The latest in space science: We look back at the Big Bang
0 / 102
English
中文
In this edition of Spacing Out, the team from Short Wave shares the latest developments in space science, including the theory on why the universe is made of matter Here with another edition of Spacing Out...
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: Spacing Out, Spacing Out, Spacing Out. ...With our friends at Short Wave, Regina Barber and Ari Daniel. Hello.
（暂无翻译）
Did you like my space echo?
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: What space news are we talking about today? BARBER: OK, first up, we're shining a light on a long ignored particle for the theory of why the universe is made of matter.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: And then, Scott, we'll get into efforts by Ukrainian scientists to restore a telescope damaged by the war.
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: So let's get into it.
（暂无翻译）
You have set me up with a high bar of...
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: ...Making relatable conversation about particle physics. BARBER: I tried so hard.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
It's hard for me, too.
（暂无翻译）
I'm a physicist, but, like, particle physics has always been hard. The particle at the heart of this story is a hypothetical particle, one that might have affected all of matter in the universe at the very beginning of existence. It's a kind of neutrino. DETROW: Let's just say, theoretically, I don't remember what a neutrino is. DANIEL: Well, theoretically, I have an answer.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Neutrinos are extremely small, mysterious particles that don't really interact with anything.
（暂无翻译）
So they're incredibly difficult to catch and study. But we do know that they come in three flavors, and there are roughly 100 trillion of them passing through each of us every second. DETROW: What do they have to do with the early universe? BARBER: So when the universe was created over 13 billion years ago, matter and matters opposite, called antimatter, were thought to exist in equal amounts.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
But when matter and antimatter interact, they annihilate each other.
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: So how do we get to the place where we are now, where you and I and the microphone and everything else are made of matter? DANIEL: We don't have time to get into this in too much depth, but what you need to know is that there's this idea that at the start of the universe, neutrinos could have been created in three pairs, and each one of those pairs has a heavy right-handed neutrino and a lighter left-handed neutrino.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
BARBER: Yeah, so some models account for matter overtaking antimatter by assuming that these, like, heavy right-handed neutrinos, they decayed over time, and they decayed into matter more than they decayed into antimatter.
（暂无翻译）
And this created this imbalance in the early universe.
（暂无翻译）
So they don't exist anymore. There are no right-handed neutrinos. But in this framework, historically, physicists have treated one of those right-handed neutrinos, those heavy ones, as irrelevant. RISHAV ROSHAN: Generally, in the literature, this effect of third right-handed neutrono is ignored. But we found it to be very fascinating, and it was affecting so many things.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
BARBER: So that's Rishav Roshan, a theoretical particle physicist at the University of Southampton in the U.K. He coauthored a recent study that suggested finally taking into account this last heavy right-handed neutrino would affect things.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
He and his co-author, Sudipta Show, at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, found that taking this into account makes the universe evolve slightly differently, suggesting that matter could have dominated the universe sooner than previously thought. DETROW: I'm just like, there's a lot of big picture stuff to process, which is why I like talking about space... DETROW: ...'Cause just, like, the scale of the conversation is mind-blowing.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
DETROW: And you have to move forward sometime.
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: So I'm going to try to do that.
（暂无翻译）
I've asked variations of this question before, but this is a hypothetical particle?
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: How do you do real world tests then? DANIEL: Yeah, so we talked to Bryan Ramson, who's an experimental neutrino physicist at Fermilab, about this exact question.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
He didn't work on the paper, but he said you basically can't study it directly at all.
（暂无翻译）
BRYAN RAMSON: Direct observation is so heavy that I do not know how you would produce it with the current technology. I don't even know how you would produce it with future technology.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
BARBER: OK, hope is not lost, though. So Rishav thinks signatures of this heavy right-handed neutrino could be found indirectly one day by studying other cosmic phenomena, in one case, using a space observatory that will be going up soon, like in 2035.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
DETROW: Interesting. I will bookmark to talk about that space observatory...
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
DETROW: In the meantime, let's talk about an observatory here on Earth, this radio telescope in Ukraine. DANIEL: Yes, so it's called the Ukrainian T-shaped Radio Telescope, model 2 DANIEL: That's right.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
And it's at the Institute of Radio Astronomy of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, where Viacheslav Zakharenko is the director.
（暂无翻译）
VIACHESLAV ZAKHARENKO: It's the largest decameter radio telescope in the world.
（暂无翻译）
DANIEL: Yes, the decameter, which is 10 meters or about 33 feet. And that means that this telescope is capable of observing low frequency radio waves, the lowest of any large telescope.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
When it was built in the 1970s, it was the biggest of its kind.
（暂无翻译）
BARBER: So astronomers use UTR-2 to study the bursts of radio waves that are emitted by certain planets like Jupiter and other celestial bodies. DANIEL: The telescope was also able to detect lightning on Saturn. And when they pair it with radio telescopes elsewhere in Ukraine, they get an array the size of the country that can make higher resolution observations.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
DETROW: I mean, that sounds so powerful.
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: But it seems, like so many other things in Ukraine, it's been damaged during the war? DANIEL: Yes, heavily, Scott.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
The telescope is part of an observatory near the Russian border that's made up of a bunch of buildings.
（暂无翻译）
Viacheslav says that Russian forces occupied the area for more than six months at the start of the war in early 2022.
（暂无翻译）
ZAKHARENKO: And practically all these buildings was seriously damaged, two fully destroyed. All computer were stolen. BARBER: The radio antennas were largely untouched, fortunately, but there are these three underground tunnels, each one roughly half a mile long, and the northern one...
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
ZAKHARENKO: Our enemy use this tunnel for training. BARBER: It's become a shooting gallery, says Viacheslav.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
DANIEL: Plus, Viacheslav says there are still active mines.
（暂无翻译）
So even after the Russian forces left in the fall of 2022, it hasn't been safe for the researchers to return to work there.
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: I mean, that's a complicated challenge.
（暂无翻译）
What have Viacheslav and his colleagues been doing in the meantime? DANIEL: They've been plotting a massive upgrade of the telescope, actually, using what's happened as an opportunity to modernize the entire system.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
ZAKHARENKO: We not need wait for end of war. We start now.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
BARBER: So they can't do any of the installation until there's a ceasefire or some other type of agreement, but they can spec things out and build and test the components they need.
（暂无翻译）
It helps that the antennas are still in pretty good shape. DETROW: What is the goal of this upgrade?
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
What will it achieve? DANIEL: Well, the researchers want to expand the radio wavelengths they're able to observe, which would allow them to, among other things, try to look for gas from the early universe.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
The updated telescope will also be able to a peer at different parts of the sky simultaneously. Plus, all of the equipment will be better shielded from the elements.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
BARBER: Yeah, we spoke with Michel Tagger, who's a theorist astronomer, and he works at the French radio telescope called NenuFAR. He says that the Ukrainian telescope is important for the international astronomy community, too. MICHEL TAGGER: Well, I hope they can rebuild the projects we had with them.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
And that means having an instrument they can have their hands on. And we hope to see it running again.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
DANIEL: Viacheslav says that despite everything he and his colleagues have endured these last several years, he believes this upgrade is possible. ZAKHARENKO: Look, I am an optimist. We need to build new telescope and install as end of this story.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
DETROW: I love that resolution and optimism.
（暂无翻译）
DETROW: Thank you so much to both of you. That is Ari Daniel and Regina Barber of NPR's science podcast Short Wave.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Thank you for another successful and enlightening Spacing Out.
（暂无翻译）
BARBER: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for making this with me. (SOUNDBITE OF TOMMY GUERRERO'S "BY THE SEA AT THE END OF THE WORLD") Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio.
（暂无翻译）
Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
仅供学习使用，如有侵权请联系删除 · 查看原文