Megastructures, Exoplanet Myths & Satellite Showers: #495 - The Quipu Conundrum and More | Space...
Space Nuts Episode 495: The Megastructure Quipu, Exoplanet Myths, and SpaceX Satellites
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner in this enlightening episode of Space Nuts, where they explore the cosmos' latest discoveries and debunk popular misconceptions. From the astonishing natural megastructure known as Quipu to the reality behind potentially habitable exoplanets, and the implications of SpaceX satellites re-entering Earth's atmosphere, this episode is packed with fascinating insights that will expand your understanding of our universe.
Episode Highlights:
- The Discovery of Quipu: Andrew and Jonti discuss the recently discovered megastructure, Quipu, which is a colossal natural formation in the universe. They delve into its size, significance, and the implications it has for our understanding of cosmic structures.
- Exoplanet Misconceptions: Jonti shares his frustrations regarding the overselling of exoplanet discoveries and the potential for life. They dissect the media's portrayal of newly found planets and emphasize the complexities involved in determining habitability.
- Asteroid 2024 YR4 Update: The duo provides an update on the asteroid's trajectory and the fluctuating odds of it impacting Earth. They explain how ongoing observations refine our understanding of its orbit and potential risks.
- SpaceX Satellites and Atmospheric Concerns : Andrew and Jonti examine the increasing number of SpaceX satellites re-entering the atmosphere and the environmental implications of this phenomenon. They discuss the balance between technological advancements and potential ecological impacts.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. (https://www.spacenutspodcast.com/about)
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
00:00 - Introduction to the episode and topics
02:15 - Discussion on the discovery of Quipu and its implications
10:30 - Debunking myths around exoplanets and habitability
18:00 - Update on asteroid 2024 YR4 and its potential impact
26:45 - The environmental impact of SpaceX satellites re-entering
30:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement
✍️ Episode References
Quipu Discovery Article
https://www.astronomy.com/news
Exoplanet Research
https://www.nasa.gov/exoplanets
SpaceX Satellite Updates
https://www.spacex.com/launches/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss) .
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/25588222?utm_source=youtube
00:00 - Introduction to the episode and topics
02:15 - Discussion on the discovery of Quipu and its implications
10:30 - Debunking myths around exoplanets and habitability
18:00 - Update on asteroid 2024 YR4 and its potential impact
26:45 - The environmental impact of SpaceX satellites re-entering
30:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement
Kind: captions
Language: en
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hi there thanks for joining us this is
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Space Nuts Andrew Dunley here good to
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have your company and on this episode we
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have a lot to talk about uh the first
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thing will be a mega structure of Epic
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Proportions discovered in the universe
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now this is not a a something that was
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manufactured by some incredible race uh
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because we have talked about me mega
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structures in the past now this is
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natural and it's called
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kipo what's that mean we'll tell you
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soon um this is uh one of um the biggest
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bug bears that jonty has to deal with
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the overselling of the potential for
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life on exoplanets yes there is one in
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the news at the moment we'll do an
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update on 2024
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yr4 the odds of it hitting us have hared
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and SpaceX satellites raining down on
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our atmosphere uh what does that mean
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we'll tell you on this episode of Space
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Nuts 15 seconds guidance is internal 10
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nine ignition sequence start Space Nuts
00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:10.910
5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 3 Space Nuts as the
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report it feels good and he's back again
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surprisingly it's Johny Horner professor
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of a physics at the University of
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Southern Queensland jonty hello good day
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how are you going I am well how are you
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I'm getting there I've never got the
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hang of mornings I think I'm a bit like
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um the characters from The Hitchhikers
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Guide except for me it's mornings it's
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not Mondays it's mornings yes I I used
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to be like that and then I started in
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breakfast radio and did it for 30 years
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so I eventually got used to being up at
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sparrows the breakfast shift does not
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sound fun uh I enjoyed it but that was
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just me I don't know if anyone else did
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especially the audience boom
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boom all right uh let us get into it and
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we're going to start off with this um
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discovery of a of a mega structure which
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is uh been uh in the news over the last
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week or so and it's it's called kipo
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we'll explain why it's called that soon
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but this is a a mega structure uh of
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natural formation in the universe the
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enormity of this is mind splitting
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amazing yes yes it is it's one of those
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things that just makes your head hurt
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like a lot of things in cosmology now
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I'll happily hold my hands up right at
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the start and say my expertise is on the
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parts of the University what closer than
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this so I'm not a cosmologist and if
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there are cosmologists listening you
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know people who are cosmology
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enthusiasts I might get something wrong
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please don't be too critical um because
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you know the the size of the things that
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I don't know in cosmology is enormous um
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just like the subject itself but this is
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a really interesting one when we think
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about the universe you see all these
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wonderful simulations that come out of
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our models of how the universe works
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that people produce all the time and you
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know you can almost see videos on
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fabulous documentary Series where they
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start at the scale of an atom and keep
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zooming out and you eventually get to
00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:09.990
the person and keep zooming out and the
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scale of cosmology is roughly the same
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scale compared to a human being that a
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human being is compared to an atom so
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that's the kind of size scale we're
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talking about here which is the study of
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the ridiculously big but as you zoom out
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from that human being on the earth you
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get the solar system then you get the
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local stars then you get our galaxy and
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then as move out you get structures of
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galaxies together so you get small
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clusters of galaxies and those small
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clusters hang together in bigger
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clusters that gather together in super
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clusters and they for a long time were
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kind of the biggest structures we saw in
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the universe but then as you zoom out
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further you start seeing these
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structures like walls and filaments
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where those clusters and super clusters
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of galaxies are themselves forming
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structures with huge voids in between so
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on this kind of scale when you see those
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simulations it looks almost like a view
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of a sponge so you if you've had a a
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sponge in your bath the sponge is a lot
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of open air spaces surrounded by lots of
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solid material and all the solid
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material is in contact with all the
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solid material but all the air is in
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contact with all the air so you could
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put a bit of string and go all the way
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through the sponge through the air holes
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and come out the other side and that's
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kind of what this view of the universe
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looks like it these long filaments and
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walls all connected to one another with
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these enormous voids of empty space
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between them that's the context we're
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talking about here so the team of
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researchers who studied this have been
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carrying out observations using an x-ray
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survey looking at very high energy
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electromagnetic radiation that's
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produced from incredibly hot gas in the
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most massive clusters of galaxies
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enormous structures themselves and
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they've looked at a region about 250
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million Parx across in all directions
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maybe a bit
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more looking for the biggest structures
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they can find in that region and they've
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identified four of these what they're
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calling super structures and they super
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structures are Mega structures because
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they are bigger than normal structures
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they structures made of structures made
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of superclusters made of clusters made
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of local clusters made of galaxies on we
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go all the way down again now these four
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structures that they found between them
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contain 45% of all the Galaxy clusters
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they could see 30% of all the galaxies
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and 25% of all the matter but they only
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occupy about 133% of the volume so that
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gives you the idea of lots of empty
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space with these filaments around it the
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biggest of these this is someone Keo
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that's getting all the attention it's
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ridiculous they talk about it being 200
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quadrillion times the mass of the Sun so
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if you remember fistas in countries that
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do things differently we using the kind
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of British scale Mill million billion
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system here so a million is 10 to the 6
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one with 6 zeros after it a billion is a
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th million so that's 10 to the N9 a
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trillion is a, billion or a million
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million that's 10 the 12 a quadrillion
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is a, trillion or a million billion or a
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billion million so it's 10 to the 15 200
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of those means this is 2 * 10 to the 17
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or two with 17 zeros after it times the
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mass of the Sun now that's a number that
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is bound to make your head hurt so I
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converted that down by looking at how
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many milky wees that would be and that
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be something like
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130,000 times the mass of our
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galaxy so stupidly big numbers it is
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spread over a distance it's a big long
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feature about 400 MEAP parex long so one
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Parc is perversely the distance that an
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object would be away from the Earth if
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it's Parallax as the earth goes around
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the Sun was 1 out second it's a really
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obscure unit of measurement it makes
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sense when you're doing the maths of
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measuring distance but it's not
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particularly user friendly it's a bit
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like talking in feet light years is a
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bit like talking in meters same kind of
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thing most people find light years more
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straightforward to visualize where one
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lightyear is the time it takes light to
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travel in one year and there are 3.26
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light years in one Parc so 400 megga
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passet is 1.3 billion light years long
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so in other words light leaving one end
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of this structure would take 1.3 billion
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years or 1,300 million years to go from
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one end to the other so it's an enormous
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enormous
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structure now that's all well and good
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and it's fabulous cataloging the biggest
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and the most massive and the brightest
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and I know a lot of people I do this
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occasionally look up Wikipedia articles
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like what's a as massive star what's a
00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.790
as luminous star things like that yeah
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but it's also really valuable to know
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this kind of stuff because if you study
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these big structures that gives us
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information that we can compare to the
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models that are based on our current
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understanding of the universe to see if
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those models make sense and the good
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thing is that the current models of how
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the universe work predict structures
00:08:18.680 --> 00:08:20.790
like this so this is very much in line
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with what people expected to see and
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that's a really good part of how science
00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:27.510
works you know it's very much Cas of our
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models predicted this and now you've
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seen it that makes us happy because it
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means the models are working correctly
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it also is the kind of information
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that's really useful for people studying
00:08:37.719 --> 00:08:39.870
the big bang and more ancient Universe
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because structures like this are
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sufficiently massive that they will
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influence our view of what is beyond you
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get gravitational lensing from the big
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objects you also even get and I don't
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fully understand how this works but you
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also get the pollution of the cosmic
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microwave background which is the last
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hit of the Big Bang it's the it's our
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image of the last surface 300,000 years
00:09:03.560 --> 00:09:04.949
after the big bang where the universe
00:09:04.959 --> 00:09:05.829
became
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transparent and we found little bits of
00:09:08.519 --> 00:09:10.069
structure in that which are important
00:09:10.079 --> 00:09:12.509
for us understanding how the modern
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structure of the universe formed but
00:09:14.680 --> 00:09:17.069
that structure is polluted by the
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influence of these
00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:20.829
foreground objects by something called
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the integrated sax wolf effect I've no
00:09:23.399 --> 00:09:25.069
idea how that works to be brutally
00:09:25.079 --> 00:09:28.550
honest but if you've got something like
00:09:28.560 --> 00:09:31.110
that that pollutes view of what's beyond
00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:33.110
and we want to understand what's beyond
00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:35.069
the better we can see the foreground the
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better we can account for it when we're
00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:38.750
subing the background so getting studies
00:09:38.760 --> 00:09:41.269
of this a it's fascinating it's a really
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good test for our models but it also
00:09:43.839 --> 00:09:46.150
allows us in the future to get a better
00:09:46.160 --> 00:09:48.269
handle on how things like the cosmic
00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:50.509
microwave background really look when
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you filter out the foreground mess and I
00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:54.710
guess the equivalent here would be like
00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:56.670
having a light pollution filter for
00:09:56.680 --> 00:09:58.750
people who are astronomy photography
00:09:58.760 --> 00:10:01.110
enesi gas you've got a murky light
00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:02.590
polluted sky but if you put a light
00:10:02.600 --> 00:10:03.990
pollution filter on the front of your
00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:06.310
lens you can cancel out that foreground
00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:07.829
mess and get a much better view of
00:10:07.839 --> 00:10:10.630
what's beyond this will enable us to do
00:10:10.640 --> 00:10:12.230
that same kind of filtering when we're
00:10:12.240 --> 00:10:14.230
looking at the microwave background so I
00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:16.750
think it's a fabulous Story full of
00:10:16.760 --> 00:10:20.030
numbers what make your head hurt quite
00:10:20.040 --> 00:10:22.710
they're massive numbers they just uh
00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:24.350
just incredible
00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:26.710
now why is it called
00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:29.509
Keo this is partially because of the
00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:31.430
structure so it looks like a long thick
00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:32.949
filament with thinner filaments
00:10:32.959 --> 00:10:35.389
branching off the sides of it and the
00:10:35.399 --> 00:10:37.829
authors of this paper notice that this
00:10:37.839 --> 00:10:40.190
looks very similar to the traditional
00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:41.990
counting instrument of the Incan people
00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:44.629
in Peru um which was essentially they
00:10:44.639 --> 00:10:47.069
did their counting using knotted ropes
00:10:47.079 --> 00:10:48.790
and that knotted rope counting device
00:10:48.800 --> 00:10:51.389
was a Keo so it's quite a nice nod to
00:10:51.399 --> 00:10:53.829
the traditional culture of the that area
00:10:53.839 --> 00:10:56.430
in Peru again I'm not an anthropologist
00:10:56.440 --> 00:10:58.069
or an archaeologist I don't really know
00:10:58.079 --> 00:11:00.069
much more about it than that but I think
00:11:00.079 --> 00:11:02.710
it is a really nice nod to a different
00:11:02.720 --> 00:11:04.949
culture and as we've talked about in
00:11:04.959 --> 00:11:06.870
previous weeks this idea of embracing
00:11:06.880 --> 00:11:08.230
all the cultures of the Earth in our
00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:09.990
studies going forward it's really
00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:11.710
gaining traction is a really nice way of
00:11:11.720 --> 00:11:14.230
doing things I think absolutely yes I'd
00:11:14.240 --> 00:11:17.910
agree and the the Incans have a um
00:11:17.920 --> 00:11:21.069
strong history with astronomy so uh that
00:11:21.079 --> 00:11:24.670
ties in well too so yeah fascinating uh
00:11:24.680 --> 00:11:26.629
if you would like to chase up that story
00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:28.350
it was published in astronomy and
00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:30.710
astrophysics the journal you can also
00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:34.949
read about it at the archive.org website
00:11:34.959 --> 00:11:38.190
that's arxiv I learned that last week
00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:39.829
archive.org
00:11:39.839 --> 00:11:43.190
uh yes there was some um a lot of
00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:45.949
involvement from the max plank Institute
00:11:45.959 --> 00:11:49.629
in um in running this the author was H
00:11:49.639 --> 00:11:51.870
boringer so uh you might want to look
00:11:51.880 --> 00:11:55.590
that
00:11:55.600 --> 00:11:59.430
up Space Nuts uh now uh let's move on on
00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:02.550
to our next story this is a pet peeve
00:12:02.560 --> 00:12:05.030
story um which Johny wanted to talk
00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:07.949
about and look I'm not surprised that it
00:12:07.959 --> 00:12:11.629
uh it bothers some people uh because I I
00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:14.389
have often referred to the popular press
00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:16.590
when doing this podcast and how they
00:12:16.600 --> 00:12:19.110
latch onto something that isn't quite
00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:21.829
the story but it makes a great headline
00:12:21.839 --> 00:12:24.110
and that's what this is overselling the
00:12:24.120 --> 00:12:26.389
potential for life on
00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:28.750
exoplanets yeah it's and one in
00:12:28.760 --> 00:12:30.230
particular in the news at the moment
00:12:30.240 --> 00:12:31.629
well it's something that's niggled at me
00:12:31.639 --> 00:12:33.350
for a while it should be said that the
00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:35.069
criticism here is not of the research
00:12:35.079 --> 00:12:36.470
done by these authors have done a
00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:37.949
fabulous bit of research and if you look
00:12:37.959 --> 00:12:40.069
at the paper they've got the balance
00:12:40.079 --> 00:12:43.269
right that's fine but there is a very
00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:44.990
common Trend particularly among press
00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:48.590
officers at universities and also around
00:12:48.600 --> 00:12:50.550
a lot of media sites that rely on clicks
00:12:50.560 --> 00:12:54.750
for their income to talk about the most
00:12:54.760 --> 00:12:56.590
habitable planet ever discovered we
00:12:56.600 --> 00:12:58.670
found the most earthlike planet ever and
00:12:58.680 --> 00:13:00.590
the report on this planet are not quite
00:13:00.600 --> 00:13:01.910
that bad but they have been talking
00:13:01.920 --> 00:13:03.990
about potentially habitable planet
00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:06.110
discovered around nearby star because
00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:08.629
that gets a clicks and before we dig
00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:10.150
into this story the reason that this
00:13:10.160 --> 00:13:12.710
niggles at me is that people are getting
00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:15.790
ex exoe fatigue and also lifei SAR
00:13:15.800 --> 00:13:19.430
fatigue so by reporting things when we
00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:20.870
haven't actually found what the reports
00:13:20.880 --> 00:13:22.790
are saying it creates this opinion that
00:13:22.800 --> 00:13:24.829
the science is already done we've
00:13:24.839 --> 00:13:26.629
already discovered the a stuff so when
00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:28.470
we finally find a planet that really
00:13:28.480 --> 00:13:30.430
does have life on it or when we finally
00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:32.990
find a planet that genuinely is Earth
00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.430
2.0 that'll be exciting I'll be thrilled
00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:36.550
we've finally got something to talk
00:13:36.560 --> 00:13:38.030
about and everybody will be kind of the
00:13:38.040 --> 00:13:39.590
boy who cried wolf well you've told us
00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:41.750
you've done this a million times already
00:13:41.760 --> 00:13:43.189
yeah and it's easy why are you
00:13:43.199 --> 00:13:46.509
interested you know it's
00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:49.230
also the fact that we basically don't
00:13:49.240 --> 00:13:50.990
know enough to make these statements yet
00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:53.230
so when you see a headline like we found
00:13:53.240 --> 00:13:55.949
the most earthlike planet ever what it's
00:13:55.959 --> 00:13:57.389
actually telling you is we found a
00:13:57.399 --> 00:13:59.189
planet that's about the same diameter as
00:13:59.199 --> 00:14:02.389
the Earth and that's it so it's like me
00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:04.470
being an alien and visiting the Earth
00:14:04.480 --> 00:14:06.110
and scanning the oceans and saying I
00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:07.870
found the most humanlike creature ever
00:14:07.880 --> 00:14:09.189
it's about the same length and it's
00:14:09.199 --> 00:14:10.590
about the same weight and it's about the
00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:13.509
same size it's called a dolphin it's
00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:15.389
nothing like a human whatsoever but it's
00:14:15.399 --> 00:14:17.389
about the same size and about the same
00:14:17.399 --> 00:14:20.030
mass so it's the most humanlike animal
00:14:20.040 --> 00:14:22.629
ever so I get a bit grumpy and there's a
00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:24.310
lot that goes inh habitability that I
00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:26.829
can talk about a little bit later on
00:14:26.839 --> 00:14:28.350
which is why I think this is a much more
00:14:28.360 --> 00:14:30.030
complex problem and that for me that
00:14:30.040 --> 00:14:31.629
makes it much more interesting a lot
00:14:31.639 --> 00:14:33.870
more research to do but it does mean
00:14:33.880 --> 00:14:35.230
that when you get a claim saying
00:14:35.240 --> 00:14:37.110
potentially habitable planet or the most
00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:39.590
habitable planet we've ever found yet
00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:41.110
people even publishing articles about
00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:42.670
super habitable planets that are more
00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:44.829
suitable for life than Earth I don't
00:14:44.839 --> 00:14:47.790
think you can say any of that aha in
00:14:47.800 --> 00:14:49.150
this particular case it is an
00:14:49.160 --> 00:14:51.389
interesting story there is a star called
00:14:51.399 --> 00:14:54.150
82 udani which also goes by the name
00:14:54.160 --> 00:14:58.030
hd20 794 you know astronomers love our
00:14:58.040 --> 00:15:00.910
acronyms in our bar curs this is a star
00:15:00.920 --> 00:15:02.310
that you can see with an AK in the
00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:03.949
constellation of aridus but it's not
00:15:03.959 --> 00:15:05.509
particularly bright it's about magnitude
00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:08.110
4 4 and a half and for a while we've
00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:10.150
known it had two planets around it but
00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:12.870
it's been monitored by the high accuracy
00:15:12.880 --> 00:15:14.430
radial velocity Planet Searcher
00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:17.550
spectrograph Harps in chil and harps is
00:15:17.560 --> 00:15:19.030
an incredible
00:15:19.040 --> 00:15:21.590
instrument it allows you to measure the
00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:24.470
velocity of a star so you take the light
00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:26.189
from a star you break it up into its
00:15:26.199 --> 00:15:28.550
component colors and La across that
00:15:28.560 --> 00:15:31.590
Spectrum is a series of dark lines and
00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:32.790
those dark lines which we call the
00:15:32.800 --> 00:15:35.150
fronhofer absorption lines are the
00:15:35.160 --> 00:15:37.150
fingerprint of all the different atoms
00:15:37.160 --> 00:15:38.829
and molecules in the Stars outer
00:15:38.839 --> 00:15:41.110
atmosphere every Atomic species every
00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:43.590
molecular species absorbs like a very
00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:45.910
specific unique set of wave lengths and
00:15:45.920 --> 00:15:47.870
it imprints this dark set of lines
00:15:47.880 --> 00:15:50.110
across the star Spectrum now if the
00:15:50.120 --> 00:15:52.189
stars moving towards us its light will
00:15:52.199 --> 00:15:54.389
be blue shifted so all of those lines
00:15:54.399 --> 00:15:55.749
will move a little bit to the blue
00:15:55.759 --> 00:15:57.509
because of the dopper effect if it's
00:15:57.519 --> 00:15:59.069
moving away from us the light will be
00:15:59.079 --> 00:16:00.670
red shifted so it'll move a bit to the
00:16:00.680 --> 00:16:03.069
red again with a Doppler effect and I've
00:16:03.079 --> 00:16:04.790
talked about this before this is the
00:16:04.800 --> 00:16:06.430
equivalent of having the tyum coming
00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:08.870
towards you and hearing it high pitched
00:16:08.880 --> 00:16:11.949
and fast with n no and then it moving
00:16:11.959 --> 00:16:13.350
away and you're hearing it low pitched
00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:16.670
and slow with n noo to do with the waves
00:16:16.680 --> 00:16:19.069
getting stretched or compressed
00:16:19.079 --> 00:16:21.389
essentially now what that means is if we
00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:22.949
measure the positiony of these lines
00:16:22.959 --> 00:16:24.309
accurately enough we can measure the
00:16:24.319 --> 00:16:26.030
change in the speed of the Star as it
00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:29.030
moves around by seeing those lines move
00:16:29.040 --> 00:16:30.870
so we can look at stars and see them
00:16:30.880 --> 00:16:32.590
wobbling and INF further presence of
00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:34.910
planets that we can't see by how those
00:16:34.920 --> 00:16:37.509
planets pull those Stars around but
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:38.790
there are limits to this there's a lot
00:16:38.800 --> 00:16:41.350
of challenges involved so facility like
00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:42.670
the one we've got at the University of
00:16:42.680 --> 00:16:44.629
Southern Queensland which is actually
00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:46.470
the southern hemisphere's only dedicated
00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:49.870
EXO Planet search facility we can get an
00:16:49.880 --> 00:16:51.509
accuracy where we can measure the wobble
00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:54.629
of stars down to about 2 or 3 m a second
00:16:54.639 --> 00:16:57.230
so we could see a star changing in speed
00:16:57.240 --> 00:16:59.269
by about as much as someone going a very
00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:00.189
gentle
00:17:00.199 --> 00:17:03.150
job what that means is we could not find
00:17:03.160 --> 00:17:04.829
these particular planets they're just
00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:07.429
much too hard but the harp spectrograph
00:17:07.439 --> 00:17:10.350
is on a much bigger telescope in a much
00:17:10.360 --> 00:17:12.470
better location and it's an incredibly
00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:15.150
accurate piece of Kit so it lets you get
00:17:15.160 --> 00:17:18.230
down to submeter per second measurements
00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:20.150
which is breathtaking put that in
00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:22.189
perspective we're looking at stars here
00:17:22.199 --> 00:17:24.949
whose distances are quadrillions of
00:17:24.959 --> 00:17:26.669
kilometers away again using the units
00:17:26.679 --> 00:17:28.990
from before these are stars where the
00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:32.070
light has taken decades to reach us and
00:17:32.080 --> 00:17:34.350
we are able to measure their velocity so
00:17:34.360 --> 00:17:36.230
accurately that we can see changes in
00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:40.110
that velocity of 50 cm a second wow
00:17:40.120 --> 00:17:41.870
that's just astonishing
00:17:41.880 --> 00:17:43.710
precision and that's what the team have
00:17:43.720 --> 00:17:47.230
done so they've observed this uh HD
00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:50.110
20794 for a number of years with haps
00:17:50.120 --> 00:17:52.390
getting more and more Data Tracking how
00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:54.350
the speed changes and in the past they'd
00:17:54.360 --> 00:17:56.710
found two planets in hints of a third
00:17:56.720 --> 00:17:59.149
and they've now confirmed that third one
00:17:59.159 --> 00:18:03.149
that third planet HD 20794 D is making
00:18:03.159 --> 00:18:05.870
the sty wobble with its speed changing
00:18:05.880 --> 00:18:09.310
by just 50 cm a second plus or minus
00:18:09.320 --> 00:18:12.029
over a period of about 700 days so
00:18:12.039 --> 00:18:14.830
you're watching for 700 days you get rid
00:18:14.840 --> 00:18:16.590
of all the other noise the star wobbling
00:18:16.600 --> 00:18:19.710
around itself just ulating like a shook
00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:21.750
Bell you get rid of the orbits of the
00:18:21.760 --> 00:18:23.230
two inner planets which are causing it
00:18:23.240 --> 00:18:24.750
to wobble by a similar amount with a
00:18:24.760 --> 00:18:26.990
different period on your left with a
00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:29.710
tiny wobble of plus orus 50 CM a second
00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:32.870
that takes 700 be to complete once and
00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:34.470
that's what they found so this is our
00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:37.190
planet it's a planet about 6 times the
00:18:37.200 --> 00:18:39.990
mass of the Earth at least might be more
00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:41.710
than that so we don't know how Edge on
00:18:41.720 --> 00:18:43.270
or Tilted the orbit is because we're not
00:18:43.280 --> 00:18:47.029
seeing it Transit if it's tilted by 30°
00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:48.669
the mass of this planet will be higher
00:18:48.679 --> 00:18:50.990
if it's tilted by 60° instead of being
00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:52.750
six Earth masses it'll be 12 Earth
00:18:52.760 --> 00:18:55.190
masses so this is the minimum
00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:58.270
Mass so it's what we call a super Earth
00:18:58.280 --> 00:19:01.350
or a inun it's much more massive than
00:19:01.360 --> 00:19:03.549
our planet and certainly larger than our
00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:07.110
planet it's moving on an orbit that if
00:19:07.120 --> 00:19:10.630
you calculated its semi- major axis the
00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:12.630
length of the ellipse half the length of
00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:14.789
the ellipse which sets a period that
00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:17.750
will put it in the habitable zone that's
00:19:17.760 --> 00:19:19.149
what the paper says now the habitable
00:19:19.159 --> 00:19:21.630
zone I'll get into in a second but this
00:19:21.640 --> 00:19:24.190
planet moves on a very elongated orbit
00:19:24.200 --> 00:19:26.149
so its distance from its Stars changing
00:19:26.159 --> 00:19:28.029
by a factor of two from its closest to
00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:30.590
the star to the furthest away now if you
00:19:30.600 --> 00:19:32.310
scale that up to the solar system and
00:19:32.320 --> 00:19:33.510
put it in the same place
00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:35.630
temperature-wise as it is in its system
00:19:35.640 --> 00:19:37.909
now if you put it in the solar system so
00:19:37.919 --> 00:19:39.950
that its orbit had that same temperature
00:19:39.960 --> 00:19:41.950
range that would mean when it's closest
00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:44.230
to its star it's as close as Venus when
00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:45.870
it's furthest from its star it's further
00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:49.190
out than mes you're going to have
00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:51.590
extreme extreme temperature variability
00:19:51.600 --> 00:19:55.149
on this planet now the habitable zone is
00:19:55.159 --> 00:19:56.990
always thrown out for these planets it's
00:19:57.000 --> 00:19:58.750
that goldilox IDE here if you have a
00:19:58.760 --> 00:20:00.470
Planet that's at the right distance from
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:02.789
the Star the temperature will be not too
00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:04.390
hot and not too cold and it'll be just
00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:06.149
right for liquid water on the
00:20:06.159 --> 00:20:09.350
surface the Supple implication buried in
00:20:09.360 --> 00:20:12.029
this is not actually what I just said
00:20:12.039 --> 00:20:14.830
but it's rather if you took the Earth as
00:20:14.840 --> 00:20:17.750
the Earth is today and dropped it where
00:20:17.760 --> 00:20:19.590
this planet is would the Earth still
00:20:19.600 --> 00:20:22.270
have liquid water on its surface now
00:20:22.280 --> 00:20:24.270
that's a subtle difference but to
00:20:24.280 --> 00:20:25.470
illustrate it if you think about the
00:20:25.480 --> 00:20:28.230
solar system the boundaries of the
00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:30.070
habitable are usually set by looking at
00:20:30.080 --> 00:20:32.270
Venus and Mars that's what's motivated
00:20:32.280 --> 00:20:34.350
this the calculations are more robust
00:20:34.360 --> 00:20:36.710
now but that's about where it washes out
00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:38.950
Venus closer to the Sun than o is super
00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:41.669
hot 450° Centigrade on the surface and
00:20:41.679 --> 00:20:44.430
clearly not habitable Mars is super cold
00:20:44.440 --> 00:20:46.310
it's too cold for life it's outside the
00:20:46.320 --> 00:20:47.669
habitable zone the Earth's in the middle
00:20:47.679 --> 00:20:50.390
and it's just right but to illustrate
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:52.350
why it's not so simple imagine a thought
00:20:52.360 --> 00:20:54.270
experiment where you swap Venus and Mars
00:20:54.280 --> 00:20:56.750
around if you put Mars where Venus is
00:20:56.760 --> 00:20:59.350
it's got a thinner atmosphere than we do
00:20:59.360 --> 00:21:01.149
so it's got less of a greenhouse effect
00:21:01.159 --> 00:21:03.669
so it would probably remain Clement
00:21:03.679 --> 00:21:06.029
where Venus would overheat similarly if
00:21:06.039 --> 00:21:07.990
you put Venus where Mars is Venus has
00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:10.029
this incredibly thick atmosphere with an
00:21:10.039 --> 00:21:12.390
incredibly strong Greenhouse it will
00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:14.310
probably still be habitable it would
00:21:14.320 --> 00:21:16.669
still be warm enough where Mars wouldn't
00:21:16.679 --> 00:21:18.990
so this habitable zone is a much wooler
00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:22.630
concept than I think most people realize
00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:25.230
and it's just not really a guideline
00:21:25.240 --> 00:21:27.269
it's just an indication that this could
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:28.870
be somewhere worth looking at it's not
00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:30.110
more than that but it tends to get
00:21:30.120 --> 00:21:32.990
played up as being the Holy Grail a
00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:35.269
planet is in the habitable zone it must
00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:36.750
therefore have the potential to be
00:21:36.760 --> 00:21:38.630
habitable whereas in fact what you're
00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:40.470
saying is if you put the Earth on the
00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:42.310
orbit that this planet is on it might
00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:44.590
still look like the earth except with
00:21:44.600 --> 00:21:45.750
the planet we're talking about at the
00:21:45.760 --> 00:21:47.830
minute if you put the Earth on that
00:21:47.840 --> 00:21:50.470
orbit at per helium when it was closest
00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:53.029
to the Sun it would receive a flots from
00:21:53.039 --> 00:21:54.750
the Sun as high as Venus does so the
00:21:54.760 --> 00:21:57.190
oceans would start to boil fortunately
00:21:57.200 --> 00:21:59.190
it doesn't spend long at peral
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:00.710
we move quickest when we're closest to
00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:02.669
the object we swing out through the
00:22:02.679 --> 00:22:05.029
habitable zone probably everything's
00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:06.710
fine but you've got Bonkers weather
00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:07.669
because you're dealing with all that
00:22:07.679 --> 00:22:09.789
heat you've just been given then you get
00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:11.870
to your furthest point from the Star and
00:22:11.880 --> 00:22:13.950
that's when you move the slowest so this
00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:15.990
planet spends probably more than 50% of
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:18.590
its time further from its star than the
00:22:18.600 --> 00:22:20.269
outer edge of that habitable zone by
00:22:20.279 --> 00:22:22.950
calculation so those oceans will freeze
00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:24.909
and you get this deep game of thron
00:22:24.919 --> 00:22:26.470
style winter you'd have everybody going
00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:28.789
oh look winter is coming everybody
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:30.830
doomed and then it would swing back into
00:22:30.840 --> 00:22:32.669
the star and have a brief furnace like
00:22:32.679 --> 00:22:35.310
summer and then a long cold winter again
00:22:35.320 --> 00:22:37.470
it doesn't sound particularly Clement
00:22:37.480 --> 00:22:38.750
you add to that though the fact that
00:22:38.760 --> 00:22:40.590
this planet is six times the mass of the
00:22:40.600 --> 00:22:42.990
Earth means it's going to have a very
00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:44.510
substantial atmosphere and I should say
00:22:44.520 --> 00:22:46.830
at least six times the MTH of the earth
00:22:46.840 --> 00:22:48.590
a much thicker atmosphere means a much
00:22:48.600 --> 00:22:51.110
stronger greenhouse effect which means
00:22:51.120 --> 00:22:53.549
the results of that extreme insulation
00:22:53.559 --> 00:22:56.070
the extreme radiation at pericenter when
00:22:56.080 --> 00:22:58.510
it's closest to the star is even more
00:22:58.520 --> 00:23:00.710
pronounced so I don't think it's at all
00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:02.350
fair to say that this planet could be
00:23:02.360 --> 00:23:04.470
potentially habitable and in fact the
00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:06.269
authors of the paper themselves don't
00:23:06.279 --> 00:23:08.669
really say that what they do say is that
00:23:08.679 --> 00:23:10.909
this planet crosses the habitable zone
00:23:10.919 --> 00:23:12.269
and because it's a bit bigger and
00:23:12.279 --> 00:23:14.149
because it has this big variation it
00:23:14.159 --> 00:23:16.269
assistance from the Star and because
00:23:16.279 --> 00:23:18.430
it's around a nearby star could be a
00:23:18.440 --> 00:23:20.870
really good test case for us to practice
00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:22.870
our observation techniques to learn more
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:25.350
about atmospheres of planets this size
00:23:25.360 --> 00:23:27.070
before we really look at ones that could
00:23:27.080 --> 00:23:29.269
be habitable and Earth like
00:23:29.279 --> 00:23:31.789
but this planet certainly isn't it and
00:23:31.799 --> 00:23:33.310
even then there's a whole heap of other
00:23:33.320 --> 00:23:34.909
things that will impact habitability
00:23:34.919 --> 00:23:36.669
which we may or may not have time to go
00:23:36.679 --> 00:23:39.110
into today but the habitable zone really
00:23:39.120 --> 00:23:42.149
is just the first of an incredibly long
00:23:42.159 --> 00:23:44.110
list of variables that you can slide
00:23:44.120 --> 00:23:45.990
around that could influence their
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:48.070
habitability so all it's saying is how
00:23:48.080 --> 00:23:49.430
hot would the Earth be if you put it
00:23:49.440 --> 00:23:52.070
there essentially yeah yeah and at six
00:23:52.080 --> 00:23:54.470
times the size of the Earth at least
00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:56.350
gravity has to be a factor as well
00:23:56.360 --> 00:23:59.269
doesn't it it does I mean if you
00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:01.110
estimated that this thing is twice the
00:24:01.120 --> 00:24:02.830
Earth diameter and we don't know that
00:24:02.840 --> 00:24:05.269
because this thing doesn't Transit its
00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:07.269
star or we've never seen it transited
00:24:07.279 --> 00:24:09.190
that so it orbit is almost certainly not
00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:11.029
Edge on which means its mass is probably
00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:13.390
a bit higher than we say that minimum is
00:24:13.400 --> 00:24:15.269
but it means we have no way of measuring
00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:18.190
the size now at six Earth masses are a
00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:19.630
bit heavier it's near this boundary
00:24:19.640 --> 00:24:22.590
between what we call superar or and inet
00:24:22.600 --> 00:24:24.669
super Earth is a rocky object with a big
00:24:24.679 --> 00:24:27.230
thick atmosphere A Min Neptune is a big
00:24:27.240 --> 00:24:29.149
thick atmosphere with a rocky car so you
00:24:29.159 --> 00:24:30.830
can see how that transitions between
00:24:30.840 --> 00:24:32.909
them but if you estimate for a minute
00:24:32.919 --> 00:24:34.549
that it is a super Earth with a bit of a
00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:36.510
thick atmosphere you could say well
00:24:36.520 --> 00:24:38.110
maybe it's twice the diameter of the
00:24:38.120 --> 00:24:41.110
earth and that would kind of make sense
00:24:41.120 --> 00:24:42.750
density wise that would place it a
00:24:42.760 --> 00:24:44.870
little bit less dense of the Earth but
00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:46.710
that might make sense it's a little bit
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:49.830
cooler for a lot of its orbit even in
00:24:49.840 --> 00:24:52.029
that scenario the acceleration due to
00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:54.110
gravity on its surface will be 50%
00:24:54.120 --> 00:24:55.669
higher than that we have on the Earth
00:24:55.679 --> 00:24:58.070
right now you know so gravity will be
00:24:58.080 --> 00:24:59.950
strong we'd probably all if we were
00:24:59.960 --> 00:25:02.430
there be Squat and dumpy and grumbling
00:25:02.440 --> 00:25:04.230
about how heavy we feel and all the rest
00:25:04.240 --> 00:25:05.950
of it you know I'm heavy enough already
00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:07.510
without giving me
00:25:07.520 --> 00:25:11.830
50 yes no that's a fair point but uh
00:25:11.840 --> 00:25:13.350
yeah these these stories are not
00:25:13.360 --> 00:25:15.590
uncommon now and you make a a very valid
00:25:15.600 --> 00:25:17.269
point that people will just you know
00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:19.430
when the day comes that we've genuinely
00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:21.549
got an earth like planet Earth
00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:24.590
2.0 uh that could Harbor life people to
00:25:24.600 --> 00:25:28.710
go yeah Roo yeah heard it all before and
00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:31.110
it it's dangerous and quite often the
00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:33.070
researchers involved don't have control
00:25:33.080 --> 00:25:35.230
of that story that's one of the reasons
00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:37.430
I love working with websites like the
00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:38.830
conversation where I control the
00:25:38.840 --> 00:25:40.710
narrative when I write articles but it's
00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:42.870
also why I really appreciate our media
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:45.590
team here at unq because they actually
00:25:45.600 --> 00:25:47.070
talked with them when they're writing
00:25:47.080 --> 00:25:49.269
media releases and a lot of the bigger
00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:51.350
universities the media team get a hold
00:25:51.360 --> 00:25:52.710
of the paper and they write their own
00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:54.430
interpretation of it with a couple of
00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:55.830
quotes from the authors but they don't
00:25:55.840 --> 00:25:58.430
let the authors read the release then
00:25:58.440 --> 00:25:59.830
you get journalists who read the media
00:25:59.840 --> 00:26:01.950
releasee and spin it further yeah and
00:26:01.960 --> 00:26:03.590
you end up from an article that says we
00:26:03.600 --> 00:26:05.190
found a planet that is interesting to
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:07.590
being new Earth planet has been found
00:26:07.600 --> 00:26:10.669
life 2. not is there and that's not what
00:26:10.679 --> 00:26:13.350
anybody actually said no but it's a good
00:26:13.360 --> 00:26:14.750
way to get hits and links to your
00:26:14.760 --> 00:26:18.310
University's website exactly yeah okay
00:26:18.320 --> 00:26:20.350
uh if you'd like to read up on that uh
00:26:20.360 --> 00:26:22.389
the genuine article I'm talking about uh
00:26:22.399 --> 00:26:24.789
you can find it in the journal astronomy
00:26:24.799 --> 00:26:25.710
and
00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:27.870
astrophysics if you feel better now that
00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:30.149
you've got that off your chest joh oh
00:26:30.159 --> 00:26:32.110
this is a Perpetual rant of man I
00:26:32.120 --> 00:26:34.750
actually did with my former Mentor Barry
00:26:34.760 --> 00:26:36.830
Jones who passed away about a decade ago
00:26:36.840 --> 00:26:39.710
now um we wrote my first ever review
00:26:39.720 --> 00:26:41.830
paper back in 2010 where I dag it dug
00:26:41.840 --> 00:26:44.029
into this so it always used to bug me
00:26:44.039 --> 00:26:45.990
that it was just is in the habitable
00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:48.350
zone right that's job done and so we
00:26:48.360 --> 00:26:49.990
wrote this paper where we looked at all
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:51.590
of the other things people have proposed
00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:53.230
that could make a planet more habitable
00:26:53.240 --> 00:26:55.669
or less habitable more suitable and for
00:26:55.679 --> 00:26:58.630
me the thing here is when we get get to
00:26:58.640 --> 00:27:00.669
do observations to look for life on
00:27:00.679 --> 00:27:02.350
these planets which is still a bit
00:27:02.360 --> 00:27:04.149
beyond us but we're getting towards that
00:27:04.159 --> 00:27:06.630
point those observations are going to be
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:08.510
the hardest observations Humanity's ever
00:27:08.520 --> 00:27:10.590
had to carry out you're talking hundreds
00:27:10.600 --> 00:27:12.269
or thousands of hours on the biggest
00:27:12.279 --> 00:27:15.710
space telescopes really competitive time
00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:16.830
you're not going to be able to look at
00:27:16.840 --> 00:27:18.149
them all so you're going to have to find
00:27:18.159 --> 00:27:20.149
a way to pick the best Target you're
00:27:20.159 --> 00:27:21.350
going to have to find a way to whittle
00:27:21.360 --> 00:27:22.870
down a list of hundreds or thousands
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:25.230
into the best two or three and you can't
00:27:25.240 --> 00:27:26.870
just use the habitables on that so I
00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:28.549
thought let's look at all the things
00:27:28.559 --> 00:27:30.909
that can impact habitability to see if
00:27:30.919 --> 00:27:32.549
you can turn them almost into the volume
00:27:32.559 --> 00:27:35.430
sliders on the mixing desk of the DJ
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:36.710
right you can turn them up turn them
00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:39.510
down and see which planet gets the best
00:27:39.520 --> 00:27:41.230
score overall when you factor all of
00:27:41.240 --> 00:27:43.149
them in and some of them are things we
00:27:43.159 --> 00:27:44.590
can't yet observe some of them are
00:27:44.600 --> 00:27:46.269
things you might have to model with
00:27:46.279 --> 00:27:48.950
computer modeling like I do but it can
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:50.350
be everything from the nature of the
00:27:50.360 --> 00:27:53.110
star itself how variable it is all the
00:27:53.120 --> 00:27:54.750
way through to the other planets in the
00:27:54.760 --> 00:27:56.470
system what their gravity does how much
00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:58.750
debris there is and even down to the
00:27:58.760 --> 00:28:00.269
planet itself whether it has PL
00:28:00.279 --> 00:28:02.110
tectonics whether it has magnetic field
00:28:02.120 --> 00:28:04.389
all of these things will factor in it's
00:28:04.399 --> 00:28:06.389
not just as simple as where do you play
00:28:06.399 --> 00:28:09.830
it is it in the right spot no valid
00:28:09.840 --> 00:28:12.669
point all right uh yeah as I said you
00:28:12.679 --> 00:28:14.310
can uh chase that story up about
00:28:14.320 --> 00:28:16.630
astronomy and astrophysics uh you could
00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:18.190
probably find it just about anywhere
00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:20.310
online uh there's an article on
00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:23.190
space.com as well this is Space Nuts
00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:29.070
with Andrew Dunley and joty Horner
00:28:29.080 --> 00:28:31.870
and I feel fine Space Nuts right our
00:28:31.880 --> 00:28:36.070
next story uh which we've uh done before
00:28:36.080 --> 00:28:39.190
we did it a week ago uh about uh the
00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:42.909
comet 2024 yr4 I happen to be playing
00:28:42.919 --> 00:28:46.190
our podcast in the car I always like to
00:28:46.200 --> 00:28:48.310
listen to it just to see how it sounds
00:28:48.320 --> 00:28:50.509
and you know decide whether or not I'm
00:28:50.519 --> 00:28:53.350
doing a good job or not did it in radio
00:28:53.360 --> 00:28:55.630
do it with the podcast but I I was
00:28:55.640 --> 00:28:57.830
picking up our grandchildren from school
00:28:57.840 --> 00:29:03.230
and and uh Nathaniel who um is 10 years
00:29:03.240 --> 00:29:05.990
old um he was listening and he said to
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:09.870
me is it comat going to hit Earth and I
00:29:09.880 --> 00:29:12.110
had to kind of explain to him what was
00:29:12.120 --> 00:29:14.310
going on without alarming
00:29:14.320 --> 00:29:17.389
him uh and now an update on the story
00:29:17.399 --> 00:29:20.789
last week we were saying um there was a
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:24.549
70 to 77% chance of this thing um
00:29:24.559 --> 00:29:26.789
hitting the atmosphere in
00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:29.590
20327 so
00:29:29.600 --> 00:29:32.350
sorry yeah see that's that was a popular
00:29:32.360 --> 00:29:35.070
press comment one in S7 but now that
00:29:35.080 --> 00:29:38.470
number's dropped as at now but that
00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:41.269
could change again absolutely so as of
00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:43.070
today so when I sent you notes through
00:29:43.080 --> 00:29:46.190
yesterday it was at 1 in 43 he now
00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:48.389
falling back to 1 in 48 this number is
00:29:48.399 --> 00:29:51.070
changing every day and what we will see
00:29:51.080 --> 00:29:52.830
and what we'll continue to see is most
00:29:52.840 --> 00:29:56.789
likely those odds of an impact gradually
00:29:56.799 --> 00:29:59.269
increasing and until eventually they
00:29:59.279 --> 00:30:02.269
most likely drop to zero and the reason
00:30:02.279 --> 00:30:03.269
for that is we're getting more
00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:05.389
observations with every day that passes
00:30:05.399 --> 00:30:06.990
and so with every day that passes we get
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:10.029
a refined estimate of the orbit of this
00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:13.070
thing that then means that the exact
00:30:13.080 --> 00:30:15.149
location of the object on 22nd of
00:30:15.159 --> 00:30:18.750
December 2032 has a smaller uncertainty
00:30:18.760 --> 00:30:21.149
so that big area of space that we think
00:30:21.159 --> 00:30:22.950
it will be in with each day's
00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:25.669
observations get smaller and smaller now
00:30:25.679 --> 00:30:27.590
if the Earth is still in that area of
00:30:27.600 --> 00:30:28.590
space
00:30:28.600 --> 00:30:30.350
the Earth is a bigger fraction of that
00:30:30.360 --> 00:30:32.669
total volume of space and so the
00:30:32.679 --> 00:30:34.710
probability of impact is going up
00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:36.029
because we're a bigger fraction of the
00:30:36.039 --> 00:30:38.149
total area that thing could be in but at
00:30:38.159 --> 00:30:40.070
some point as that volume of space
00:30:40.080 --> 00:30:42.350
shrinks down the Earth could fall out of
00:30:42.360 --> 00:30:44.029
it and at that point the probability
00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:46.549
immediately drops to zero so it isn't a
00:30:46.559 --> 00:30:48.789
reason to panic at all this is exactly
00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:51.750
the behavior you would expect to see but
00:30:51.760 --> 00:30:53.630
that probability will continue to change
00:30:53.640 --> 00:30:55.470
day by day wouldn't surprise me if it
00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:58.470
keeps getting higher now this asid we're
00:30:58.480 --> 00:31:00.389
probably going to lose Tru of in about
00:31:00.399 --> 00:31:02.310
April a little bit too far away to
00:31:02.320 --> 00:31:04.750
observe then we won't see it again till
00:31:04.760 --> 00:31:07.029
2028 people are digging back through
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:11.350
archival observations from 2016 2012
00:31:11.360 --> 00:31:13.549
2008 because this thing comes roughly
00:31:13.559 --> 00:31:16.029
near the Earth every four years or so if
00:31:16.039 --> 00:31:18.909
we find it by chance on one photograph
00:31:18.919 --> 00:31:21.230
from one of those previous years this
00:31:21.240 --> 00:31:22.909
probability will change dramatically and
00:31:22.919 --> 00:31:24.389
will'll probably drop to zero straight
00:31:24.399 --> 00:31:27.310
away if not we'll have to wait till 2028
00:31:27.320 --> 00:31:28.950
and until then then we'll see this
00:31:28.960 --> 00:31:31.350
continual slight wobbling around as each
00:31:31.360 --> 00:31:33.230
day's observations coming and it gets
00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:36.230
recalculated so fundamentally nothing
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:38.110
has changed this things still pose as a
00:31:38.120 --> 00:31:40.029
threat do not panic even if it were to
00:31:40.039 --> 00:31:41.430
hit us it's not really going to cause a
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:43.750
problem anyway to be brutally honest but
00:31:43.760 --> 00:31:46.389
it is fascinating to watch this happen
00:31:46.399 --> 00:31:48.990
and to see that evolution in real
00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:51.430
time absolutely yeah I think I said
00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:54.710
Comet I meant asteroid but um yeah 2024
00:31:54.720 --> 00:31:58.149
y4 if you do a search on Google whatever
00:31:58.159 --> 00:31:59.590
your favorite search engine is you'll
00:31:59.600 --> 00:32:01.029
find plenty of
00:32:01.039 --> 00:32:04.190
information and you I I would advise
00:32:04.200 --> 00:32:06.549
filtering the popular press comments
00:32:06.559 --> 00:32:09.029
because that they uh they've been going
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:11.350
hammer and tongs on this one absolutely
00:32:11.360 --> 00:32:14.470
um but yeah it like like Johny said on
00:32:14.480 --> 00:32:16.909
the previous story uh it's clickbait
00:32:16.919 --> 00:32:18.830
isn't it um that's something that's
00:32:18.840 --> 00:32:21.549
really it but I I did reassure my
00:32:21.559 --> 00:32:23.430
grandson because as soon as I finished
00:32:23.440 --> 00:32:25.590
explaining it he wanted to talk about
00:32:25.600 --> 00:32:28.190
Pokemon so I think I was sucess in
00:32:28.200 --> 00:32:31.269
deflecting him there uh to our final
00:32:31.279 --> 00:32:34.149
story jonty and this one is about stuff
00:32:34.159 --> 00:32:36.470
that's hitting the atmosphere we're
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:39.669
talking specifically about the um
00:32:39.679 --> 00:32:43.430
turnover of SpaceX satellites uh they've
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:47.230
been starting to rain down on Earth uh
00:32:47.240 --> 00:32:49.029
fairly regularly in fact uh the Space
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:52.430
Nuts podcast group on Facebook uh has
00:32:52.440 --> 00:32:55.149
been um discussing this they they put an
00:32:55.159 --> 00:32:57.990
article on there that the the listeners
00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:01.389
were discussing and some some were quite
00:33:01.399 --> 00:33:03.389
surprised by the kinds of numbers we're
00:33:03.399 --> 00:33:05.310
talking about but this is just going to
00:33:05.320 --> 00:33:07.950
get more and more significant as time
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:09.430
goes on because they haven't finished
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:10.710
deploying their
00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:13.110
entire uh Fleet or whatever you want to
00:33:13.120 --> 00:33:16.870
call them of SpaceX satellites yeah this
00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:19.350
is yet another multifaceted story so I
00:33:19.360 --> 00:33:21.789
know a lot of people who get very
00:33:21.799 --> 00:33:23.350
passionate in their defense of SpaceX
00:33:23.360 --> 00:33:25.230
and the AL musk and many others who have
00:33:25.240 --> 00:33:26.710
very negative views of them and I was
00:33:26.720 --> 00:33:28.909
try and be somewhere in the middle big
00:33:28.919 --> 00:33:30.990
sack it's like in literature if you ever
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:34.070
read a book very few people are purely
00:33:34.080 --> 00:33:35.470
evil or purely good everybody's
00:33:35.480 --> 00:33:37.269
somewhere in the middle unless it's a
00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:40.070
bad book and it's the same with things
00:33:40.080 --> 00:33:41.470
like this there's a lot of good about
00:33:41.480 --> 00:33:43.789
this and a lot of bad about it now Spex
00:33:43.799 --> 00:33:46.549
are putting up their St satellites to
00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:49.909
deliver internet access which is a great
00:33:49.919 --> 00:33:51.269
benefit to people in the regions you
00:33:51.279 --> 00:33:53.669
know and I've heard plenty of stories of
00:33:53.679 --> 00:33:55.190
people who are living remotely in
00:33:55.200 --> 00:33:56.789
Australia who can't get a good internet
00:33:56.799 --> 00:33:58.110
connection and styling has been
00:33:58.120 --> 00:34:00.590
revolutionary to them yeah and and
00:34:00.600 --> 00:34:03.830
cruise ships use styling AB because
00:34:03.840 --> 00:34:05.750
they're always they're in remote areas a
00:34:05.760 --> 00:34:08.829
lot yeah it is a really incredible
00:34:08.839 --> 00:34:10.310
technological development on the other
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:11.710
hand you've got all the concerns about
00:34:11.720 --> 00:34:13.629
the light pollution from these
00:34:13.639 --> 00:34:16.030
things and the fact that they launch
00:34:16.040 --> 00:34:17.669
them without anybody really being able
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:21.669
to regulate it or say boot about it it
00:34:21.679 --> 00:34:23.790
it's a multifaceted problem and there's
00:34:23.800 --> 00:34:26.230
good things and bad things about it in
00:34:26.240 --> 00:34:28.790
much the same way this story is both a
00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:30.710
good and bad story you've got all these
00:34:30.720 --> 00:34:33.669
satellites up there and they have finite
00:34:33.679 --> 00:34:36.710
lifetimes they are low down because you
00:34:36.720 --> 00:34:38.470
need them to be in low earth orbit in
00:34:38.480 --> 00:34:39.990
order to get good latency if you put
00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:42.149
these at G stationary orbit you've got
00:34:42.159 --> 00:34:43.790
the light travel time there and Back
00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:46.270
Again you've got a long way to go and
00:34:46.280 --> 00:34:48.270
that puts a significant ping which means
00:34:48.280 --> 00:34:50.389
for the people playing twitch games and
00:34:50.399 --> 00:34:52.790
firstperson shooter games they complain
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:55.750
and Suk um but everybody wants a faster
00:34:55.760 --> 00:34:57.030
internet connection with the lowest
00:34:57.040 --> 00:34:58.710
latency possible so these things are in
00:34:58.720 --> 00:35:00.910
low earth orbit which means that they
00:35:00.920 --> 00:35:03.230
are moving through a significant chunk
00:35:03.240 --> 00:35:04.510
of the Earth's atmosphere the Earth's
00:35:04.520 --> 00:35:05.990
atmosphere doesn't just stop it just
00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:07.390
gets thinner and thinner and thinner the
00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:09.390
further you go away technically the
00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:10.790
Moon's still encountering bits of the
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:12.069
Earth's atmosphere it should by that
00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:13.750
point it's still thinnest to be
00:35:13.760 --> 00:35:15.430
irrelevant but at the altitude of these
00:35:15.440 --> 00:35:17.870
siling satellites they are actually
00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:20.870
traveling into a headwind so without
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:22.230
something to bump them up they would
00:35:22.240 --> 00:35:24.150
eventually come down naturally anyway
00:35:24.160 --> 00:35:27.829
but also they are a fixed term thing
00:35:27.839 --> 00:35:30.030
they typically I think thinking about an
00:35:30.040 --> 00:35:31.470
individual satellite having about a
00:35:31.480 --> 00:35:34.270
fiveyear lifetime yeah now it's about
00:35:34.280 --> 00:35:35.950
five years since the Starlet Sates
00:35:35.960 --> 00:35:37.470
started getting launched which means the
00:35:37.480 --> 00:35:40.109
very first generation of them are now in
00:35:40.119 --> 00:35:41.670
their retirement
00:35:41.680 --> 00:35:45.270
phase what is really good about this is
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:48.630
that SpaceX and starlink are being very
00:35:48.640 --> 00:35:50.990
aggressive in the retirement in that
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:52.589
they are controlling these things and
00:35:52.599 --> 00:35:54.069
deliberately putting them back in the
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:55.710
atmosphere to burn up in a controlled
00:35:55.720 --> 00:35:57.750
fashion so they're controlling where
00:35:57.760 --> 00:35:59.109
they drop them into the atmosphere to
00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:01.990
minimize the risk to air travel and the
00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:03.630
risk of them dropping on a city and
00:36:03.640 --> 00:36:06.230
things like this and that is really good
00:36:06.240 --> 00:36:07.710
governance it's really important to say
00:36:07.720 --> 00:36:09.910
that there's a lot of stuff up there
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:11.710
that will come down of its own accord at
00:36:11.720 --> 00:36:14.550
its own time with no control over it and
00:36:14.560 --> 00:36:16.630
that's a risk and people are talking
00:36:16.640 --> 00:36:17.990
about the fact that there's probably as
00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:20.790
high as a 26% chance that in a given
00:36:20.800 --> 00:36:23.349
year from now on Space Dey will fall
00:36:23.359 --> 00:36:25.510
through a populated
00:36:25.520 --> 00:36:27.870
airspace which is problematic there's
00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:29.670
even studies saying there's a one in 10
00:36:29.680 --> 00:36:31.589
chance that within the next decade
00:36:31.599 --> 00:36:33.430
somebody will die as a result of Spar
00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:36.870
Dey hitting them so that's a concern and
00:36:36.880 --> 00:36:38.950
by deliberately deorbiting these things
00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:40.230
in a controlled fashion they're
00:36:40.240 --> 00:36:42.030
mitigating those risks they're putting
00:36:42.040 --> 00:36:44.510
things down in a safe fashion but
00:36:44.520 --> 00:36:45.910
because of how many satellites they're
00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:47.710
putting up there that means we've got an
00:36:47.720 --> 00:36:49.390
increasing number of them coming back
00:36:49.400 --> 00:36:52.510
down there are currently 7,000 stying
00:36:52.520 --> 00:36:54.710
satellites up there the goal is to get
00:36:54.720 --> 00:36:58.270
up to 42,000 that is their sta there so
00:36:58.280 --> 00:37:01.950
that's of more yeah that's just Starling
00:37:01.960 --> 00:37:04.670
because there are many others there are
00:37:04.680 --> 00:37:06.589
if you look at all of the proposed Mega
00:37:06.599 --> 00:37:08.309
constellations I think the current
00:37:08.319 --> 00:37:10.030
number is that there could be as many as
00:37:10.040 --> 00:37:12.589
550,000 satellites in orbit within a
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:14.790
decade which makes me as an amateur
00:37:14.800 --> 00:37:16.670
astronomer the kind of P me that does
00:37:16.680 --> 00:37:18.309
out and observes mete shs and stuff just
00:37:18.319 --> 00:37:20.430
makes me weak because we'll lose the
00:37:20.440 --> 00:37:22.790
night sky to such a degree but that
00:37:22.800 --> 00:37:25.069
that's a slightly separate thing with
00:37:25.079 --> 00:37:26.950
7,000 up there at the minute the
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:28.670
retirements of those first gen ones are
00:37:28.680 --> 00:37:30.190
now coming at a rate of four or five
00:37:30.200 --> 00:37:33.109
satellites per day so that means four or
00:37:33.119 --> 00:37:34.829
five satellites are burning up somewhere
00:37:34.839 --> 00:37:37.990
over the Earth every single day of the
00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:39.069
calendar
00:37:39.079 --> 00:37:41.190
year that's only going to go up because
00:37:41.200 --> 00:37:42.589
if you increase the number of satellites
00:37:42.599 --> 00:37:45.109
up there by a factor of six times then
00:37:45.119 --> 00:37:46.150
you'll increase that number of
00:37:46.160 --> 00:37:48.270
re-entries per day by factor of six
00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:50.710
times so within five years we could well
00:37:50.720 --> 00:37:53.870
be looking at something nearer to 25 or
00:37:53.880 --> 00:37:55.670
even 30 satellites per day coming back
00:37:55.680 --> 00:37:57.910
into the atmosphere now the are coming
00:37:57.920 --> 00:38:00.030
in in a controlled fashion so they're
00:38:00.040 --> 00:38:01.990
trying to drop them in the atmosphere
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:03.349
away from things that would be
00:38:03.359 --> 00:38:05.510
threatened by lumps of metal hitting the
00:38:05.520 --> 00:38:08.109
ice atmosphere essentially yeah but
00:38:08.119 --> 00:38:09.829
there is now a growing concern about the
00:38:09.839 --> 00:38:12.990
pollution side of this that's the I was
00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:15.309
getting yeah that's the that's the big
00:38:15.319 --> 00:38:17.390
if isn't it and it's a difficult one
00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:18.750
because it's not an experiment that's
00:38:18.760 --> 00:38:20.710
ever been done before things have
00:38:20.720 --> 00:38:22.870
re-entered um but in the past we've not
00:38:22.880 --> 00:38:24.510
been putting much up in space so it's
00:38:24.520 --> 00:38:26.829
been a very rare thing a little bit of
00:38:26.839 --> 00:38:28.230
extra material dumped into the
00:38:28.240 --> 00:38:30.750
atmosphere a tiny amount compared to the
00:38:30.760 --> 00:38:32.069
amount that comes in natural through
00:38:32.079 --> 00:38:33.550
metas and
00:38:33.560 --> 00:38:35.790
meteorites um stuff hitting the S
00:38:35.800 --> 00:38:36.950
atmosphere naturally but we're now
00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:38.430
getting to a stage where this is a
00:38:38.440 --> 00:38:40.990
significant amount of material entering
00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:42.470
the S atmosphere each of these
00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:44.230
generation one satellites is several
00:38:44.240 --> 00:38:47.270
hundred kilos of material so when you've
00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:48.910
got five of them coming in a day that's
00:38:48.920 --> 00:38:51.470
a couple of tons of material being a
00:38:51.480 --> 00:38:53.950
bled and added to the atmosphere mainly
00:38:53.960 --> 00:38:55.270
in the form of heavy
00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:58.109
metals there is a fact that I've pulled
00:38:58.119 --> 00:38:59.630
out of an interesting article India
00:38:59.640 --> 00:39:01.349
Today of all places have got a fairly
00:39:01.359 --> 00:39:03.630
good article about this and one thing
00:39:03.640 --> 00:39:05.990
they point out is that each individual
00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:07.670
one of these generation one St
00:39:07.680 --> 00:39:09.150
satellites when it burns up in the
00:39:09.160 --> 00:39:11.670
atmosphere when it a blades deposits
00:39:11.680 --> 00:39:15.470
about 30 kilos of aluminium oxide into
00:39:15.480 --> 00:39:16.990
the upper atmosphere about where the
00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:19.550
ozone layer is now that's a problem
00:39:19.560 --> 00:39:21.790
because aluminium oxide is a compound
00:39:21.800 --> 00:39:24.069
that is known to be very devastating to
00:39:24.079 --> 00:39:26.710
the ozone layer it's a real problem now
00:39:26.720 --> 00:39:29.510
if each s is dumping 30 kg into the
00:39:29.520 --> 00:39:31.550
atmosphere that has the potential to
00:39:31.560 --> 00:39:34.190
destroy a large amount of ozone if
00:39:34.200 --> 00:39:35.990
you're suddenly dumping five of them in
00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:40.190
per day that's 150 kilos per day if you
00:39:40.200 --> 00:39:43.390
go up to the 25 obviously that goes up
00:39:43.400 --> 00:39:46.550
again from 150 kilos to what 5 time 150
00:39:46.560 --> 00:39:47.309
is
00:39:47.319 --> 00:39:51.109
750 nil your ton of aluminium oxide per
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:53.589
day something that can damage the oone L
00:39:53.599 --> 00:39:55.390
and we've only just got out of the time
00:39:55.400 --> 00:39:56.790
where we did an incredible job of
00:39:56.800 --> 00:39:58.990
preventing is killing the ozone layer
00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:01.550
yeah we're about to start it again
00:40:01.560 --> 00:40:03.510
people have tried to do some
00:40:03.520 --> 00:40:05.349
computational studies of the effects of
00:40:05.359 --> 00:40:06.790
adding all this metal to the upper
00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:08.790
atmosphere and nobody really knows
00:40:08.800 --> 00:40:10.630
what's going to happen some Studies have
00:40:10.640 --> 00:40:13.349
said that it could accidentally help to
00:40:13.359 --> 00:40:14.990
slightly mitigate climate change but it
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:16.589
might increase the albo of the a
00:40:16.599 --> 00:40:18.150
atmosphere it might cause more clouds to
00:40:18.160 --> 00:40:20.190
form so it could reflect a bit more
00:40:20.200 --> 00:40:22.430
sunlight or could be good but other
00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:24.069
Studies have suggested the opposite that
00:40:24.079 --> 00:40:25.270
it could actually lower the amount of
00:40:25.280 --> 00:40:27.790
clouds we've got and also a bit more
00:40:27.800 --> 00:40:30.349
Greenhouse nastiness to the mix so it
00:40:30.359 --> 00:40:31.790
could have an impact on our climate we
00:40:31.800 --> 00:40:33.230
don't know which way it'll go it could
00:40:33.240 --> 00:40:35.710
have an impact on the ozone layer we
00:40:35.720 --> 00:40:37.309
just don't know yet and so what's
00:40:37.319 --> 00:40:39.790
happening with this is we're effectively
00:40:39.800 --> 00:40:41.349
running a science experiment like the
00:40:41.359 --> 00:40:42.790
ones you do in the lab the ones you do
00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:45.430
at school without ever done it without
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:47.589
ever having done it before and we're
00:40:47.599 --> 00:40:49.430
running it on the planet that is our own
00:40:49.440 --> 00:40:52.470
home so I guess it's a bit like you know
00:40:52.480 --> 00:40:54.390
you've got two unruly toddlers running
00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:57.349
around with um insects cray like the
00:40:57.359 --> 00:40:58.510
stuff you've got to get rid of the
00:40:58.520 --> 00:41:01.069
mosquitoes yeah running around emptying
00:41:01.079 --> 00:41:02.670
can after can of that in your house and
00:41:02.680 --> 00:41:03.950
you're just saying yeah well let's do it
00:41:03.960 --> 00:41:05.270
what's the worst that can happen and you
00:41:05.280 --> 00:41:09.230
just don't know yeah uh 42,000
00:41:09.240 --> 00:41:10.750
satellites when they're ultimately all
00:41:10.760 --> 00:41:12.470
up there coming back down into the
00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:16.109
atmosphere we'll deposit 1.26 million
00:41:16.119 --> 00:41:19.950
kilograms of aluminium oxide so and
00:41:19.960 --> 00:41:21.950
that's going to be continuous because
00:41:21.960 --> 00:41:23.870
they it's not just
00:41:23.880 --> 00:41:26.109
42,000 as they come down they'll replace
00:41:26.119 --> 00:41:29.069
them and add more to get to their full
00:41:29.079 --> 00:41:32.349
structure so it'll be an ongoing thing
00:41:32.359 --> 00:41:34.349
multiplied by however many
00:41:34.359 --> 00:41:36.309
constellations are created to do the
00:41:36.319 --> 00:41:38.710
same thing so but it isn't also like
00:41:38.720 --> 00:41:40.430
that is easily recoverable that's a lot
00:41:40.440 --> 00:41:43.069
of resources that we're just losing yeah
00:41:43.079 --> 00:41:46.030
exactly um now I could imagine a much
00:41:46.040 --> 00:41:47.910
further future where instead of things
00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:50.550
being retired by deorbiting them you
00:41:50.560 --> 00:41:52.430
retire them by boosting them to kind of
00:41:52.440 --> 00:41:54.230
graveyard orbits and have something
00:41:54.240 --> 00:41:55.870
there collecting them and melting them
00:41:55.880 --> 00:41:58.109
down for the materials H but that's why
00:41:58.119 --> 00:41:59.430
in the future because that will be a lot
00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:01.470
more expensive it's cheaper at the
00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:03.550
minute to just throw them away I mean we
00:42:03.560 --> 00:42:05.309
see with recycling efforts that there's
00:42:05.319 --> 00:42:07.910
not much motivation to recycle when
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:10.710
making things from new products is still
00:42:10.720 --> 00:42:13.230
cheaper yeah well if I could solve the
00:42:13.240 --> 00:42:16.270
latency problem that would maybe help
00:42:16.280 --> 00:42:18.550
cure it as well but how do you do that
00:42:18.560 --> 00:42:20.670
relay stations on Earth I don't know I
00:42:20.680 --> 00:42:23.150
don't know but uh yeah that that's a
00:42:23.160 --> 00:42:25.030
really fascinating story I know Fred and
00:42:25.040 --> 00:42:26.349
I have talked about it before but it's
00:42:26.359 --> 00:42:28.349
worth revisiting and uh yeah the
00:42:28.359 --> 00:42:31.470
information just keeps evolving over
00:42:31.480 --> 00:42:34.990
time and we're not nearly at capacity
00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:36.630
yet with these constellations if you'd
00:42:36.640 --> 00:42:39.349
like to read it uh as jonty said it's uh
00:42:39.359 --> 00:42:42.190
on the website
00:42:42.200 --> 00:42:44.549
indiatoday.in that brings us to the end
00:42:44.559 --> 00:42:45.910
of the show don't forget to visit our
00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:48.030
website or our social media sites plenty
00:42:48.040 --> 00:42:50.710
of things to see and do there uh if you
00:42:50.720 --> 00:42:52.030
have any thoughts on any of the things
00:42:52.040 --> 00:42:54.230
we've discussed by all means uh send us
00:42:54.240 --> 00:42:56.150
a message via our website just there's a
00:42:56.160 --> 00:42:59.630
little button up top of our homepage um
00:42:59.640 --> 00:43:02.069
AMA where you can send us messages and
00:43:02.079 --> 00:43:04.349
audio questions or whatever you like
00:43:04.359 --> 00:43:05.829
Space Nuts
00:43:05.839 --> 00:43:09.950
podcast.com or SPAC nuts. is the place
00:43:09.960 --> 00:43:12.750
to go John D thank you so much we're at
00:43:12.760 --> 00:43:14.150
the end we'll catch up with you real
00:43:14.160 --> 00:43:16.390
soon it's absolute pleasure thank you
00:43:16.400 --> 00:43:18.670
for having me uh Johny Horner professor
00:43:18.680 --> 00:43:20.349
of astrophysics at the University of
00:43:20.359 --> 00:43:22.069
Southern Queensland thanks to Hugh in
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:25.309
the studio who um well he he couldn't be
00:43:25.319 --> 00:43:27.870
with us today cuz he got hit by a piece
00:43:27.880 --> 00:43:29.630
of SpaceX
00:43:29.640 --> 00:43:33.150
satellite uh no no he didn't maybe he
00:43:33.160 --> 00:43:34.390
did I don't know I've been seen it for
00:43:34.400 --> 00:43:36.390
ages and from me Andrew Dunley thanks
00:43:36.400 --> 00:43:37.750
very much for your company we'll catch
00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:40.349
you on the next episode of Space Nuts
00:43:40.359 --> 00:43:42.950
bye for now Space Nuts you'll be
00:43:42.960 --> 00:43:45.829
listening to the Space Nuts
00:43:45.839 --> 00:43:48.910
podcast available at Apple podcasts
00:43:48.920 --> 00:43:51.910
Spotify ihart radio or your favorite
00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:54.150
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00:43:54.160 --> 00:43:56.790
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00:43:56.800 --> 00:43:58.990
another a quality podcast production
00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:02.280
from ds.com