#388: Galacticide

WEBVTT

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Hi there, Thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts. My name

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is Andrew Dunkley, your host,
and glad you could join us once again.

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Coming up on today's program, we
are going to be looking literally at

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the oldest black hole yet scene.
It's not only the oldest, it is

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big, in fact huge, and
it's very, very hungry. We'll also

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be looking at an asteroid impact on
Earth. Yes it happened. Why are

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we still here? Fred will explain, And the mars kopter has run into

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some communications issues. We'll cover all
that, plus audience questions at a bit

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of homework coming up on this edition
of Space Nuts fifteen second guidance in channel

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ten nine ignition sequence Space Nuts NY
four three two more review ones Space Nuts

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as the night record it Bill's goods
and joining us to hash out all of

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that and much much more is Professor
Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large. Hello

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Fred, Andrew, what a surprise
to see you there. I was expecting

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someone else, but it was you, So I'm very happy about that.

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Yeah, just as well, isn't
it? Really? Nobody else would put

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up, would put up with our
respectives for a terrible bunter. Anyway,

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I'm here and I'm glad you're there
and all is well. It's going to

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be hot day for you, I
think the West. Yeah, we're getting

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some really big numbers at the moment, thirty nine today, forty tomorrow,

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forty for Australia Day Friday, and
then we might get a brief respite into

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the weekend proper. But yes,
stinking hot. I imagine it's also going

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to be very windy on Australia Day, so I imagine we'll have fire weather

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warnings and all sorts of stuff.
Dogs and cats living together, that's my

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favorite line. But yeah, it's
all. It's all a bit hellish around

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here at the moment. I think
I'd be better off pitching a tent on

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the sun. At this point in
time, Western, it's getting back to

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a normal Western. Some of the
last couple have been quite mild, so

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this one. The last summer we
only had one day over forty degrees,

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and this season we've had I think
this is probably the sixth or seventh,

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so it's it's been very hot summer. Now let's get down to business.

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The James Webb Space telescope has been
added again and Fred and this time it

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spied the oldest black hole yet seen, and it is a monster and it

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is committing astronomical suicide by destroying its
own galaxy. By the sound of it,

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it's a very interesting story. Galacticide. I guess it would be,

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wouldn't it. That's what it would
be. Part arttery side is when you

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kill your dad galactoside. Yeah,
that's I think we've just invented something there.

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It is a good word. Yeah, I'll just write it down so

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I don't forget it. Yeah,
do that? Do that? Yeah,

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there you go here you uniting galaxy. Remember where you've heard it first,

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folks, So yes. So observations
are led by from a team of international

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astronomers led by scientists at the University
of Cambridge in the UK, and they

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used the James Web telescope to look
at some very early galaxies and by that

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I mean with a very long look
back time. So you're looking back to

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not very long after the birth of
the universe. When we're talking now about

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time probably about four hundred million years
after the Big Bang. So the Big

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Bangs are currently estimated to be thirteen
point eight billion years ago, so this

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goes back thirteen point four billion years. These observations and yes, what has

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been discovered is a massive factor super
massive black hole at the center of this

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galaxy. And by that they I
don't think they've got a particularly precise number

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for it yet because it's so far
away, but it is a few million

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times the mass of the Sun,
and that puts it very much in the

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super massive region. And basically what
it does throws another upset into our understanding

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of how galaxies and black holes form
and grow. So, just to recap,

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black holes seem to come in two
sorts, the stellar mass black holes

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the mass typically of a star,
a large star, but maybe twenty twenty

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times the mass of the Sun,
and super massive black holes, which are

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millions to billions of times the mass
of the Sun, with very little between

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the intermediate mass black holes which are
thought to exist, and in fact some

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might be looking in the insides of
what we call globular clusters of stars,

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but they're still very much more elusive
than either the stellar mass black holes or

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the super massive black holes. So
how does supermassive black holes get so big?

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The thinking has always been that they
start off with stellar mass size,

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you know, modest sized black holes, just a few, maybe tens or

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even hundreds of times the mass of
the Sun, and they grow over time

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by accreting other materials. So if
you've got one in the center of a

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youthful galaxy, there's a lot of
gas in there. That gas can be

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sucked in to the black hole.
That's the accretion process and causes its mass

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to increase. But the problem is
that is thought to be a process that

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takes billions of years. So you
start off with something small and it grows

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to a super mass black hole over
a period of as I've said, billions

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of years, and this is only
four hundred million years after the Big Bang,

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and so you know, it's essentially
thrown the cut among the pigeons.

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It's saying, well, how can
we get a black hole this size so

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early in the universe. And the
two ways that are being postulated are,

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first of all, maybe black holes, super massive black holes form in other

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ways, excuse me. They might
come into being as a supermassive black hole

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rather than come into being as a
stellar mass black hole and then grow,

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or they can gobble up material the
surroundings. In other words, they can

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accrete, to use the technical term, much more rapidly than was thought to

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be the case, and they're estimating
it would have to be about five times

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the rate of gobbling up that we've
been you know, the astronomers have been

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working with so far. The number
that comes from studies of how we think

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black holes accrete material and grow.
So that's the current states. We've got

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this conundrum, a black hole that
should have taken more than a billion years

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to grow to the size that it
has, but it's done it in four

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hundred million years, and so it's
it is a puzzle. Well yeah,

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and in doing what it's doing,
it's also destroying everything around it, but

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it seems to be doing it in
an unusual way. There's this reference to

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an ultra fast wind that's been caused
by this process, and that's what's destroying

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the galaxy. Rather than eating the
galaxy, it's actually destroying it's for one

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of a better term food source that
just sounds really yeah, it does,

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doesn't it. And so the wind
itself, I mean normally things that come

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out of black holes, and don't
they don't come out of the black hole

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itself, they come out of the
accretion disc Normally, the pattern is that

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you've got a black hole, it
builds a kind of disk of material around

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it which is gradually swirling into the
black hole, and that's how it's gobbling

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up. And some of that material
doesn't go into the black hole. It's

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diverted by magnetic fields into what we
call polar jets, jets that come out

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at right angles to the disc.
And that's the wind. But it looks

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as though there's something else going on
here. I don't know too much about

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this type of wind because I would
have expected, you know, if you've

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got something that's really gobbling up material
around it very quickly, the wind will

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be directed perpendicular to that disc.
But it may well be that under some

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conditions you get a wind that's that's
sort of blowing everywhere, what we would

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call isotropic in all directions. But
yeah, it is as you said,

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that is maybe pushing away the gas
that this black hole needs to keep on

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growing, and eventually that would stop
the black hole from accreting. The black

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hole wouldn't go away, it would
still be there, but it wouldn't be

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gobbling up material any more. It
would become what we call a quiescent black

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hole, which is a bit like
the one at the center of our own

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galaxy. So really interesting stuff.
One of the lead authors says, this

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is the most exciting time in his
career. It's a new era. The

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giant leap in sensitivity, especially in
the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo's

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telescope to a modern telescope overnight before
Web came online. I thought, maybe

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the universe isn't so interesting when you
go beyond what we could see with ourble

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Space telescope. But that hasn't been
the case at all. The universe has

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been quite generous in what it's showing
us. And this is just the beginning.

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It's almost poetic, isn't it very
very poetic? And yeah, it

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also is that points out the fact
that the James Web Space Telescope has,

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as promised, delivered. A lot
of the time they say this is the

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next big thing it's going to do, you know, yay, yay,

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and then it goes up again.
Oh it's a blob out of focus.

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But this one's actually delivering, and
it's delivering spectacular results, very much so.

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And the hope is that the telescope
will be able to probe even further

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back in time to look at even
earlier black holes, and that might give

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some clues as to what's going on
in the early history of black holes.

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If we start finding dozens of these
super massive black holes at a very early

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stage of the universe, I think
it means we've got to do some really

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serious rethinking of what's going on in
those early galaxies. Yes, indeed,

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and this one's certainly thrown everybody in
a spin because of a how old it

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is, be how big it is, and see what it's actually doing to

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its neighborhood and how it's doing that. It's all very Yeah, it's sort

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of thrown the baby out with the
bathwater in terms of theory in some respects,

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I suppose. So, yeah,
we find these things and it opens

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up so many more questions, but
they will hopefully ultimately lead to answers that

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that's the that's the hope, isn't
it. Pret that's the way science works.

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Yes, that's right. So we've
got you know, we've got observations

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which dog fit the theory that exists. So you rebuild the theory and then

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do more observations to see whether the
theories upheld. This very much the way

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astronomy works, even at these great
distances from from our from our own present

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time, great distances in time.
M all right. If you want to

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chase up that story about this incredible
discovery and this this the Strange black Hole,

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fizz dot org pH y s dot
org is the website where you can

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find that article. This is Space
Nuts Andrew Dunpley here with Professor Fred Watson.

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years. Now. Now back to the

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show. Okay, we've tacked all
four systems. Now, Fred, let's

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move on to something that happened more
recently than that black hole forming. In

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fact, this happened only a few
days ago. Earth was hit by an

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asteroid. It has been reported in
the popular press, and we're still here

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to talk about it. Now.
What I understand is this one wasn't as

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big as the one that killed off
the dinosaurs. But I have heard a

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report that they're a small lizard with
a limp after this one. Will Yeah,

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they don't have too many lizards out
and about in January in eastern Germany.

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Whatever, let's have previous truth here
in the way of a good joke,

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though Fred quite so. Yes,
so an object that was largely well

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recorded by you know, by security
cameras and dashcums and all the rest of

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it. An object that came to
earth over Berlin, in fact, in

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the east and half of Germany over
the weekend Sunday morning their time, so

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lots of video and a lot of
people really interested in it. It's got

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a name as all good aid sorry, all good asteroids do. So it's

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obviously being counted as an asteroid even
though it was a small object. Its

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name is twenty twenty four b x
one, and you might remember that the

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way those numbers work is the date
of the year twenty twenty four. The

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bee says it was the second half
of January when it was discovered, because

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it's alphabetical for each half month throughout
the year. It's very cleverly done,

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and then the alphabetical order and then
a number after that. So it's landed

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outside Berlin. The interesting bit is
that it was an astronomer in Hungary.

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And I think I don't know whether
this gentleman Christian Sonski, I think is

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how we would anglicize his name.
I don't know whether he's an amateur astronomer

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or a professional, but he discovered
it and alerted the International Astronomical Union via

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there's an asteroid discovery system that he
can use, and that was then confirmed

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by NASA, presumably with one of
those telescopes. And this all happened kind

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of twenty minutes before the impact.
I think the discovery was made several hours

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before impact. NASA confirmed it twenty
minutes before impact with absolutely spot on prediction

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of where it would where it would
land or where it would disintegrate over and

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at what time, and it was
all right on the money. So this

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is interesting because it's the eighth time
that an asteroid has been discovered before it

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hits the Earth, and that's telling
you that the systems are working, particularly

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because this is thought to be about
a meter across, so it's what you

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would call a very small asteroid and
maybe a large meteoroid. There's a that's

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a sort of gray area between the
two. So yeah, it's it's very

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very you know, satisfactory outcome of
what we're hoping to do in the world

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of of planetary protection, as it's
called, this idea of trying to monitor

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threats composed by asteroids before they happen. The other thing is that the gentleman

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who I mentioned, Christian Sanski,
forgive me if I'm mispronouncing his name,

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has discovered three that have been hitting
the Earth. In other words, first

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he's done three of these eight asteroids
that have been discovered before they hit the

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Earth. Very well known asteroid hunter, yes, and seems to be very

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good at what he does. Now, this one, as you said,

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around about a meter, which is
a little bit smaller than the one that

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hit the Earth and brought about the
beginning of the end of the dinosaurs.

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That one was as big as Mount
Everest or something, wasn't it. And

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this one broke up on impact.
But they do think that it would have

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showered parts of Europe with micro meteorites. I think they referred to the mass.

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Yeah, so lots of small bits
of debris and it's possible that some

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of them might be recovered. It's
you know, it's wintertime up there.

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Meteorites are generally black, and often
that discovered in Antarctica, where they're against

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a white background because of snow.
Maybe they will be discovered perhaps in the

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in the regions of eastern Europe where
this object is thought to have fallen.

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Bits of this object I thought to
have fallen. So if you do want

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to if you're a listener from that
part of the world and you would want

236
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to go out and hunt for these
micro media writes, just just keep an

237
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eye out for limping lizards and you
might you might get laggy. Yeah,

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I think yes, I think you'd
probably be luckier to find a lizard than

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you would meteorite. At this time
of year, the lizards will be well

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hibernating. I think they would.
But yeah, so when you hear the

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word is asteroid, you automatically think
about the dinosaurs and the andsurs frocks that

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have hit Earth in the past,
and you make that assumption. So when

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when you hear that we've actually been
hit by an asteroid, you go,

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oh no, but they're not always
monsters that no, they're not. In

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fact, that's the interesting part about
it. At the moment, you know,

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all these telescopes that are looking for
asteroids are concentrating on the small ones

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because the big ones, most of
them have already been found. She's good

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news, Yeah, we just we've
actually got to watch out for the ones

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that are just a bit big enough
just to get through. They're the ones

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to Yeah. Did we talk about
that last week when I was talking about

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the asteroid Protection group that I was
sitting with in Vienna. Yeah, they

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postulated a scenario in which, exactly
as you said, I want to kill

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a meter asteroid could get through.
It has to be in a very unusual

254
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orbit, but it's possible. Never
say never. But we've done the double

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asteroid redirection test and we know it
works. So yeah, we live in

256
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hope. Exactly. Well, you
had your you had your T shirt on

257
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last week, didn't you the double
storgery direction. Yes, that's right.

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Now let's move on to Mars,
and the Mars Copta has made the news,

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and that's because it stopped working.
In fact, I think it was

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in the middle of a flight when
it lost comms with NASA and they thought

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end of mission. So yeah,
it got a bit scary there for a

262
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while, but then it suddenly went
nothing to see here, it's all good.

263
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I'm here, I'm here. So
what do we know about this?

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So exactly as you said, So
it's not the first time. Let's just

265
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preface it. It's not the first
time. That the copter has suffered communications

266
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issues and I think the longest was
two months or something that it was,

267
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oh, there you go, two
months. But this was something different from

268
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that, and what they were doing
was doing a test flight. This is

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last week and it was wait for
this, This number blows me away and

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drew. It was Ingenuity's seventy second
lift off off the planet Mars, when

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it was originally planned to have five
flights. So seventy two is just an

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astonishing number and it's been so invaluable
to the Perseverance mission, so that's fantastic

273
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stuff. Anyway, it was a
quick test that they were doing. I

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think it was basically just an up
and down. In fact, they described

275
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it as a quick pop up vertical
flight to check out the helicopter systems following

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an unplanned early landing during its previous
flight, so there was an issue with

277
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the previous flight, and then they
did this up and down, but as

278
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it was coming down, it lost
communications again before touchdown. Now, the

279
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great thing is this helicopter is equipped
with basically autonomous systems, and it has

280
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to be because you know the delay, the time delay between signal leaving Earth

281
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getting to Mars and then coming back
again is far too long to control helicopter

282
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with, so it's got its own
brain and it does its own decisions and

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apparently landed safely. Although it's out
of sight of Perseverance itself, they can't

284
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actually see it, so there is
talk or the worst talk of Perseverance actually

285
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having a quick drive over to have
a look at it a visual inspection,

286
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just to see if it's okay.
But at least it's talking to Perseverance,

287
00:24:44.519 --> 00:24:52.440
so they've got you know, they've
got communications restored. And apparently there was

288
00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:57.799
a post on x formerly Twitter asking
if Ingenuity would fly again, and JPL

289
00:24:59.039 --> 00:25:03.640
Jet Propulsion of the Boro Tree,
who run the whole show, said that

290
00:25:03.720 --> 00:25:07.279
they are going to be a setting
the new information that's come from that before

291
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they'll decide whether it'll fly again.
So that may have been its last flight.

292
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And the other hand, it may
just very sad it would be silent,

293
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and you know, it's just done
such an extraordinary job of reconnaissance in

294
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the area around Perseverances, but apparently
covered seventeen kilometers and gone up to twenty

295
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four meters, which is quite quite
a height for a little baby helicopter like

296
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that, And I think the other
thing that's right at one point eight killograms.

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It's rotors, if I remember right
here, one point two meters well,

298
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two of them rotating in opposite directions
so that they balance out the talk.

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The thing that gets me though,
is, you know, Martian knights,

300
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the temperature way goes way down,
probably the minus sixties and things like

301
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that, And in fact, the
average temperaturep males is minus sixty three.

302
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I think if I remember rightly,
somebody might correct me if I've got it

303
00:26:08.200 --> 00:26:15.720
wrong just remembering. But Martian nights
are very, very cold, and the

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solar panels which are sit on top
of the rotors are absolutely vital for keeping

305
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:26.599
it warm by the electric current that
they generate for its batteries during the day,

306
00:26:27.160 --> 00:26:33.160
which then keep the little spacecraft warm. Not really a spacecraft. It's

307
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an aircraft, isn't it. They
keep it warm during the night. It's

308
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been one of the great success stories
of NASA for it to have lasted heck

309
00:26:44.359 --> 00:26:48.079
of a lot longer than they plant
seventy two missions versus the plant five,

310
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but also to survive the prostile conditions
for such a long time. That's amazing.

311
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Yes, an extraordinary success story.
Were full of admiration for the engineers

312
00:27:02.119 --> 00:27:07.039
who invented it and built it.
Basically, Yeah, and hopefully not the

313
00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:10.599
last we'll see of it, but
if it is, it's still been a

314
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:15.240
resounding success. You mentioned X formerly
known as Twitter. Did you hear that?

315
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:23.279
I've forgotten the name of it?
You Tube, Twitter and Facebook are

316
00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:26.400
going to merge. Did you hear
about this? It's going to be called

317
00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:33.160
it didn't? Yeah, it's going
to be called you Twitch base. I

318
00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:40.920
should have seen that one coming,
shouldn't. I probably dead? Oh boy,

319
00:27:41.480 --> 00:27:44.400
listen. I was going to save
this till later, but I think

320
00:27:44.440 --> 00:27:49.319
we will tackle it now. It's
a bit of homework. Last week we

321
00:27:49.319 --> 00:27:56.000
were talking about a dark energy survey
where it brought into question our understanding of

322
00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:02.759
the cosmological constant. Now we've had
a question from Lindsay asking us to explain

323
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:07.599
the equation of state, the value
of the cosmological constant, which is minus

324
00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:15.240
point one. But this survey has
re jeeked that number be minus point zero

325
00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:18.759
eight. But what we didn't do, and I probably should have asked the

326
00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:22.960
question at the time, is what
is that? How do they work that

327
00:28:23.039 --> 00:28:30.039
out? What is the equation of
state? It comes from physics really Andrew's

328
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:34.759
you might not be surprised, and
it comes from considerations of a perfect fluid,

329
00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:40.039
which has its own definition. So
if you merge in the universe as

330
00:28:40.039 --> 00:28:45.839
a perfect fluid, you can characterize
it by this number, which is the

331
00:28:45.880 --> 00:28:52.480
equation of state. It's equal to
the ratio of its pressure to its energy

332
00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:57.519
density, and it's it's sort of, you know, it's part and place

333
00:28:57.559 --> 00:29:03.960
of thermodynamics. The pressure to the
energy density ratio doesn't really you know,

334
00:29:04.039 --> 00:29:11.519
it doesn't really feed much into our
understanding of what's happening in the in the

335
00:29:11.559 --> 00:29:17.519
far universe. But in the case
that we're talking about, which is the

336
00:29:17.559 --> 00:29:21.839
cosmological equation of state, the the
equation of state as the universe, of

337
00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:26.319
the universe as a whole, and
how it relates to the accelerated expansion of

338
00:29:26.359 --> 00:29:33.200
the universe, it's it's, uh, it actually kind of kind of makes

339
00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:41.680
makes more sense. I'm going to
just try and read a little bit about

340
00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:45.920
the equation of state from the good
old Wikipedia website. Uh, the accelerated

341
00:29:45.920 --> 00:29:51.160
expansion of the universe can be characterized
by the equation of state of dark energy.

342
00:29:51.799 --> 00:29:55.160
So it's the dark energy itself,
who's equation of state you're looking at.

343
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In the simplest case, the equation
of state of the cosmological common that's

344
00:30:00.599 --> 00:30:03.720
what we were talking about last week, is minus one in this case.

345
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:17.960
The I won't go into more detail, but if you've got an acceleration of

346
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:23.680
an equation of state which is less
than minus one third, then you've got

347
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:34.400
you've got a different status and I
think I think you've got basically something that

348
00:30:34.759 --> 00:30:38.319
changes with time. That's the bottom
line of it all. I'm not explaining

349
00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:42.279
this very well at all, Andrew, and I hope there aren't any cosmopologists

350
00:30:42.400 --> 00:30:45.440
listening or else that the turning in
their well, not in their graves,

351
00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:51.279
but they're turning in their beds,
So there is there's something. There is

352
00:30:51.319 --> 00:30:56.799
another hypothetical thing that comes into it
as well, which is phantom energy.

353
00:30:56.200 --> 00:31:02.079
That's a term I'm not familiar with. Phantom energy is you know, it's

354
00:31:03.039 --> 00:31:10.440
said the hypothetical form of energy which
actually has a different characteristic in the equation

355
00:31:10.480 --> 00:31:15.279
of state. In other words,
it's less than minus one. So it

356
00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:22.079
basically it's it's a lot of quite
deep physics, which is, as you're

357
00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:26.559
no doubt noticing, not that easy
to put into simple words. No,

358
00:31:26.839 --> 00:31:33.079
I can imagine. Well, I
just heard it at the pot of flo

359
00:31:33.400 --> 00:31:37.279
is the dark energy survey we talked
about last week has put a question mark

360
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:44.640
over the equation of state of the
cosmological constant. Thank you very much.

361
00:31:48.599 --> 00:31:55.119
That's blood you're here, and that's
the simple that's the simple explanation. And

362
00:31:55.599 --> 00:32:00.640
there's only what a five percent chance
that the minus point one is still relevant.

363
00:32:01.960 --> 00:32:08.000
Yeah, it's actually it's it's minus
it's it's minus one. I'm not

364
00:32:08.039 --> 00:32:13.200
sure you might be looking at something
slightly different, but it is minus one

365
00:32:13.240 --> 00:32:16.559
that he's thought to be. And
I think this the value was rather smaller.

366
00:32:16.599 --> 00:32:20.359
Wasn't it minus point eight or something
like that? Yeah, something like

367
00:32:20.400 --> 00:32:25.359
that. Yep, yes, you're
right, and what I yeah, I'm

368
00:32:25.359 --> 00:32:30.160
just looking at the article now minus
point minus one and now it's looking like

369
00:32:30.200 --> 00:32:36.519
it's minus point eight. So yes, my ologies, but yeah, thanks

370
00:32:36.519 --> 00:32:38.920
for the question, Lindsay. Nice
to be able to follow that up and

371
00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:45.920
get a let's call it an explanation. This is space, not Andrew Dunkley

372
00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:54.599
here, Professor Fred Watson space buds. Now, Fred, let's see if

373
00:32:54.599 --> 00:33:00.279
we can answer some questions on other
matters. And the first and I forgive

374
00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:04.960
me if I've missed your name up
because it just couldn't quite catch it in

375
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:07.839
the dialogue. In fact, I
might even say your name because you've got

376
00:33:07.839 --> 00:33:10.720
to say it for us. Hello, Fred, thank you for a great

377
00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:15.519
book. My name is Manny Jabery
and in Sweden, and I sent the

378
00:33:15.599 --> 00:33:21.880
question about why is astronomy important?
Thank you for that answer. I've been

379
00:33:21.920 --> 00:33:28.240
thinking a lot of celestial objects rotate, spin, like our planet, our

380
00:33:28.319 --> 00:33:34.279
solar system, the stars, the
galaxies and even black holes if I understand

381
00:33:34.359 --> 00:33:39.960
it correctly. My question is does
the universe rotate? And is it possible

382
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:45.279
that we have misinterpreted the expansion of
the universe but in reality it's just spins

383
00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:52.559
and we are moving away from objects
like the moon is escaping Earth. Thank

384
00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:58.680
you again, and a morn I
think he said, but I'm sorry I

385
00:33:58.680 --> 00:34:05.640
forget that wrong. Does the universe
rotate? The whole universe? Apparently not?

386
00:34:07.799 --> 00:34:12.519
And you know the question that you
immediately asked and Andrew is how would

387
00:34:12.559 --> 00:34:17.280
we know what that was? The
next Yeah, how do you know if

388
00:34:17.320 --> 00:34:22.000
it's rotating or not? Because you're
in it and the universe by definition is

389
00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:29.320
everything that we can we can you
know, we can observe or or understand

390
00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:39.719
detect. So it's it's basically one
of these questions though that people do and

391
00:34:39.960 --> 00:34:45.199
ask in exactly the way that we've
just heard this morning, sorry today,

392
00:34:46.079 --> 00:34:52.199
That is because it's a natural thing
to ask that that everything in the universe

393
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:59.360
seems to rotate, absolutely everything,
But is the universe itself rotating? And

394
00:34:59.800 --> 00:35:07.440
I guess the best way to put
it is that there is no evidence that

395
00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:14.280
the universe is rotating by any means
that we we you know, we investigate

396
00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:20.960
whatever means we use to investigate it. There's no evidence that we do that

397
00:35:21.039 --> 00:35:31.920
we do find a rotating universe.
So the bottom line is the fact that

398
00:35:32.119 --> 00:35:39.079
we you know, we have to
We're sitting in the universe itself, and

399
00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:45.159
the only things that we can measure, certainly at cosmological distances, are the

400
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:51.039
red shifts that the expansion of the
universe, the way it's you know,

401
00:35:51.079 --> 00:35:52.840
the way shape is changing, if
I can put it that way. Even

402
00:35:52.880 --> 00:35:57.559
though we don't know whether the universe
has a shape, we can we can

403
00:35:57.599 --> 00:36:00.559
detect its expansion. So that is
one of the things that we do know

404
00:36:00.639 --> 00:36:07.320
that the universe is expanding. I
have seen articles in the past that say.

405
00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:12.599
That suggests that I haven't ever followed
this up, so I don't know,

406
00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:15.159
you know, what the details are. I should do that it'd be

407
00:36:15.159 --> 00:36:20.480
a bit more homework. That suggests
that if the universe was rotating, we'd

408
00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:27.800
be able to travel backwards in time. That seems a very unlikely scenario to

409
00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:31.719
me, because relative relativity doesn't like
the idea of backward time travel. You

410
00:36:31.719 --> 00:36:37.039
can go forward, but not backwards. So it's yeah, one that might

411
00:36:37.079 --> 00:36:40.320
be worth following up. But yeah, no evidence that the universe is rotating.

412
00:36:42.039 --> 00:36:46.760
It. Okay, this is a
really simple explanation on my part,

413
00:36:46.760 --> 00:36:51.800
but I could. I can imagine
if it was rotating it it'd be like

414
00:36:51.920 --> 00:36:53.400
a glass of water. You know, when you've got a glass of water

415
00:36:53.440 --> 00:36:59.440
and you put something in the water
and then you rotate the glass that it

416
00:36:59.480 --> 00:37:02.559
doesn't really effect what's inside, you
know what I'm saying. So even if

417
00:37:02.599 --> 00:37:08.920
it was rotating, it might not
do anything. Yeah, that's an interesting

418
00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:15.199
analog because it almost counteracts the argument
because if you were inside a glass of

419
00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:20.639
water that it was rotating, what
you'd see would be the effect of the

420
00:37:20.639 --> 00:37:24.119
centrifugal force of the water being pushed
outwards, and you might think you were

421
00:37:24.119 --> 00:37:30.079
in an expanding glass of water.
If they carry that to the universe,

422
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:32.719
you know, somebody's going to say, oh, it's expanding because it's it's

423
00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:37.400
rotating. But then but that lies
there being Yeah, that's what one was

424
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:42.159
asking, though, don't know because
the second part of his question was if

425
00:37:42.239 --> 00:37:46.840
the universe is rotating, does that
change the expansion theory? Yeah, so

426
00:37:46.920 --> 00:37:51.199
I yes, I missed that bit. I was too busy worrying about the

427
00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:57.079
rotation of the universe. It's thought
not to be and the you know,

428
00:37:57.159 --> 00:38:04.000
the the I guess one of the
things that comes into this. Sorry,

429
00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:14.480
I'm floundering for words here. One
of the points is that if we take

430
00:38:14.519 --> 00:38:19.159
the traditional definition of a universe,
which is everything we can see or measure

431
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:22.960
or detect, then we would have
no way of knowing if it's rotating,

432
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:28.880
because there's no frame of reference outside
it within which it's rotating, so that

433
00:38:28.920 --> 00:38:32.119
the answer would be no. And
I think the only way that you could

434
00:38:32.199 --> 00:38:38.639
contemplate a rotating universe will be by
accepting the premise that there are other universes

435
00:38:38.639 --> 00:38:44.559
out there, that ours is just
one of many universes. Then if you

436
00:38:44.679 --> 00:38:47.519
take that step, then you might
have the possibility that it's rotating, but

437
00:38:47.559 --> 00:38:52.039
as I said, there's no evidence
that it is. Okay, yeah,

438
00:38:52.280 --> 00:38:59.840
gee, it certainly dredges up all
sorts of questions and ideas and it made

439
00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:02.960
them very big water cooler to stand
around and talk about this. I think

440
00:39:05.760 --> 00:39:08.840
a great question. Thanks thanks for
sending it in. Let's go to a

441
00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:19.719
text question. This one comes from
Lachlan in James in Minnesota. It says

442
00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:22.960
hello from the great state of Minnesota. That's a coincidence because that's where I

443
00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:25.679
thought he was from right off the
bat. Thank you so much for your

444
00:39:25.800 --> 00:39:31.840
educational insight and incredibly down to earth
Unintended podcast. You make standing at the

445
00:39:32.159 --> 00:39:37.199
Meal so much more enjoyable. I
started at the very beginning of your show,

446
00:39:37.400 --> 00:39:39.599
and I'm currently in the middle of
May twenty twenty one, so I've

447
00:39:39.599 --> 00:39:45.079
got ways to go before I catch
up. But my question is a bit

448
00:39:45.079 --> 00:39:51.719
of an abstract one. Suppose you
discover an anomalist telescope of irrelevant size,

449
00:39:52.119 --> 00:39:55.079
and what makes this telescope anomalist is
that when you look through it, it

450
00:39:55.159 --> 00:40:02.239
will show you whatever celestial body it's
pointed at in real one to one time.

451
00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:07.760
What is the first thing you would
look at supposing there's nothing in the

452
00:40:07.800 --> 00:40:13.679
way, both from a standpoint of
personal choice and a broader standpoint of humanity

453
00:40:13.760 --> 00:40:16.119
as a whole. Wanting to learn
as much as we can about the universe

454
00:40:16.719 --> 00:40:22.159
very much. Looking forward to hearing
your thoughts. Thanks Fellows. James in

455
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:27.760
Minnesota. So you've got a telescope
you can look anywhere in the universe in

456
00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:30.320
real time, what do you look
at? Fred? First and foremost,

457
00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:39.199
I think we've discussed this before,
actually, Andrew, I'm trying to remember

458
00:40:39.239 --> 00:40:44.559
what I said. Then we do
get questions like this from time to time.

459
00:40:45.320 --> 00:40:47.000
Yeah, just yes, I think
it's a it's a similar question to

460
00:40:47.039 --> 00:40:54.679
what we've had before. So yeah, I mean what I would really like

461
00:40:54.800 --> 00:41:00.159
to see, and it's not really
aligned with this question particularly well, But

462
00:41:00.239 --> 00:41:07.000
if I could take a telescope anywhere
and look, I would love to see

463
00:41:07.320 --> 00:41:12.559
our galaxy from the outside. So
not only would I be wanting to see,

464
00:41:13.039 --> 00:41:19.159
you know, this hypothetical telescope to
see anything instantaneously without the delay of

465
00:41:19.480 --> 00:41:23.039
time, Then not only would I
want to do that, I'd want to

466
00:41:23.079 --> 00:41:28.440
move it as well, so I
could see what the sweep of our galaxy

467
00:41:28.440 --> 00:41:30.639
would look like from the outside.
So it's taking the question a little bit

468
00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:37.679
further than than James probably intended.
Maybe I'm answering a different question, but

469
00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:43.679
that's what I'd like to do.
Take this hypothetical super duper telescope, plunk

470
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:49.920
it something like one hundred thousand light
years above the pole of our galaxy.

471
00:41:50.519 --> 00:41:52.679
Might be a dangerous place, actually, because the pole of our galaxy has

472
00:41:52.679 --> 00:42:00.000
occasionally known been known to be the
source of some high energy material coming from

473
00:42:00.039 --> 00:42:04.639
the super super massive black Collar.
The middle of the galaxy could be a

474
00:42:04.719 --> 00:42:08.000
dangerous place, but it will give
you a beautiful view dale on the spiral

475
00:42:08.199 --> 00:42:12.440
structure of our galaxy. And that's
what I'd love to see. Okay,

476
00:42:12.599 --> 00:42:15.239
now that's a good answer. I
wouldn't have thought of that for me,

477
00:42:15.559 --> 00:42:20.800
James. Let's just stretch this as
far as we possibly can. Literally,

478
00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:25.000
I would want to see the actual
edge of the universe. I'd want to

479
00:42:25.039 --> 00:42:30.760
see what's going going on beyond the
visible universe. You said, assuming nothing's

480
00:42:30.760 --> 00:42:32.320
in the way, Well, let's
just move all that stuff out of the

481
00:42:32.320 --> 00:42:37.199
way. I would point the telescope
and I could go any direction I want

482
00:42:37.800 --> 00:42:42.960
and just find the actual edge of
the expanding universe to see what's going on.

483
00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:45.239
That's what I want to see because
that's one of the great mysteries.

484
00:42:46.039 --> 00:42:50.960
So for me, that's the answer. What do you reckon, Fred,

485
00:42:52.280 --> 00:42:55.880
Well, we don't think it's got
an edge. Let's assume it has,

486
00:42:58.360 --> 00:43:04.840
so I'd want to be going on
out there at the expansion point, whatever

487
00:43:04.920 --> 00:43:08.519
it is. That's that's where my
brain, I mean, just to some

488
00:43:08.599 --> 00:43:15.039
extent, we yeah, yeah,
it is interesting because you know, we

489
00:43:15.199 --> 00:43:19.199
what we see when we look as
far out as you are talking about there,

490
00:43:19.760 --> 00:43:23.039
we see the cosmic microwave background radiation. But that's because we're looking back

491
00:43:23.079 --> 00:43:27.599
in the past. What James is
saying is you're not looking back in the

492
00:43:27.639 --> 00:43:31.559
past. You're looking at what it
is like now, and so it could

493
00:43:31.599 --> 00:43:37.320
be infinite. You might not run
against an edge, Andrew. That's the

494
00:43:37.559 --> 00:43:40.000
conundrum of cosmology. We don't know
whether the universe is infinite or not.

495
00:43:40.519 --> 00:43:45.599
But that's why we want to have
a look. That's why I want to

496
00:43:45.880 --> 00:43:50.239
I want to loan of James as
tell us. So it's a very you're

497
00:43:50.320 --> 00:43:53.400
you're You've given a very profound answer
there, which which I applaud. It's

498
00:43:53.400 --> 00:44:00.360
better than mine. I love these
I love these what if questions we get

499
00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:04.800
sentation, I know they're good fun. Thanks James. And our final question

500
00:44:04.920 --> 00:44:08.880
this week is from Ian. However, this is Ian from Cambridge. Just

501
00:44:08.920 --> 00:44:15.880
got a central question. What is
the temperature of space around the Earth orbit

502
00:44:17.559 --> 00:44:22.840
from the Sun, so the distance
from the Earth. So what's the temperature

503
00:44:22.880 --> 00:44:27.320
of space? I asked the question
because when I google it it says it's

504
00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:31.960
about two point seven Calvin. But
then you hear the James Webb telescope that

505
00:44:32.039 --> 00:44:37.400
one side is very very hot,
on the other side of the shield is

506
00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:46.000
cold. So don't understand how general
temperature of space from distance from a sum

507
00:44:46.199 --> 00:44:52.679
is only two kelvin. Appreciate me
let me know. Thank you very much.

508
00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:57.519
Okay, we'll be sending you an
email. Oh, ask for Red.

509
00:44:58.239 --> 00:45:00.519
What's the temperature of space? I
think when he refers to one side

510
00:45:00.559 --> 00:45:05.079
of the James Web being hot on
the other side being cold, that's that's

511
00:45:05.079 --> 00:45:09.159
because of the radiation effect, isn't
it the Sun? Whereas in general space,

512
00:45:09.519 --> 00:45:17.599
which is what it is, nothing
ish, there's a temperature I imagine,

513
00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:22.960
and that's what he's asking about in
the vicinity of Earth. So yes,

514
00:45:23.079 --> 00:45:30.559
so the background temperature of space is
indeed two point seven degrees kelvin.

515
00:45:30.679 --> 00:45:37.400
And what that is is the radiation
from the Big Bang. It's the it's

516
00:45:37.440 --> 00:45:40.400
actually the temperature of the cosmic microwave
background radiation. So when you look at

517
00:45:42.079 --> 00:45:45.280
we just talked about it, you're
looking back so far in time. You're

518
00:45:45.360 --> 00:45:49.679
seeing a time when the universe was
still glowing brightly. It was still luminous.

519
00:45:49.880 --> 00:45:55.400
It's now visible in radio waves microwaves
because of the expansion of the universe,

520
00:45:55.400 --> 00:46:00.920
stretching the visible light wavelength out to
microwave wave spifactor of about thirteen hundred

521
00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:08.400
I think beriightly. So that's the
underlying temperature of space, and it is

522
00:46:08.440 --> 00:46:14.159
indeed two point seven we can generate, believe it or not, here on

523
00:46:14.199 --> 00:46:20.440
Earth temperatures colder than that, much
much nearer to absolute zero than that two

524
00:46:20.440 --> 00:46:25.800
point seven degrees. So on Earth
you can generate cold temperatures. But exactly

525
00:46:25.800 --> 00:46:34.119
as you've said, in the vicinity
of a star like the Sun, you've

526
00:46:34.119 --> 00:46:40.480
got radiation coming from that object.
It doesn't affect the temperature of space itself,

527
00:46:40.519 --> 00:46:45.840
but as soon as that radiation falls
on another object, then it heats

528
00:46:45.880 --> 00:46:52.719
it up. It's exactly how infrared
radiation works. So it's it is.

529
00:46:52.800 --> 00:46:59.599
It is a higher temperature on the
surface that you're measuring. But if you

530
00:46:59.679 --> 00:47:05.920
were out in the middle of nowhere
in space and you two point seven degrees,

531
00:47:06.119 --> 00:47:07.880
it would be what we call a
bilometer. Actually, a bilometer is

532
00:47:07.920 --> 00:47:14.079
a device that measures temperature cross all
wavelengths. Right, two points degrees is

533
00:47:14.119 --> 00:47:19.920
the right answer, So then your
bufflement is understandable. But that's that's the

534
00:47:20.079 --> 00:47:23.000
correct answer. I'm just done that. I actually got one right, So

535
00:47:24.440 --> 00:47:28.440
I did. You were right?
It'll body, Yeah, you don't.

536
00:47:29.199 --> 00:47:34.519
You could just have a go on
the question of state as well. I

537
00:47:34.559 --> 00:47:37.840
couldn't do this. I wouldn't do
this by myself. Yeah, thank you,

538
00:47:37.880 --> 00:47:43.719
Ian. It's a great question and
it certainly cleared that up. And

539
00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:46.199
we appreciate your questions and your comments. And even if you want to send

540
00:47:46.239 --> 00:47:51.719
us corrections, we ignore that,
but you can send them anyway buia our

541
00:47:51.800 --> 00:47:55.800
website, via our website, space
nuts podcast dot com, or space nuts

542
00:47:55.840 --> 00:48:00.159
dot io. We'd love to hear
from you, whether it's in ten next

543
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:04.599
door audio form. If you do
send an audio question or even the text

544
00:48:04.639 --> 00:48:07.320
question, don't forguest, forget to
tell us who you are or we are

545
00:48:07.320 --> 00:48:13.039
from like James in Minnesota, who
is going to invent a new telescope.

546
00:48:13.079 --> 00:48:15.880
It's going to be good, be
called the James at Minnesota Space Telescope,

547
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:21.119
and it will see everything in real
time. That would be an absolute you'd

548
00:48:21.159 --> 00:48:22.519
make. You'd make a couple of
dollars out of that, unless you sold

549
00:48:22.519 --> 00:48:25.360
it to the government. Then they'd
make you pay to give it to them.

550
00:48:25.840 --> 00:48:30.239
But anyway, I'm lovely to hear
from all of you, and Fred

551
00:48:30.320 --> 00:48:34.320
as always, thank you. That
brings us to the very end of this

552
00:48:34.440 --> 00:48:42.239
episode not too early. Thank you, Andrew. Good to talk and we

553
00:48:42.760 --> 00:48:47.199
might speak next time too. We
might. Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large,

554
00:48:49.360 --> 00:48:52.840
as always, we thank him for
his very precious time. And to

555
00:48:52.960 --> 00:48:58.280
Hugh in the studio, thank you
too for reasons I'll have to look up

556
00:48:58.760 --> 00:49:00.599
and from me, Andrew Dunkley,
good to have your company. I hope

557
00:49:00.599 --> 00:49:05.519
you can join us on the very
next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.

558
00:49:06.400 --> 00:49:13.199
You'll be listening to the Space Nuts
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559
00:49:13.239 --> 00:49:17.840
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560
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:23.000
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561
00:49:23.320 --> 00:49:27.360
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