Interstellar Inquiries: Hot Jupiters, Rocket Fuel Solutions & Debunking the Artemis Conspiracy |...
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Q&A: Ultra Hot Jupiters and Rocket Fuel Recycling In this engaging Q&A episode of Space Nuts , hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner tackle a variety of intriguing questions from listeners. From the nature of ultra hot Jupiters to the complexities of reusing spent rocket fuel, this episode is packed with insights and cosmic curiosities.
Episode Highlights:
- Ultra Hot Jupiters Explained: David from the Sunshine Coast asks about the origins of the materials that form stars and their planets, leading to a fascinating discussion about the lifecycle of stars and the cosmic recycling of elements.
- Rocket Fuel Reuse: Mark from the UK presents a thought-provoking idea regarding the potential for reusing water ice as rocket fuel, prompting a deep dive into the challenges of capturing exhaust and the physics of propulsion.
- Flat Earth Conspiracies: Paul shares his experiences with flat Earth discussions and questions the feasibility of the Artemis mission, allowing Jonty to clarify orbital mechanics and the importance of relative motion in space travel.
- Astrophysical Insights: The hosts explore the implications of past star generations on our solar system's composition and the future of space travel technologies, including the potential for innovative propulsion methods beyond traditional rockets.
For more Space Nuts, including our continuously updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. (https://www.spacenutspodcast.com/) Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, Instagram, and more. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favourite platform.
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Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
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- Origins of Stellar Material
- Challenges in Rocket Fuel Reuse
- Addressing Flat Earth Theories
- Future of Space Propulsion Technologies
- Cosmic Recycling of Elements
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/33672985?utm_source=youtube
Kind: captions
Language: en
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Hello again. Thank you for joining us on
00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:04.230
another episode of Space Nuts. This is a
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Q&A edition where we take audience
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questions, we write them on a piece of
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paper, and then we throw it in the bin.
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Or we could answer them. We'll do the
00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:15.669
we'll do the latter. Uh we got questions
00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:18.950
about ultra hot Jupiters. We've also got
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questions about reusing spent rocket
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fuel. How would you do that? That is the
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question. And wow, how about this one?
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uh some conspiracy with the Arteimus 2
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mission being fake. We'll deal with all
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of that on this episode of Space Nuts.
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>> 15 seconds. Guidance is internal. 10 9
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Ignition sequence start.
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>> Space nuts.
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>> 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1
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>> Space Nuts.
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>> Astronauts report. It feels good.
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And joining us to try and sort all that
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out is Jonty Horner, professor of
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astrophysics at the University of
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Southern Queensland. Jonty, hello.
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>> Good afternoon. How are you going?
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>> I'm all right. Um, please forgive me if
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there's some background noise. There's a
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gardener working uh just out the front
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and uh he's doing a fabulous job, but
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he's using that kind of equipment that
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you would um you know demolish a
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building with. So,
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uh, it's, um, it's making quite a noise,
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but, um, I've got my filter turned on,
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so hopefully it'll just keep it blocked
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out.
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>> All these things work. I use this
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microphone in front of me for my
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teaching. I've had a number of occasions
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where the dog has decided that I'm
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paying too much attention to my students
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and not enough to her. It's got quite
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vocal about that, lying just behind me
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here next to her fire at the minute,
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keeping her really happy. And they say,
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"No, we can't hear anything." It's
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amazing how well it can filter out the
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background noise.
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>> Yes. the the technology is amazing
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today. It's like the telescope uh
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technology that exists now where you can
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filter out light pollution. I don't know
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how that works, but uh it it's quite
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incredible these days. Works really
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well. I want to answer some questions,
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>> of course.
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>> All right, let's start with David who's
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on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland,
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Australia.
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>> Good day, David from the Sunny Coast
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again. I just had a question regarding
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the uh ultra hot Jupiter article from
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the latest uh podcast. Um in the
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conversation uh Fred mentioned that uh
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the belief is that stars and their
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surrounding planets all form from the
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same uh disc of material. Um I just had
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a question regarding that material. Um
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you know we tend to think of stars as
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helium or hydrogen or both. Um and
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everything else is metals and we believe
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those metals formed within stars uh due
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to the the fusion burning. Um where then
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does this material come from in the disc
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to form a star and its planets? Is that
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from material from do we believe it's
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material from another star or um is
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there some other process going on?
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Thanks very much for the show. Awesome.
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See you guys.
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>> See you David. Thank you very much. Uh,
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that sounds like it's right up your
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alley. It is. It's a good fun one to
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start off with. So,
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you're right. The material that forms a
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star and its planets has been
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contributed to by many previous stars.
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If you imagine after the Big Bang, the
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universe was hydrogen and helium and a
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tiny little bit of other stuff, but it
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really was barely any, which meant that
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a generation of stars formed that were
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pretty much just hydrogen and helium and
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very little else. those stars in the
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early universe. There's some speculation
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that they may have been including mega
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mega stars much bigger than something
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called the Edington limit, which is a
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maximum size that a stable star can
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form. Um, because of how dense the
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universe was at the time, how much
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material there was. So, the speculation
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of stars up to several thousand solar
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mass. Those stars lived fast, died
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young, put material back out into the
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cosmos. So they when they died they
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locked some of the stuff up in the
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remnants to the left whether that's a
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black hole a neutron star a white dwarf
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whatever but the material that was flung
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outwards to form planetary nebula
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supernova remnants disperses into the
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wider galaxy. So what's happening over
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the eons of time since the Milky Way
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formed is that stars are born live and
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die. And when they die they pollute the
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cosmos. stars of different masses throw
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out different things. But what that
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means is that you gradually get more and
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more heavy elements introduced into the
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galaxy
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and that goes to basically contributing
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to the composition of the gas and dust
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that floats around in our galaxy. If you
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go out particularly this time of year in
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the southern hemisphere,
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but if you go out on any night of the
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year where you can see the Milky Way,
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you'll see that in the band of the Milky
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Way there are dark patches as well as
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glowing pits. The dark patches are not
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places where there is a lack of stars,
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but rather they're places where you've
00:05:04.080 --> 00:05:06.629
got huge clouds of gas and dust that are
00:05:06.639 --> 00:05:08.469
opaque that are blocking the light from
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stars that are more distant from
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reaching us. So they look dark in the
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same way that a cloud blocking the sun
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will look dark in the daytime. It's
00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:18.710
blocking the light from beyond.
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>> These clouds can be vast and they're
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made of gas and dust and ice, mainly
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hydrogen and helium, but lots of other
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stuff. And that other stuff will vary
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from one cloud to the next to some
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degree based on what it has been
00:05:32.479 --> 00:05:34.629
polluted with. You'll have some degree
00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:36.150
of stirring a pollution of the galaxy
00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:37.749
that gives you a background increase in
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the amount of metals. But you'll also
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get local variation.
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We see all of this incidentally in the
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Earth and the solar system. There are
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suggestions that the solar system when
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it was young, when it was forming, was
00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:52.070
polluted by a nearby supernova that
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injected a load of very short-lived
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radioactive aluminium isotopes that
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accelerated the degree of melting you
00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:00.469
got in the rocky objects. There's a
00:06:00.479 --> 00:06:03.590
signature there of a radioisotope that
00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:05.189
is so shortlived there shouldn't really
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have been any of it around unless a
00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:08.950
supernova exploded nearby to pollute our
00:06:08.960 --> 00:06:10.870
disc, giving us a slightly unusual
00:06:10.880 --> 00:06:12.950
composition. There is also an argument
00:06:12.960 --> 00:06:16.309
that the earth is richer in gold than it
00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:19.670
should be because sometime between 10
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and 100 million years before the
00:06:21.440 --> 00:06:23.430
formation of the earth 10,000 light
00:06:23.440 --> 00:06:25.830
years from where we formed two neutron
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stars collided polluting the universe
00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:30.230
with gold and some of that gold made its
00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:31.749
way into the disc that formed the solar
00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:33.510
system got incorporated into the earth
00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:35.350
and that's why we are a particularly
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good place for goldfinger to have his
00:06:37.440 --> 00:06:39.270
little layer. We've got more gold than
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normal.
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>> Yeah. What this all means is that those
00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:44.390
giant clouds of gas and dust in space
00:06:44.400 --> 00:06:46.950
can be truly vast. When they get nudged
00:06:46.960 --> 00:06:48.629
and start to collapse, they'll fragment
00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:51.510
in their interiors to form a cluster of
00:06:51.520 --> 00:06:53.909
stars. A number of stars which form from
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the little denser bits. It's like
00:06:55.120 --> 00:06:57.029
driving through a fog bank. Fog banks
00:06:57.039 --> 00:06:58.710
are never one uniform density. There's
00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:01.510
denser patches and less dense patches.
00:07:01.520 --> 00:07:03.029
A denser patch in one of these clouds
00:07:03.039 --> 00:07:05.029
will collapse under its own gravity. And
00:07:05.039 --> 00:07:07.189
so you'll get lots of stars forming. As
00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:08.950
that material collapses in, it collapses
00:07:08.960 --> 00:07:10.629
down to form a disc around that young
00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:13.430
proto star that's forming. And the star
00:07:13.440 --> 00:07:15.430
and the disc are made of the same
00:07:15.440 --> 00:07:17.029
material. They're forming from the same
00:07:17.039 --> 00:07:19.749
material. All that material that was in
00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:21.270
the cloud from which they formed, which
00:07:21.280 --> 00:07:23.110
has been polluted over many generations
00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:25.909
of stars, cooking the books to give the
00:07:25.919 --> 00:07:28.309
composition that is uniform across that
00:07:28.319 --> 00:07:30.950
star system. What happens then is that
00:07:30.960 --> 00:07:33.110
the star forms from everything. So it
00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:36.070
ends up very rich in hydrogen and helium
00:07:36.080 --> 00:07:37.430
because even after all that pollution
00:07:37.440 --> 00:07:39.510
and all that evolution, hydrogen and
00:07:39.520 --> 00:07:41.270
helium still make up something like
00:07:41.280 --> 00:07:43.909
between 98 and 99% of all atoms in the
00:07:43.919 --> 00:07:46.070
universe. So the star is going to be
00:07:46.080 --> 00:07:48.070
primarily hydrogen and helium with a
00:07:48.080 --> 00:07:50.629
thin veneer of everything else. In other
00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:52.230
words, the abundance of material in the
00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:54.869
star is going to be very nearly
00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:57.670
identical to the disc. Star will end up
00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:00.309
being very very very slightly enriched
00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:03.510
in the heavier elements because from the
00:08:03.520 --> 00:08:05.029
disc particularly when the disc is
00:08:05.039 --> 00:08:07.110
cleared there will be some infall of
00:08:07.120 --> 00:08:09.430
rocky and icy objects like the crotzing
00:08:09.440 --> 00:08:11.589
comets we see that fall into the star
00:08:11.599 --> 00:08:13.350
and pollute it further but that's a very
00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:15.430
very small effect compared to the
00:08:15.440 --> 00:08:17.909
overall mass of the star. The planets
00:08:17.919 --> 00:08:21.670
that form in the disc in the main form
00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:23.189
through a process we call core
00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:24.550
accretion. There are some suggestions
00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:26.629
that some of the most massive stars can
00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:28.869
form through a process of instability.
00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:31.589
And those planets and binary stars would
00:08:31.599 --> 00:08:34.230
form with a more stellar composition. I
00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:36.230
lots of hydrogen and helium. But most
00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.110
planets will form by initially growing a
00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:41.909
core of solid material because when you
00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:44.949
have a low mass, you can't capture gas.
00:08:44.959 --> 00:08:47.190
And so therefore, your composition will
00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:49.190
be dominated by the solid material, not
00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:51.269
the gases. So that's why the Earth
00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:53.430
doesn't have free hydrogen and helium.
00:08:53.440 --> 00:08:55.110
We simply don't have enough mass to
00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:57.509
capture those gases and hold on to them.
00:08:57.519 --> 00:08:59.750
So even though 99% of all atoms in the
00:08:59.760 --> 00:09:01.670
protolanetary disc were hydrogen and
00:09:01.680 --> 00:09:03.750
helium, we didn't get any of them other
00:09:03.760 --> 00:09:05.509
than the odd tiny little atom that was
00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:09.030
captured in a cage of other compounds
00:09:09.040 --> 00:09:11.670
called a clatherate that was captured in
00:09:11.680 --> 00:09:14.470
a mineral effectively. So we barely got
00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:16.070
any of those materials cuz we couldn't
00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:17.430
hold on to them. We formed out of the
00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:19.829
solid stuff. The further you are from
00:09:19.839 --> 00:09:21.750
the star, the colder it is. So the more
00:09:21.760 --> 00:09:23.190
different things can be solid rather
00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:24.710
than gas, which is where we get the idea
00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:26.630
of the ice line. If you're far enough
00:09:26.640 --> 00:09:29.670
from the star, water can be solid, can
00:09:29.680 --> 00:09:31.430
be ice. And then suddenly you've got a
00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:33.750
lot more solid material because water is
00:09:33.760 --> 00:09:35.590
about the most common compound there is
00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:37.350
almost. It's the most common atom
00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:39.030
hydrogen and the third most common atom
00:09:39.040 --> 00:09:40.389
oxygen. And you put them together and
00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:42.790
you've got water. So beyond the Iceland,
00:09:42.800 --> 00:09:44.150
you've got a lot more solid and you can
00:09:44.160 --> 00:09:46.870
form planets much quicker, which is why
00:09:46.880 --> 00:09:48.710
we think Jupiter and Saturn got so big
00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:50.710
so quickly. They had a lot to feed on
00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:52.550
and eventually they got massive enough
00:09:52.560 --> 00:09:54.070
that their gravity was strong enough to
00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:55.509
hold on to the hydrogen and helium
00:09:55.519 --> 00:09:59.590
around them and devour it. So they are
00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:01.670
in composition much more similar to the
00:10:01.680 --> 00:10:03.190
sun than the earth is because they have
00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:05.430
all that hydrogen and helium. But they
00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:07.990
are still richer in solid material than
00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:11.350
the sun because at their core there was
00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:13.190
all the solid material needed to build
00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:14.790
up before they could gather the hydrogen
00:10:14.800 --> 00:10:17.110
and helium. So they started with more
00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:19.269
solids effectively.
00:10:19.279 --> 00:10:20.870
The earth doesn't really have the
00:10:20.880 --> 00:10:22.550
hydrogen and helium. So all of the
00:10:22.560 --> 00:10:24.870
objects in our solar system will have
00:10:24.880 --> 00:10:27.590
the same composition as the sun in terms
00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:29.430
of the balance between carbon and
00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:32.069
nitrogen and iron and all these elements
00:10:32.079 --> 00:10:33.990
except for where they weren't able to
00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.069
capture those elements because they
00:10:36.079 --> 00:10:37.910
weren't massive enough. So the earth
00:10:37.920 --> 00:10:39.269
doesn't have the same compensation as
00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:41.590
the sun in terms of hydrogen and helium
00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:44.470
but it does in terms of iron, nickel,
00:10:44.480 --> 00:10:46.230
all those things. The balance between
00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:47.910
iron and nickel and carbon and all the
00:10:47.920 --> 00:10:50.150
rest of it are all in the same ratios as
00:10:50.160 --> 00:10:52.470
the sun. to an incredibly high
00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:54.550
precision. And that's because we all
00:10:54.560 --> 00:10:56.790
formed from the same material that quite
00:10:56.800 --> 00:10:58.230
rightly was mentioned in the question
00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:00.230
was delivered by past generation of
00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:01.590
stars that had lived and died. And
00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:02.870
that's where the whole concept that we
00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:04.949
are stardust comes from. It's the idea
00:11:04.959 --> 00:11:06.710
that all the atoms that we need to make
00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:09.350
us us other than the hydrogen atoms were
00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:11.110
cooked in the furnaces of stars long
00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:13.190
dead. All the carbon, the nitrogen, the
00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:15.350
oxygen, the phosphorus, all those
00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:16.630
wonderful things, calcium that
00:11:16.640 --> 00:11:18.550
contributes to our bones are all
00:11:18.560 --> 00:11:20.150
stardust from stars that died long
00:11:20.160 --> 00:11:23.110
before the solar system formed.
00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:26.470
There you are, David. Um, a very uh good
00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:29.110
answer that um pretty well nails it. Uh
00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:31.030
I I like the bit about there being more
00:11:31.040 --> 00:11:32.790
gold on Earth than there probably would
00:11:32.800 --> 00:11:34.790
be in other places. So, uh that's that
00:11:34.800 --> 00:11:36.069
was a lucky break for us.
00:11:36.079 --> 00:11:37.910
>> Absolutely.
00:11:37.920 --> 00:11:39.269
and so useful for a lot of the
00:11:39.279 --> 00:11:40.550
technology we use. Not just for those
00:11:40.560 --> 00:11:43.190
who like sparkly bangly things, but you
00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:45.590
know, there's a lot of those rarer type
00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:46.949
things that
00:11:46.959 --> 00:11:48.790
>> are so vital to our technological growth
00:11:48.800 --> 00:11:50.870
that are all linked to our ancient
00:11:50.880 --> 00:11:52.310
heritage.
00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:55.509
>> Yeah. Yeah. Um well, there's gold,
00:11:55.519 --> 00:11:58.310
there's lithium, there's there's just so
00:11:58.320 --> 00:11:59.590
many of them. But we've got a lithium
00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:00.870
mine just down the road from us,
00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:01.190
actually.
00:12:01.200 --> 00:12:03.990
>> And that is probably all primordial. The
00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:05.430
lithium in the universe is almost
00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:07.829
certainly almost all leftovers from the
00:12:07.839 --> 00:12:09.509
big bang.
00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:12.550
>> Wow, that's interesting. There you go,
00:12:12.560 --> 00:12:14.150
David. Thanks for the question. Lovely
00:12:14.160 --> 00:12:15.910
to hear from you. Hope all is well on
00:12:15.920 --> 00:12:18.470
the Sunshine Coast. This is Space Nuts
00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:22.230
with Andrew Dunley and Jonty, a Q&A
00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:24.629
edition.
00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:26.389
Let's take a short break from the show
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>> Roger. Also,
00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:16.949
>> Space Nuts. And we're with Professor
00:14:16.959 --> 00:14:19.990
Jonty her today with Freda Away. Uh
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:22.710
let's go to our next question. Jonty,
00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:25.030
this one comes from Mark.
00:14:25.040 --> 00:14:27.910
>> Hi, it's Mark from Sunny SH in the UK.
00:14:27.920 --> 00:14:29.430
I've eventually plucked up the courage
00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:31.670
to send in an audio question. So here
00:14:31.680 --> 00:14:34.470
goes. You quite often mention water ice
00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:36.389
and the possibility of turning this into
00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:38.550
rocket fuel. So my what do you think
00:14:38.560 --> 00:14:40.710
sort of question is when you use
00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:43.110
hydrogen and oxygen as a rocket fuel it
00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:45.430
must turn back into water ice in space.
00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:47.189
So do you think it would be possible to
00:14:47.199 --> 00:14:49.110
collect it and reuse it through the
00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:51.350
rocket engine again massively reducing
00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:53.189
the amount of fuel you would need to
00:14:53.199 --> 00:14:55.189
carry for an extended journey to say to
00:14:55.199 --> 00:14:58.310
Mars. I've sort of drawn up an idea but
00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:00.230
what do you think once again? Keep up
00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:03.110
the great work from the UK.
00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:04.710
>> Thank you Mark. It's an interesting
00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:08.710
idea. Uh my first thought when I first
00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:11.509
heard the question was um how how would
00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:14.389
how would you collect it? That that
00:15:14.399 --> 00:15:16.230
might be the first challenge. That would
00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:17.350
be a bit of the challenge. I mean the
00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:18.790
thing is your exhaust is being pushed
00:15:18.800 --> 00:15:20.629
out of the back of the rocket at very
00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:23.509
high speed in a very dispersed form. Now
00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:25.030
the rocket's going forward because
00:15:25.040 --> 00:15:26.550
you're throwing the things out the back.
00:15:26.560 --> 00:15:28.310
You've got the momentum being
00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:30.870
transferred. And it's equivalent, I
00:15:30.880 --> 00:15:33.110
guess, to you, the way I'd visualize
00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:35.350
this is imagining again sitting on an
00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:37.509
ice rink on a wheelie chair. So you've
00:15:37.519 --> 00:15:39.430
got no friction whatsoever, really
00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:41.750
slippy, and you're holding, normally I'd
00:15:41.760 --> 00:15:43.269
just say one medicine ball, but instead
00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:44.710
imagine that you're holding a big bag of
00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:47.509
short puts. You throw a short put away
00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:49.110
from you, and you'll recall in the other
00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:50.470
direction. You throw another shot put,
00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:51.829
and you'll speed up, and you'll move in
00:15:51.839 --> 00:15:53.189
the opposite direction to the direction
00:15:53.199 --> 00:15:55.990
your short puts are going. So that's how
00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:57.350
you'll work. And that's essentially what
00:15:57.360 --> 00:15:58.790
you're doing with a rocket. you're
00:15:58.800 --> 00:16:00.470
pushing material out of the back and
00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:02.550
you're moving the opposite way because
00:16:02.560 --> 00:16:04.230
overall the momentum is conserved
00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:05.829
between the stuff going one way and you
00:16:05.839 --> 00:16:08.710
going the other. The problem with the
00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:11.189
rocket itself capturing its own exhaust,
00:16:11.199 --> 00:16:13.910
pumping it back in and reusing it is
00:16:13.920 --> 00:16:15.670
then you're taking that momentum and
00:16:15.680 --> 00:16:16.790
bringing it back to you, which means
00:16:16.800 --> 00:16:18.069
you're getting pulled back towards it
00:16:18.079 --> 00:16:20.790
and you'll end up having gone nowhere
00:16:20.800 --> 00:16:22.550
to some degree. So imagine now that
00:16:22.560 --> 00:16:25.509
situation with the short puts on the ice
00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:27.829
shrink, but instead you've got a really
00:16:27.839 --> 00:16:29.670
efficient bungee code so that when you
00:16:29.680 --> 00:16:30.949
throw them away, they bounce back and
00:16:30.959 --> 00:16:32.949
you catch them again. What'll happen is
00:16:32.959 --> 00:16:34.470
as they're moving away from you, you'll
00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:35.990
wheel away from them and then as they
00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:37.269
get pulled back towards you, you get
00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:38.389
pulled back towards them and you end up
00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:40.870
where you started from
00:16:40.880 --> 00:16:42.550
a little bit of change due to friction
00:16:42.560 --> 00:16:44.870
and loss of energy and stuff like that.
00:16:44.880 --> 00:16:46.870
So the problem I'd have with this
00:16:46.880 --> 00:16:48.790
suggestion is not actually the idea of
00:16:48.800 --> 00:16:51.910
capturing and reusing the fuel. Um, I
00:16:51.920 --> 00:16:53.350
think that will be hard because the fuel
00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:55.030
will get so dispersed. So, water will be
00:16:55.040 --> 00:16:56.310
scattered out there and it's just easier
00:16:56.320 --> 00:16:57.829
to go get a big lump of ice from
00:16:57.839 --> 00:16:59.509
somewhere than to try and pick up
00:16:59.519 --> 00:17:01.189
individual water molecules or small
00:17:01.199 --> 00:17:03.350
grains of ice, disperse over a large
00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:05.669
area. But the idea of being able to
00:17:05.679 --> 00:17:07.270
capture it from the same rocket and
00:17:07.280 --> 00:17:09.029
reuse it would get you into this problem
00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:10.710
of having to pull back material that
00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:12.630
you've pushed away, which means you'll
00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:14.230
be pulling yourself back to where you
00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:16.549
started from. So, you can't get away, I
00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:19.270
think, from that momentum issue there.
00:17:19.280 --> 00:17:21.110
So I think it's two different things. I
00:17:21.120 --> 00:17:23.750
think if you had the ability to instead
00:17:23.760 --> 00:17:25.669
of using hydrogen and oxygen as a fuel
00:17:25.679 --> 00:17:28.230
and burning them to be water, you could
00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:31.029
instead have a rocket fired powered by
00:17:31.039 --> 00:17:33.830
firing pellets of water out of the back.
00:17:33.840 --> 00:17:35.510
You could fire them at a target that
00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:38.310
captures them, collect them, and reuse
00:17:38.320 --> 00:17:39.750
those pellets for something else. But
00:17:39.760 --> 00:17:41.350
that target would get pushed around by
00:17:41.360 --> 00:17:43.510
the arriving water pellets. So you'd
00:17:43.520 --> 00:17:44.789
want to be clever with that, and you'd
00:17:44.799 --> 00:17:46.390
need to continually change its orbit and
00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:47.510
stuff.
00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:49.350
So, in theory, potentially you could
00:17:49.360 --> 00:17:50.950
gather the fuel for use on another
00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:53.430
rocket without it being the rocket
00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:55.669
you're flying that gathers that fuel.
00:17:55.679 --> 00:17:57.190
But in reality, you're dispersing it
00:17:57.200 --> 00:17:58.630
over such a large area that
00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:01.029
unfortunately it wouldn't be that
00:18:01.039 --> 00:18:02.470
practical anyway. Especially when we've
00:18:02.480 --> 00:18:04.470
got just huge lumps of ice floating
00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:05.669
around anyway. I mean, you and I have
00:18:05.679 --> 00:18:07.750
both been photographing a beautiful lump
00:18:07.760 --> 00:18:09.750
of ice flying through the solar system.
00:18:09.760 --> 00:18:11.909
There we go in the background.
00:18:11.919 --> 00:18:14.230
That's enough fuel for missions forever
00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:16.150
more if we were to go and mine there.
00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:17.830
And that's a lot more efficient to mine
00:18:17.840 --> 00:18:21.990
one big comet or asteroid for water ice
00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:24.230
or mine the moon for water ice than try
00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:25.830
and catch it when it's dispersed. I
00:18:25.840 --> 00:18:28.549
think so it's a really good idea.
00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:29.990
>> It's really good thinking but it's
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:31.029
something that wouldn't work. I think
00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:33.350
that's the way I'd view it.
00:18:33.360 --> 00:18:35.669
>> It it'd be very complicated and as you
00:18:35.679 --> 00:18:37.830
said um trying to capture it in the ship
00:18:37.840 --> 00:18:40.150
you're actually propelling would be
00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:41.830
counterproductive.
00:18:41.840 --> 00:18:44.549
>> Yes. using another spaceship to capture
00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:47.830
the ice after it's been expelled
00:18:47.840 --> 00:18:49.270
uh would be difficult because it would
00:18:49.280 --> 00:18:51.190
spread out too far, but then you're
00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:55.029
using the same technology to chase the
00:18:55.039 --> 00:18:57.830
ice that's been spent already and
00:18:57.840 --> 00:18:59.750
spending more to get the ice back. So,
00:18:59.760 --> 00:19:02.150
it yeah, it's a catch 22. It's just
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.150
going to keep going around and around.
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:07.350
So, um yeah, it makes it a little bit
00:19:07.360 --> 00:19:09.669
difficult. Uh Mark, but uh thanks for
00:19:09.679 --> 00:19:12.390
your question. Um, that was a fun one
00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:15.990
actually. But, uh, yeah. Um, yeah, I
00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:17.590
like the way people think, but I
00:19:17.600 --> 00:19:19.909
suppose, um, just to expand on it a bit,
00:19:19.919 --> 00:19:22.950
um, there's going to come a time where
00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:24.789
using those kinds of fuels probably
00:19:24.799 --> 00:19:26.549
won't be necessary. They're developing
00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:28.710
all sorts of different kinds of engine
00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:31.830
technology. Uh, everything from solar
00:19:31.840 --> 00:19:35.990
sails to scramjets and and they don't
00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:37.270
use that kind of fuel.
00:19:37.280 --> 00:19:38.549
>> There's all sorts of things you could
00:19:38.559 --> 00:19:40.950
do. I mean again going back to the Bobby
00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:42.710
verse which I mentioned before the van
00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:45.110
probes going through they used kind of
00:19:45.120 --> 00:19:47.270
um ram scoops essentially initially in
00:19:47.280 --> 00:19:49.430
the book set they then move on to other
00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:51.830
kind of speculative sci-fi things but
00:19:51.840 --> 00:19:53.590
initially the idea of having a fusion
00:19:53.600 --> 00:19:55.750
drive where you scoop up hydrogen atoms
00:19:55.760 --> 00:19:57.190
and turn them into helium and push them
00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:00.070
out the back where in front of you you
00:20:00.080 --> 00:20:01.669
deploy a big thing that gathers the
00:20:01.679 --> 00:20:03.110
hydrogen you're moving through. This is
00:20:03.120 --> 00:20:04.870
also what they did in Tal Zero by Paul
00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:06.710
Anderson is, you know, you're moving
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:08.230
really quickly. You gather hydrogen from
00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:10.070
in front of you and compress it like a
00:20:10.080 --> 00:20:12.150
ramjet effectively.
00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:13.430
There's all these kind of things, but
00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:15.990
they will all unless we get to truly
00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:18.310
sci-fi type things like warp drive or
00:20:18.320 --> 00:20:20.950
air drives or or whatever, which require
00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:22.390
physics to be somewhat different than
00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:25.110
how we currently understand it, you
00:20:25.120 --> 00:20:27.510
still have either a source of
00:20:27.520 --> 00:20:30.310
propellant, which you then get rid of
00:20:30.320 --> 00:20:32.870
out the back one way or the other, or
00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:34.950
with solar sails, you're using the
00:20:34.960 --> 00:20:38.230
stellar wind, and that pushes you away.
00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:40.870
Um, people who are sailors can probably
00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:42.390
tell you a lot more about the complexity
00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:43.990
of how you can tack into the wind and
00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:45.590
move across the wind. But the wind, the
00:20:45.600 --> 00:20:48.230
solar wind is incredibly tenuous
00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:49.510
compared to the wind in the Earth's
00:20:49.520 --> 00:20:50.950
atmosphere. So, you need a very, very
00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:53.190
big sail. And I think that will be
00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:56.070
somewhat limiting if you wanting to do,
00:20:56.080 --> 00:20:57.990
I guess, Star Wars style dog fight
00:20:58.000 --> 00:20:59.190
maneuvers. You wouldn't do that with a
00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:01.430
solar sail. So, people will pick the
00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:02.870
right technology for the kind of mission
00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:05.110
that they want. And that was where the
00:21:05.120 --> 00:21:07.430
Dawn mission which went to series and
00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:09.110
Juno in the asteroid belt was really
00:21:09.120 --> 00:21:11.909
interesting. So it used an ion drive
00:21:11.919 --> 00:21:14.630
where it was using I think ionized xenon
00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:17.590
and that kind of drive achieves a much
00:21:17.600 --> 00:21:19.830
much lower thrust but can operate for
00:21:19.840 --> 00:21:21.590
much much longer time. So it's very
00:21:21.600 --> 00:21:24.310
energy efficient. Um but it wouldn't be
00:21:24.320 --> 00:21:25.669
any good for getting off the surface of
00:21:25.679 --> 00:21:27.430
the earth but it's very very good for
00:21:27.440 --> 00:21:28.789
cruising around the solar system when
00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:31.029
you're not in a rush. And so what will
00:21:31.039 --> 00:21:32.870
happen is I think different people will
00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:35.190
have different types of drives for
00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:38.230
different types of scenario
00:21:38.240 --> 00:21:40.789
and choose the one that works best.
00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:42.789
>> Yeah. But to get off the planet at the
00:21:42.799 --> 00:21:44.870
moment, you you need rockets. There's
00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:47.590
there's no real other technology that
00:21:47.600 --> 00:21:49.350
will get you out there. I know they've
00:21:49.360 --> 00:21:52.710
been trying um sort of catapult
00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:56.549
technology u which um could deploy
00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:00.630
satellites in the future. Um, I think
00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:02.230
you'd need to be in the right place on
00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:04.149
the planet to take advantage of the u
00:22:04.159 --> 00:22:06.070
the rotation of the earth so that you
00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:08.149
don't have like you couldn't do it too
00:22:08.159 --> 00:22:09.909
far away from the equator, that kind of
00:22:09.919 --> 00:22:11.430
thing. But
00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:14.230
>> um at the moment uh yeah, the um the
00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:16.789
standard old rocket engine is uh is the
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:18.950
best option at the moment. So, um, part
00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:20.710
of where the refueling station idea
00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:22.710
around the moon comes from, which is,
00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:24.230
you know, if you have to take your fuel
00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:25.510
with you, you're carrying a lot of extra
00:22:25.520 --> 00:22:26.789
weight. So, you've got to burn extra
00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:28.549
fuel to carry that fuel, which means
00:22:28.559 --> 00:22:29.830
you're carrying extra weight. So, you
00:22:29.840 --> 00:22:31.669
got to take even more fuel to burn to
00:22:31.679 --> 00:22:32.789
carry the weight of the fuel you're
00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:34.950
carrying to carry the extra fuel. And
00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:36.789
so, it becomes very inefficient very
00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:38.390
quickly. So, if instead you can have
00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:39.750
small launches from Earth and then
00:22:39.760 --> 00:22:41.669
refuel once you're beyond the Earth,
00:22:41.679 --> 00:22:43.909
that's a lot more effective. I mean the
00:22:43.919 --> 00:22:45.190
other thing that people have suggested
00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:46.549
long term
00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:47.909
>> as a solution to get things off the
00:22:47.919 --> 00:22:49.510
earth more cheaply are things like space
00:22:49.520 --> 00:22:53.190
elevators which are probably still far
00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:55.350
science fiction. I don't don't think we
00:22:55.360 --> 00:22:56.950
have the material science to do that nor
00:22:56.960 --> 00:22:59.029
the political will. I mean putting that
00:22:59.039 --> 00:23:00.470
in perspective just saw the announcement
00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:02.710
this week that the vast inland rail
00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:05.430
project that was happening in Australia
00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:07.110
is no longer happening because it got
00:23:07.120 --> 00:23:09.350
too expensive and it's taken too long.
00:23:09.360 --> 00:23:11.029
And if we can't build a railway between
00:23:11.039 --> 00:23:13.350
Melbourne and Brisbane, it's going to be
00:23:13.360 --> 00:23:15.990
really hard to build an elevator between
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:17.590
low Earth orbit, well, between the
00:23:17.600 --> 00:23:19.909
Earth's surface geostationary orbit and
00:23:19.919 --> 00:23:21.430
the same distance beyond for the
00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:23.029
counterweight.
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:26.149
>> Yeah. So, I don't happen anytime soon.
00:23:26.159 --> 00:23:28.149
>> We can't even get a tunnel under the
00:23:28.159 --> 00:23:29.909
Blue Mountains between the West and
00:23:29.919 --> 00:23:34.070
Sydney. Uh, and that's despite the fact
00:23:34.080 --> 00:23:36.390
that that road is currently closed due
00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:39.350
to a structural failure in Victoria
00:23:39.360 --> 00:23:42.230
Pass, the old convict bridge that's uh
00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:44.710
200 years old or something or 150 years
00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:47.190
old and it's finally given up the ghost
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:50.470
and so they've closed the road. It's,
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:52.149
>> you know, people have been screaming for
00:23:52.159 --> 00:23:56.630
a tunnel for decades and um, no
00:23:56.640 --> 00:23:58.310
politicians willing to spend the money
00:23:58.320 --> 00:23:59.909
because there aren't enough people.
00:23:59.919 --> 00:24:01.110
Bottom line is there aren't enough
00:24:01.120 --> 00:24:02.630
people living west of the mountains to
00:24:02.640 --> 00:24:06.070
make it worth your vote. That's really
00:24:06.080 --> 00:24:07.909
what it comes down. That's what it comes
00:24:07.919 --> 00:24:08.310
down to.
00:24:08.320 --> 00:24:09.510
>> Reminds me of the old episode of The
00:24:09.520 --> 00:24:11.190
Simpsons when I was a kid with the kind
00:24:11.200 --> 00:24:13.029
of argument about books for the kids or
00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:14.310
something. It was just the two people at
00:24:14.320 --> 00:24:16.710
the front room basically shouting but
00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:18.950
our children but taxes. But our children
00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:21.029
but taxes and it's this whole thing of
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:22.390
everybody wants it but nobody wants to
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:23.669
pay for it.
00:24:23.679 --> 00:24:26.149
>> Exactly. Yes. Uh a tunnel under the Blue
00:24:26.159 --> 00:24:27.990
Mountains would be wonderful though.
00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:30.710
Although um some some of the arguments
00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:32.710
against it are well it'll only save you
00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:34.470
15 minutes. I think it'll probably save
00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:36.630
you more gets pretty log jammed up over
00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:37.190
that mountain.
00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:39.190
>> We have those arguments about the Towa
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:41.669
bypass and that's been a godsend. I mean
00:24:41.679 --> 00:24:41.990
it
00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:44.310
>> yeah I used it uh last year. Yeah it's
00:24:44.320 --> 00:24:44.870
fantastic.
00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:46.630
>> It fell apart and bits fell onto it
00:24:46.640 --> 00:24:49.350
because it contracted fairly cheaply.
00:24:49.360 --> 00:24:51.510
Um, but that has saved about half an
00:24:51.520 --> 00:24:53.269
hour from my trip down to Brisbane when
00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:55.110
I go to the airport and stuff because I
00:24:55.120 --> 00:24:57.029
don't have to go through Towa and all
00:24:57.039 --> 00:24:58.549
the freight companies use it even though
00:24:58.559 --> 00:25:01.029
the tolls are quite high because the
00:25:01.039 --> 00:25:02.470
tolls being high is a lot better than
00:25:02.480 --> 00:25:03.909
the wear and tear on their vehicles
00:25:03.919 --> 00:25:05.510
coming up the old road into Toumba and
00:25:05.520 --> 00:25:06.950
having to stop at all the traffic lights
00:25:06.960 --> 00:25:09.510
and stuff. So, it worked out for them.
00:25:09.520 --> 00:25:11.269
It's better for the TWA council because
00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:12.630
they're having to repair less potholes
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:14.390
and they have less accidents. And it's
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:15.750
one of those things where it was a
00:25:15.760 --> 00:25:16.950
little controversial when it was being
00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:19.510
built, but since it's set, it's been a
00:25:19.520 --> 00:25:21.350
godsend. And I'd like to think that some
00:25:21.360 --> 00:25:22.710
of these big infrastructure projects
00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:24.470
would be the same. And I mean, a space
00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:26.710
elevator would be wonderful, but you
00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:27.990
know, going to be hard to persuade
00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:29.590
people to commit to building it even
00:25:29.600 --> 00:25:31.830
when we get the technology. I think
00:25:31.840 --> 00:25:34.630
>> ah wait till there are orbiting hotels.
00:25:34.640 --> 00:25:36.549
That'll change everything. You wait and
00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:38.390
see.
00:25:38.400 --> 00:25:40.789
might be waiting a while. Uh, thanks
00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:42.549
Mark. Lovely to hear from you. This is
00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:45.029
Space Nuts with Andrew Dunley and
00:25:45.039 --> 00:25:49.750
Professor Jonty Hornath
00:25:49.760 --> 00:25:51.110
and I feel
00:25:51.120 --> 00:25:54.149
>> space nuts. One more question, Jonty.
00:25:54.159 --> 00:25:57.510
And this one comes from Paul.
00:25:57.520 --> 00:25:59.669
>> Good day, Gre and Andrew. Paul here from
00:25:59.679 --> 00:26:03.269
sunny Bris Vegas. I have a question and
00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:07.909
a dirty secret that I need to confess.
00:26:07.919 --> 00:26:11.029
So, I was on this flat earth group on
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:14.230
Facebook. Yes, I know. I know. Anyway,
00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:17.750
this guy provided some AI information
00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:20.950
which was absolutely correct to contend
00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:23.430
that there is no way that the Aremis
00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:25.350
mission could have ever caught up to the
00:26:25.360 --> 00:26:26.870
Earth because the Earth travels a hell
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:29.269
of a lot faster than that little
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:32.549
spaceship. I pointed out that they
00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:35.110
didn't need to catch up to the Earth at
00:26:35.120 --> 00:26:36.710
all. They just needed to point
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:39.510
themselves to where it was going to be
00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:43.750
and then splash down, land safely, and
00:26:43.760 --> 00:26:45.830
be applauded by everybody except for the
00:26:45.840 --> 00:26:48.230
flatearthers like him, uh, who are
00:26:48.240 --> 00:26:51.990
absolutely insensed at the moment about
00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:57.029
how it's all fake as per usual. Anyway,
00:26:57.039 --> 00:26:59.430
I told him that if he really wanted a
00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:01.430
better answer, exact answer, he really
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:04.070
needed to talk to an astrophysicist. So
00:27:04.080 --> 00:27:06.630
my second question is well my first
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:08.870
question is was I on the right track and
00:27:08.880 --> 00:27:11.669
my second question is are there any
00:27:11.679 --> 00:27:13.909
astrophysicists or any websites out
00:27:13.919 --> 00:27:17.110
there that can give us an animation of
00:27:17.120 --> 00:27:19.190
the earth
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:22.390
going around the sun that also has uh
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:24.710
the animated version of the Artemis
00:27:24.720 --> 00:27:26.710
going around the moon so that we can see
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:29.350
the whole thing in context in terms of
00:27:29.360 --> 00:27:31.190
the solar system or at least our area of
00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:34.390
the solar system. uh it's not going to
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:36.470
convince him, I'm sure, but I think it'd
00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:38.789
be pretty cool to see something like
00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:41.269
that. Anyway, thanks very much,
00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:43.510
gentlemen, for the show as always. Um,
00:27:43.520 --> 00:27:46.149
look forward to it every week and catch
00:27:46.159 --> 00:27:48.630
us later. Have a good one. You too,
00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:51.190
Paul. Thank you. If only we had an
00:27:51.200 --> 00:27:52.710
astrophysicist
00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:56.230
somewhere nearby. Jonty any any I know I
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:58.470
know he was directing the question to
00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:02.149
Fred but he asked for an astrophysicist.
00:28:02.159 --> 00:28:04.070
>> Yeah we are legion for we are many.
00:28:04.080 --> 00:28:06.070
There's plenty of us around. It was
00:28:06.080 --> 00:28:08.310
always a thing when I was at uni of what
00:28:08.320 --> 00:28:09.669
title you use for what you're studying
00:28:09.679 --> 00:28:11.029
would depend on how bothered you were
00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:13.110
about the conversation cuz if you know
00:28:13.120 --> 00:28:14.950
if I told someone I was studying physics
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:17.110
they'd very quickly edit st exit stage
00:28:17.120 --> 00:28:18.310
left. If I told them I was doing
00:28:18.320 --> 00:28:20.070
astronomy they'd stay and chat. And if I
00:28:20.080 --> 00:28:21.510
told them I was doing astrophysics
00:28:21.520 --> 00:28:23.269
they'd just look a little bit scared.
00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:27.190
Um, but I was doing all three. This is a
00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:29.830
an interesting one. I mean, I people
00:28:29.840 --> 00:28:32.870
like the flatearthers are difficult
00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:35.750
because there is no amount of truth, no
00:28:35.760 --> 00:28:37.510
amount of evidence that you can put
00:28:37.520 --> 00:28:39.029
before people who are convinced that
00:28:39.039 --> 00:28:40.549
they've been lied to.
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:43.269
>> Um, other than talking to them gently
00:28:43.279 --> 00:28:45.590
about it. And it's like discussions of
00:28:45.600 --> 00:28:47.590
climate change I've had in the past with
00:28:47.600 --> 00:28:49.190
people who argue climate change isn't
00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:51.909
real. Arguing and fighting with people
00:28:51.919 --> 00:28:54.149
over this doesn't win hearts and minds.
00:28:54.159 --> 00:28:55.830
It just gets them more entrenched. But
00:28:55.840 --> 00:28:57.269
talking to them about it and talking
00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:00.230
about why we think something is a case.
00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:01.909
This is our evidence. This is what it
00:29:01.919 --> 00:29:03.430
is.
00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:05.029
That can be a little bit more fruitful I
00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:06.310
guess. But it is really challenging. I
00:29:06.320 --> 00:29:07.430
mean especially given that we had a
00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:08.870
beautiful eclipse of the moon just a few
00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:11.029
months ago where you can see that the
00:29:11.039 --> 00:29:13.750
shadow of the earth is round.
00:29:13.760 --> 00:29:14.789
>> I mean you know
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:16.470
>> and that's the big argument. If the if
00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:19.110
the earth was flat, the shadow at some
00:29:19.120 --> 00:29:21.990
stage would be just a a line across the
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:22.389
moon.
00:29:22.399 --> 00:29:24.470
>> We'd see the elephants and the turtle.
00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:26.950
>> Um the other thing is if the earth was
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:28.230
flat, the cats would have pushed
00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:29.669
everything off the edge by now.
00:29:29.679 --> 00:29:31.269
>> Yes.
00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:31.750
>> Yes,
00:29:31.760 --> 00:29:33.430
>> that's the other one. But um
00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:33.990
>> Oh god.
00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:35.990
>> In terms of Artimus,
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:38.389
at the end of the day, we know it
00:29:38.399 --> 00:29:41.190
happened because we saw it. You know, I
00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:43.750
was over in Europe at the time and my
00:29:43.760 --> 00:29:46.310
colleagues at UNISQ were happily sharing
00:29:46.320 --> 00:29:47.669
their own little footage of the
00:29:47.679 --> 00:29:49.590
spacecraft that they got from our
00:29:49.600 --> 00:29:52.630
telescopes. They have no reason to lie.
00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:55.110
They have no vested interest in this.
00:29:55.120 --> 00:29:56.230
It's not like they're secretly on the
00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:58.389
payroll of NASA, ignoring the fact that
00:29:58.399 --> 00:30:01.350
if it was faked, Russia and China would
00:30:01.360 --> 00:30:03.750
be racing to tell everybody because that
00:30:03.760 --> 00:30:06.230
would be the best PR victory ever. You
00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:07.269
know, it's the same with the moon
00:30:07.279 --> 00:30:10.149
landings in 1969.
00:30:10.159 --> 00:30:11.830
>> Did anybody really really think that the
00:30:11.840 --> 00:30:13.110
Russians would have stayed quiet if
00:30:13.120 --> 00:30:15.750
there was a sniff of it being faked?
00:30:15.760 --> 00:30:19.190
>> In fact, my great grandmother
00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:21.350
always thought the Apollo landings were
00:30:21.360 --> 00:30:24.549
faked. She She absolutely refused to
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:25.590
believe it.
00:30:25.600 --> 00:30:27.990
>> But she grew up in an era before flight.
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:32.389
>> Yeah. So, I can understand why she would
00:30:32.399 --> 00:30:33.669
she would think that, but she just
00:30:33.679 --> 00:30:35.110
thought it was all just some sort of
00:30:35.120 --> 00:30:37.510
publicity stunt, but I don't remember
00:30:37.520 --> 00:30:39.510
what they might have been trying to get
00:30:39.520 --> 00:30:40.389
publicity for
00:30:40.399 --> 00:30:41.669
>> because they beat the Russians. I mean,
00:30:41.679 --> 00:30:42.870
that's what it was to them or beat the
00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:44.789
Soviets as it was then. Have been pulled
00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:45.669
up on that a couple times.
00:30:45.679 --> 00:30:48.389
>> It was definitely a big PR exercise in
00:30:48.399 --> 00:30:49.029
that regard.
00:30:49.039 --> 00:30:51.269
>> I had a fun PhD student who worked with
00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:54.070
me, Jake Clark, Dr. check that out. Um,
00:30:54.080 --> 00:30:55.750
gave a wonderful talk a couple of times
00:30:55.760 --> 00:30:57.269
about
00:30:57.279 --> 00:30:59.909
the moon landings in 1969 and why they
00:30:59.919 --> 00:31:01.029
couldn't have been faked because we
00:31:01.039 --> 00:31:03.909
couldn't afford it. Talking about faking
00:31:03.919 --> 00:31:05.350
it with the technology we had at the
00:31:05.360 --> 00:31:06.549
time would have actually been more
00:31:06.559 --> 00:31:08.789
expensive than going there,
00:31:08.799 --> 00:31:10.789
>> which is fairly compelling for me. I
00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:12.149
mean, there's always a joke that, you
00:31:12.159 --> 00:31:13.590
know, yeah, the moon landings were
00:31:13.600 --> 00:31:14.870
always going to be faked, but they hired
00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:16.389
Stanley Cubri to direct and he was such
00:31:16.399 --> 00:31:17.830
a perfectionist that they demanded that
00:31:17.840 --> 00:31:20.950
they do it on site. Um, which is always
00:31:20.960 --> 00:31:24.950
the old joke. Um, with Artimus 2, there
00:31:24.960 --> 00:31:27.029
is abundant evidence that it really
00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:28.950
happened. Um, you can you could with a
00:31:28.960 --> 00:31:30.710
small telescope or binoculars go outside
00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:32.950
and see the spacecraft. And I mean, you
00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:34.310
can't fake that. It's not like we're
00:31:34.320 --> 00:31:35.750
beaming thoughts into your head and if
00:31:35.760 --> 00:31:37.190
you think we are, you can wear some tin
00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:41.430
foil. That's all good. Um, in terms of
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:43.430
the argument that the earth is going too
00:31:43.440 --> 00:31:46.149
quick for this thing to catch up, that
00:31:46.159 --> 00:31:49.830
is in the kindest interpretation of it,
00:31:49.840 --> 00:31:51.669
that is
00:31:51.679 --> 00:31:53.669
allowing common sense based on your
00:31:53.679 --> 00:31:55.669
understanding of how day-to-day life
00:31:55.679 --> 00:31:59.350
works interfere with looking at how
00:31:59.360 --> 00:32:01.350
things would move through space. I can
00:32:01.360 --> 00:32:02.950
see why you would get to that. If you
00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:05.190
think about a small child running along
00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:06.630
with a model of Arteimus in their hand
00:32:06.640 --> 00:32:08.630
and a Ferrari driving down the motorway
00:32:08.640 --> 00:32:10.630
or insert other make of car driving down
00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:12.950
the motorway at 100 km an hour, the
00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:14.389
child is not going to catch the thing
00:32:14.399 --> 00:32:16.389
because they're not quick enough. And
00:32:16.399 --> 00:32:18.389
there are limits on how fast a child can
00:32:18.399 --> 00:32:19.990
run and how fast the car can move to do
00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:22.470
with air resistance.
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:25.430
It's however almost similar to saying,
00:32:25.440 --> 00:32:27.029
you know, I can't throw a ball up in the
00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:29.110
air and catch it because I'm moving at
00:32:29.120 --> 00:32:31.830
over 1,000 km an hour around the Earth.
00:32:31.840 --> 00:32:33.430
So, I'm moving too fast to catch up with
00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:35.909
that ball. Doesn't work like that cuz me
00:32:35.919 --> 00:32:37.590
and the ball are both moving at 1,000
00:32:37.600 --> 00:32:40.470
km/h. And so, it's a relative speed
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.190
between us that matters. The Earth is
00:32:43.200 --> 00:32:45.029
going around the Sun at about 30 km a
00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:47.750
second. That's demonstrably true.
00:32:47.760 --> 00:32:49.909
Arteimus moving in orbit around the
00:32:49.919 --> 00:32:52.950
Earth is moving around the sun at 30 km
00:32:52.960 --> 00:32:55.269
a second with the Earth. It's falling
00:32:55.279 --> 00:32:57.029
with the Earth. So, it's a relative
00:32:57.039 --> 00:32:58.950
speed that matters.
00:32:58.960 --> 00:32:59.350
>> Yeah.
00:32:59.360 --> 00:33:01.590
>> Now, if I went above the Earth onto the
00:33:01.600 --> 00:33:03.990
space station, but instead of orbiting
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:05.990
the Earth and falling with things, I was
00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:08.870
able to use rockets to stand still or I
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:11.190
had an an imaginary hovering platform of
00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:13.350
doom that wasn't moving. I'm out of the
00:33:13.360 --> 00:33:15.350
atmosphere. If I threw a ball up in the
00:33:15.360 --> 00:33:17.029
air, it would move away from the Earth
00:33:17.039 --> 00:33:18.230
and the Earth's gravity would slow it
00:33:18.240 --> 00:33:19.509
down and pull it back and it'd fall back
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:21.190
down to me just the same as how it does
00:33:21.200 --> 00:33:24.870
on the ground. Now, if I was in orbit
00:33:24.880 --> 00:33:26.710
around the Earth and I was stood on the
00:33:26.720 --> 00:33:28.149
International Space Station and I tossed
00:33:28.159 --> 00:33:30.230
the ball upward, it would actually start
00:33:30.240 --> 00:33:31.669
moving on a different orbit around the
00:33:31.679 --> 00:33:33.029
Earth. So, while it would move up away
00:33:33.039 --> 00:33:35.029
from me and it would move down, it would
00:33:35.039 --> 00:33:36.470
be going around the Earth on an orbit
00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:38.070
that takes slightly longer to go around
00:33:38.080 --> 00:33:39.669
the Earth than I do. So, it'd also fall
00:33:39.679 --> 00:33:41.669
behind. And that would look like wind
00:33:41.679 --> 00:33:43.590
resistance, but it's actually just a
00:33:43.600 --> 00:33:45.830
quirk of orbital mechanics in that I've
00:33:45.840 --> 00:33:48.389
put it onto a different orbit. Um,
00:33:48.399 --> 00:33:50.230
because we are both falling at the time
00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:52.630
I let go of it. So, if we imagine our
00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:54.470
flat earther jumped off a cliff, and I'm
00:33:54.480 --> 00:33:56.230
not encouraging them to, please do not
00:33:56.240 --> 00:33:58.310
do this, but imagine one jumps off a
00:33:58.320 --> 00:34:00.549
cliff while holding one of the shortputs
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:02.389
from the previous answer without it
00:34:02.399 --> 00:34:04.710
being on a bungee cord, and they let go
00:34:04.720 --> 00:34:06.870
of the shortput. The shortput will fall
00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:08.950
with them at the same speed.
00:34:08.960 --> 00:34:10.629
It won't move away from them and come
00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:12.790
back. It will accelerate downwards in
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:14.790
exactly the same way that they do. And
00:34:14.800 --> 00:34:17.349
they'll only diverge once air resistance
00:34:17.359 --> 00:34:19.510
takes effect depending on which of them
00:34:19.520 --> 00:34:21.510
feels more air resistance.
00:34:21.520 --> 00:34:23.589
>> It's the it's the Galileo experiment,
00:34:23.599 --> 00:34:23.990
isn't it?
00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:25.430
>> So, if you're on the space station and
00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:26.950
you throw a tennis ball up in the air,
00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:28.470
you're both actually falling, but you've
00:34:28.480 --> 00:34:29.669
changed the speed of the tennis ball's
00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:31.510
falling so it'll move away from you and
00:34:31.520 --> 00:34:33.589
not appear to come back because you're
00:34:33.599 --> 00:34:36.149
both still falling. The reason all this
00:34:36.159 --> 00:34:37.829
is relevant to Arteimus is Arteimus
00:34:37.839 --> 00:34:40.310
boosted off towards the moon at a speed
00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:42.389
that was not greater than the escape
00:34:42.399 --> 00:34:44.710
velocity from the earth was a speed that
00:34:44.720 --> 00:34:46.869
was high enough to get to the moon and
00:34:46.879 --> 00:34:48.470
the moon stayed it around and flung it
00:34:48.480 --> 00:34:50.389
back towards the earth but then it fell
00:34:50.399 --> 00:34:53.190
towards the earth under earth's gravity
00:34:53.200 --> 00:34:56.310
moving with insufficient sideward speed
00:34:56.320 --> 00:34:57.829
that as it fell towards the earth it
00:34:57.839 --> 00:34:59.910
would miss us. it instead was going to
00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:01.109
hit us and they controlled it with
00:35:01.119 --> 00:35:02.630
rockets and stuff so that it entered in
00:35:02.640 --> 00:35:04.150
a controlled rather than uncontrolled
00:35:04.160 --> 00:35:05.670
fashion.
00:35:05.680 --> 00:35:07.109
>> What matters is not the speed the
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:08.790
earth's moving around the sun or the
00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:10.470
speed the sun's moving around our galaxy
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:11.990
or the speed that the galaxy's moving
00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:14.710
through space. All that matters is the
00:35:14.720 --> 00:35:16.069
difference in speed between the Earth
00:35:16.079 --> 00:35:17.430
and the object cuz they're moving
00:35:17.440 --> 00:35:20.310
together. This thing's speed was at no
00:35:20.320 --> 00:35:22.230
time greater than the escape velocity of
00:35:22.240 --> 00:35:24.710
the Earth. So, it could never fall away
00:35:24.720 --> 00:35:26.069
from the Earth and never come back. it
00:35:26.079 --> 00:35:27.430
was always going to go up and then come
00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:29.990
down again, unless they use rockets to
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:31.430
boost it into an orbit around the moon
00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:33.430
to shed some of that energy, which they
00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:34.950
didn't. They instead slingshoted around
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.829
the moon to come back. All of that is
00:35:37.839 --> 00:35:39.750
perfectly rational and straightforward
00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:42.069
given our understanding of physics, but
00:35:42.079 --> 00:35:44.069
it doesn't necessarily fit your common
00:35:44.079 --> 00:35:46.550
sense because you think about throwing a
00:35:46.560 --> 00:35:48.150
ball out of the window of your car while
00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:49.829
your car's doing 100 km an hour and the
00:35:49.839 --> 00:35:51.109
ball will fall behind you and never
00:35:51.119 --> 00:35:54.150
catch you up. And so a lot of the
00:35:54.160 --> 00:35:57.670
arguments that flat earth believers or
00:35:57.680 --> 00:35:59.190
other people in that kind of situation
00:35:59.200 --> 00:36:02.230
make and making good faith are built on
00:36:02.240 --> 00:36:04.630
a faulty groundwork
00:36:04.640 --> 00:36:07.109
where the common sense of how they
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:08.790
understand the world to work is not
00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:10.310
applicable to the situation they're
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:13.270
applying it in. Um and that's true of
00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:15.910
things like you know the oceans are
00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:17.510
flat. If you put a spirit level on them
00:36:17.520 --> 00:36:18.870
they're flat. Well, it's actually that
00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:19.990
they're curved, but they're curved at
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:21.589
such a small level that locally they
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:22.950
look flat.
00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:24.550
>> It's a subtle difference, but it's one
00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:25.910
that's easy to miss cuz it's hard to get
00:36:25.920 --> 00:36:28.069
your head around those distances.
00:36:28.079 --> 00:36:29.910
>> In terms of the animations, I just did a
00:36:29.920 --> 00:36:31.670
quick Google search for Artemis
00:36:31.680 --> 00:36:33.829
animation of orbit, and there's some
00:36:33.839 --> 00:36:35.990
beautiful The first hit is a NASA flight
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:39.109
with an an annotated and animated path.
00:36:39.119 --> 00:36:41.030
There's a few YouTube videos. There is a
00:36:41.040 --> 00:36:43.109
Reddit link with an interactive 3D
00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:45.030
animation.
00:36:45.040 --> 00:36:47.109
There's a lot of little YouTube short
00:36:47.119 --> 00:36:49.589
videos that pop up which are not to
00:36:49.599 --> 00:36:51.670
scale because if you make things to
00:36:51.680 --> 00:36:52.950
scale, the sun and the earth and the
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:54.950
moon are points that are one pixel
00:36:54.960 --> 00:36:57.990
across and the spaceship is a point that
00:36:58.000 --> 00:36:59.430
is a pixel across as well cuz nothing
00:36:59.440 --> 00:37:02.550
can be smaller than a pixel. Um there is
00:37:02.560 --> 00:37:04.230
a fabulous thing incidentally and I'm
00:37:04.240 --> 00:37:05.670
going to see if I can find it see if
00:37:05.680 --> 00:37:08.390
it's still there.
00:37:08.400 --> 00:37:10.230
There's a this great thing called if the
00:37:10.240 --> 00:37:14.790
moon were only one pixel. Um, it is. I'm
00:37:14.800 --> 00:37:16.150
going to see if the website still works
00:37:16.160 --> 00:37:18.069
cuz this is one of the great things on
00:37:18.079 --> 00:37:19.109
the internet. Here we go. I'm going to
00:37:19.119 --> 00:37:22.150
drop it into the chat window. Um, this
00:37:22.160 --> 00:37:24.390
was an effort somebody made many many
00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:25.910
long long years ago. I'll put this into
00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:27.349
the public chart which never gets used.
00:37:27.359 --> 00:37:30.230
There we go. To visualize the scale of
00:37:30.240 --> 00:37:33.430
the solar system. If you made the moon
00:37:33.440 --> 00:37:35.349
one pixel across, so the Earth will then
00:37:35.359 --> 00:37:38.310
be two or three pixels across. You can
00:37:38.320 --> 00:37:39.990
when you get bored of scrolling, you can
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:41.430
click play. But if you open that up and
00:37:41.440 --> 00:37:44.069
then you scroll to the right to explore,
00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:46.470
you move along and then you've got the
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:49.910
scale. One pixel is 3,500 km. So the sun
00:37:49.920 --> 00:37:52.069
is a fairly big blob. And you scroll to
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:54.390
the right from the sun and you've got a
00:37:54.400 --> 00:37:56.230
distance at the bottom. Scroll to the
00:37:56.240 --> 00:37:57.670
right along way. We've gone 10 million
00:37:57.680 --> 00:37:59.829
km. This is this fabulous visualization
00:37:59.839 --> 00:38:03.670
to let you see how big things are. Oh,
00:38:03.680 --> 00:38:05.430
isn't that clever? How fast light
00:38:05.440 --> 00:38:08.550
travels. You can click and that's slow.
00:38:08.560 --> 00:38:11.829
It's fabulous. Now what you can do is
00:38:11.839 --> 00:38:14.230
you can skip through I need to find
00:38:14.240 --> 00:38:16.150
where there was a way to skip to the
00:38:16.160 --> 00:38:18.550
earth. Yes, at the top skip to the earth
00:38:18.560 --> 00:38:19.990
goes whiz whiz whiz whiz whiz really
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:21.589
really quick goes past Venus comes to
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:23.910
the earth and the moon if the moon is
00:38:23.920 --> 00:38:26.150
one pixel the earth is only two or three
00:38:26.160 --> 00:38:28.470
and you get the scale of them 8.3 light
00:38:28.480 --> 00:38:30.790
minutes out from the sun and think how
00:38:30.800 --> 00:38:33.430
far you've got to scroll to get there.
00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:34.790
>> Think with that moon being a single
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:37.510
pixel how far it is from the earth. This
00:38:37.520 --> 00:38:39.270
is why none of those animations have
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:41.990
things to scale because you wouldn't see
00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:43.510
the spacecraft. You wouldn't see the
00:38:43.520 --> 00:38:44.550
Earth and the Moon. They wouldn't look
00:38:44.560 --> 00:38:46.710
pretty. So, the caution there is that
00:38:46.720 --> 00:38:48.790
the animations that you see, even the
00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:50.550
beautiful NASA ones that show the flight
00:38:50.560 --> 00:38:53.829
path are not to scale and that can be
00:38:53.839 --> 00:38:55.510
misleading.
00:38:55.520 --> 00:38:57.910
That can also add to some of the
00:38:57.920 --> 00:38:59.430
arguments that this is fake cuz people
00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:01.430
say, "Well, the Earth and the Moon are
00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:02.390
much smaller than that and they're much
00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:05.190
further apart. That looks wrong." Um, so
00:39:05.200 --> 00:39:07.510
it's worth being explicit that these
00:39:07.520 --> 00:39:10.230
visualizations are definitively not to
00:39:10.240 --> 00:39:12.710
scale. Um, the one incidentally that was
00:39:12.720 --> 00:39:14.950
linked on the Reddit page looks like the
00:39:14.960 --> 00:39:16.470
dots for Earth and Moon actually are
00:39:16.480 --> 00:39:17.750
more to scale. So, I'll just drop that
00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:19.750
one in as well. Um, not sure how this
00:39:19.760 --> 00:39:21.030
works. I've not really played with it,
00:39:21.040 --> 00:39:22.630
but you can drag the orbits around. You
00:39:22.640 --> 00:39:24.470
can move them back and forward in time.
00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:26.069
You can see the in and out of plane
00:39:26.079 --> 00:39:28.870
stuff and you can move the visualization
00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:30.470
around even with the background stars,
00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:32.710
which is quite nice. Um, so that's worth
00:39:32.720 --> 00:39:34.150
a play as well. and that looks a bit
00:39:34.160 --> 00:39:36.470
more to scale and there's lots of things
00:39:36.480 --> 00:39:39.349
you can play with, but fundamentally
00:39:39.359 --> 00:39:41.829
we could see it. The hardest part for me
00:39:41.839 --> 00:39:44.069
about the small number of people who
00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:46.069
have argued that the Atimus mission
00:39:46.079 --> 00:39:48.390
didn't happen is that it's something
00:39:48.400 --> 00:39:50.069
that anybody on the planet could see so
00:39:50.079 --> 00:39:51.349
long as they own binoculars or a
00:39:51.359 --> 00:39:52.630
telescope.
00:39:52.640 --> 00:39:53.589
>> You could just point it somewhere and
00:39:53.599 --> 00:39:55.750
you could see the capsule moving there.
00:39:55.760 --> 00:39:57.349
If you really wanted at any time when
00:39:57.359 --> 00:39:59.750
the moon was above the horizon, you
00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:02.630
could track it round.
00:40:02.640 --> 00:40:04.390
And if you've got good enough gear, you
00:40:04.400 --> 00:40:07.109
can actually look at the moon and see
00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:10.230
the landing positions of some of the
00:40:10.240 --> 00:40:12.310
Apollo if you've got the gear.
00:40:12.320 --> 00:40:13.430
>> If you've got the gear, I mean, that's
00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:14.870
kind of spice satellite level. But what
00:40:14.880 --> 00:40:16.470
you can do if you've got slightly less
00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:21.190
of the gear is bounce laser pulses off
00:40:21.200 --> 00:40:23.109
the retroreflects that the astronauts
00:40:23.119 --> 00:40:25.109
left at those sites and measure the
00:40:25.119 --> 00:40:26.550
distance to the moon and measure its
00:40:26.560 --> 00:40:28.950
recession to an incredible precision.
00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:30.630
And we can only do that because people
00:40:30.640 --> 00:40:33.430
went to the moon.
00:40:33.440 --> 00:40:37.510
Yeah, absolutely. I
00:40:37.520 --> 00:40:39.829
I remember the the day that Neil
00:40:39.839 --> 00:40:42.150
Armstrong stepped on the moon. I was um
00:40:42.160 --> 00:40:46.230
sent home from school. I I I
00:40:46.240 --> 00:40:48.069
it's one of the strongest memories of my
00:40:48.079 --> 00:40:50.550
childhood. I was 7 years old and uh I'll
00:40:50.560 --> 00:40:53.349
never forget it. It was uh quite an
00:40:53.359 --> 00:40:55.990
extraordinary thing in human history.
00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:58.710
>> Inspirational. I mean, I I'm not old
00:40:58.720 --> 00:41:00.230
enough to have ever seen anybody walk on
00:41:00.240 --> 00:41:02.309
the moon. I'm hoping that'll change. But
00:41:02.319 --> 00:41:05.670
the generation of astronomers who are
00:41:05.680 --> 00:41:08.069
15, 20 years older than me, who were old
00:41:08.079 --> 00:41:09.750
enough to see the moon landings and take
00:41:09.760 --> 00:41:12.470
them in, so many people were inspired to
00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:14.710
become scientists and engineers by that.
00:41:14.720 --> 00:41:18.069
We got a whole generation of people
00:41:18.079 --> 00:41:19.750
across the sciences, across the
00:41:19.760 --> 00:41:21.829
engineering subjects that changed the
00:41:21.839 --> 00:41:25.030
world who were all inspired by seeing
00:41:25.040 --> 00:41:27.829
people walk on the moon. And it's kind
00:41:27.839 --> 00:41:29.510
of exciting to me, even ignoring the
00:41:29.520 --> 00:41:31.349
science, even ignoring the technology,
00:41:31.359 --> 00:41:32.630
that we're going to get that experience
00:41:32.640 --> 00:41:34.150
again in the coming years. If we go back
00:41:34.160 --> 00:41:35.270
there, there'll be a whole new
00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:37.190
generation who will change the world.
00:41:37.200 --> 00:41:38.950
All inspired by those people touching
00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:41.109
down and seeing it happen.
00:41:41.119 --> 00:41:43.670
>> Yes. Yes. So I was very lucky to meet
00:41:43.680 --> 00:41:46.470
one of them, Buzz Aldrin um some years
00:41:46.480 --> 00:41:49.750
ago came here because they built a right
00:41:49.760 --> 00:41:52.470
flyer at a place called Naramine just up
00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:54.390
the road from here 40 kilometers away
00:41:54.400 --> 00:41:57.030
and they took it out for a fly and he
00:41:57.040 --> 00:41:59.990
came for the occasion uh and gave a
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:02.470
wonderful speech and uh a handful of us
00:42:02.480 --> 00:42:03.910
in the media got to interview him
00:42:03.920 --> 00:42:07.190
afterwards in a in a hanger at the same
00:42:07.200 --> 00:42:09.109
time as a helicopter decided to take
00:42:09.119 --> 00:42:09.510
off.
00:42:09.520 --> 00:42:11.589
>> Yeah, that sounds about right. He
00:42:11.599 --> 00:42:13.750
famously, you know what? You just you
00:42:13.760 --> 00:42:14.550
just go with it.
00:42:14.560 --> 00:42:16.470
>> Well, he very famously gave very short
00:42:16.480 --> 00:42:18.069
shrift to people who told him that he'd
00:42:18.079 --> 00:42:19.430
not been to the moon.
00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:21.030
>> Oh, I know.
00:42:21.040 --> 00:42:23.270
>> Uh yeah, I did actually raise that
00:42:23.280 --> 00:42:25.510
question, but gee, it was such an
00:42:25.520 --> 00:42:27.910
interesting answer.
00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:31.430
>> Yeah, fabulous. Um Paul, great question.
00:42:31.440 --> 00:42:35.510
Really enjoyed that one. And I
00:42:35.520 --> 00:42:37.829
>> I can understand your frustration, but
00:42:37.839 --> 00:42:39.829
um maybe just avoid those Facebook
00:42:39.839 --> 00:42:41.109
pages.
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:43.270
Uh because you can't you just can't save
00:42:43.280 --> 00:42:45.510
them, my friend. Uh but good to hear
00:42:45.520 --> 00:42:47.109
from you. Uh if you've got questions for
00:42:47.119 --> 00:42:48.710
us, please send them in. Uh you can do
00:42:48.720 --> 00:42:50.230
that via our website, spacen
00:42:50.240 --> 00:42:53.829
nutspodcast.com or spacenuts.io.
00:42:53.839 --> 00:42:56.230
You can also visit us on social media.
00:42:56.240 --> 00:42:57.670
We've got the official Spacenuts
00:42:57.680 --> 00:43:00.630
Facebook page and the official uh what's
00:43:00.640 --> 00:43:03.510
the Instagram page. Uh we've also got
00:43:03.520 --> 00:43:06.630
the user group on Facebook. um the
00:43:06.640 --> 00:43:10.950
podcast uh group uh which is all it's a
00:43:10.960 --> 00:43:13.109
lot of fun. It's where people who listen
00:43:13.119 --> 00:43:15.190
get together, swap photos of stuff
00:43:15.200 --> 00:43:17.990
they've taken in space and uh ask
00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:20.870
questions and uh it is a really good
00:43:20.880 --> 00:43:23.589
group. So the Space Nuts podcast group
00:43:23.599 --> 00:43:26.630
on Facebook very much worth uh joining
00:43:26.640 --> 00:43:29.190
that one as well and hope you'll join us
00:43:29.200 --> 00:43:31.109
again real soon. And and thank you to
00:43:31.119 --> 00:43:33.270
Johnny her for filling in for Fred for
00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:35.430
the last month or so. It's been
00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:37.750
fantastic and hopefully we can get that
00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:39.510
uh photography special off the ground
00:43:39.520 --> 00:43:41.349
and get you back and have a chat about
00:43:41.359 --> 00:43:43.349
astrophotography, Jonty. That would be a
00:43:43.359 --> 00:43:43.910
real good one.
00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:46.390
>> Fingers crossed. That would be awesome.
00:43:46.400 --> 00:43:48.150
>> Yeah. All right. Catch you soon. Thank
00:43:48.160 --> 00:43:48.870
you so much.
00:43:48.880 --> 00:43:50.950
>> Later. Take care. Thank you very much.
00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:52.550
>> Professor Jonty Horner, professor of
00:43:52.560 --> 00:43:54.150
astrophysics at the University of
00:43:54.160 --> 00:43:56.150
Southern Queensland, filling in for
00:43:56.160 --> 00:43:59.430
Fred. Fred should be back uh next week
00:43:59.440 --> 00:44:01.829
or later this week. I can't I can't get
00:44:01.839 --> 00:44:03.829
my head around when it'll be. It's a
00:44:03.839 --> 00:44:06.710
time slip thing. Uh but uh yeah, thanks
00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:08.710
to Jonty for filling in and thanks to
00:44:08.720 --> 00:44:10.470
Hugh in the studio who couldn't be with
00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:14.390
us today because he's fake. Boom boom.
00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:15.990
And from me, Andrew Dunley, thanks for
00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:17.349
your company. We'll see you on the next
00:44:17.359 --> 00:44:20.069
episode of Space Nuts. Bye-bye.
00:44:20.079 --> 00:44:21.030
>> Space Nuts.
00:44:21.040 --> 00:44:23.109
>> You've been listening to the Space Nuts
00:44:23.119 --> 00:44:25.430
podcast
00:44:25.440 --> 00:44:28.390
>> available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
00:44:28.400 --> 00:44:31.030
iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast
00:44:31.040 --> 00:44:33.430
player. You can also stream on demand at
00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:36.309
byes.com. This has been another quality
00:44:36.319 --> 00:44:40.760
podcast production from byes.com.