nineteen sixty eight two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey. I remember after I'd watched that, thinking that all of that was entirely possible, you know, the idea of by two thousand and one, we'd be having regular flights to the Moon, we'd have artificial gravity space stations, we'd be able to send a spacecraft out to Jupiter to investigate things that were going on. I can't remember which. Way around it was. It was Saturn, one of the either Saturn and Jupiter. I think it was one in the movie and one in the book, And I can't remember which way around it went. But all of that seemed absolutely possible back in the nineteen sixties, and even the you know, the spacewarp, the sort of warped space into dimensional dive at the end of it, likewise seemed like an absolute possibility. So it's certainly stilled the bosom of my science fiction heart at that time I was a young scientist, just starting out in my career. I the TV series The Expanse. I've watched it twice actually, and it too is sort of looking at humanity living across the entire Solar System from the from Mars Earth and Mars right out through past the gas giants into deep the deep reaches of the Solar System, and how it's sort of factionalized. So you had Earth and Mars at Loggerheads and the people who lived in the outer Belt they call them belts strangely enough, and they all the tensions that existed between them. I see that as feasible. But within the story, there were technologies that might exist today, but not to that level. For example, they didn't overcome the problem of zero gravity in space travel, so there wasn't artificial gravity, and we still don't have that today. But they overcame movement around spaceships by having magnetic boots, yes, which seems so very logical, and you can turn them on and off as you needed to electromagnets in the bottoms of the shoes, so you walked around on metal decks, and that's how they solved the problem of no gravity in space. It was a remarkable series and very very cleverly done, and it sort of showed human nature to a certain degree because we all hated each other and wanted to kill each other because we had different beliefs and different needs. And the people in the outer reaches, the Belters, felt that they were slaves to Earth and Mars and they hated us all and it was really cleverly done. But that's the point we're making with this story, is that these science fiction stories come so very close to being real, to the point where they can inspire future scientists, and they can inspire future invention. Who knows what the next big idea will be that will become a reality as a result of science fiction, And who knows who the next big scientists will be because they are fans of science fiction. It is a really great and refreshing story. So I'm glad somebody did some work on. Looking at that link, it's brilliant. Have we covered it enough? Very excited, I've got very excited. I can tell you it's a great story. And if you would like to read up on that one, I think that's in Universe Today as well. Universe today dot com. Yeah, the new study examining the links between science fiction and astronomy. So check it out. It is a great read. And don't forget to check out our website too if you've got a few moments, Space Nuts podcast dot com, Space Nuts dot io. If you follow us on social media, don't forget the like us or follow us or add us to your favorites list, especially if you're on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. Fred, we are done and dusted for another day. Thank you sir. It's a pleasure. What a great set of stories with us today. It's all good fun. Yeah they were fun. Yep, so we were a lot of fun. Let's do it again sometime. All right, let's we'll talk to you soon. Thanks Fred, No worries, and thanks to here in the studio pushing all the buttons, pulling all the levers, and flushing all the toilets. Thank you. Hugh and from me Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company, looking forward to joining you again on the very next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye. Thanks. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at bytes dot com. This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.