#389: Ingenuity's Incredible Martian Journey: Helicopter Makes History Before Bittersweet Ending

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Hi there, Thanks for joining us
on this edition of Space Nuts. My

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name is Andrew Dunkley, your host, and always good to have you with

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us. Coming up in this episode, we will be looking again at ingenuity.

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It's all bad news but not really, Plus the slim moon Lander which

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has landed on the Moon sort of, and we're going to talk about the

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passing of a great in astronomy and
space science. There's a lot on today.

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We've also got a story about our
Milky Ways dark matter halo and it

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looks like it's got a weird thing
going on with it that might make our

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galaxy unique. Plus a potential explanation
for the burping of Mars. That's all

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coming up on this edition of Space
Nuts fifteen, Channel ten nine Ignition,

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Space Nuts NI three and I we
bought it Nels good and joining us to

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talk about all that and a little
bit more later on is Professor Fred what's

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that astronomer Tello Fred, Andrew,
good to see you again, Good to

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see you without dedlay in the sound. Yes, yes, long explanation,

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but yeah, my one drive was
sync to the hard drive and they hated

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each other. Basically, That's that's
what the problem was. Short explanation for

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a big, big problem. But
it's all sorted out now, so we

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can talk in real time, not
like we were on a not like we

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were on a satellite phone for the
last couple of weeks. Bizar. Yeah,

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and everything good at your end of
the world. I just thank you.

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Yes, all going well so far. We I can't believe that the

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year has taken off at such a
high rate of nice. It seems faster

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every year. Yeh, January is
January is. I read a study as

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to why the years go faster as
you get older, and that's you.

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Yeah, And the answer is because
we've experienced most of life and we're not

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sort of being welcomed by new and
exciting things anymore like when we were children.

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So for some reason, that just
turns it into a very fast motioned

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day by day in the second half
of it. So life becomes routine,

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is what, Yes, that's what
it is. Yeah, yeah, I

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get that. I quite like routine. Actually I like my other half who

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doesn't, but which is why she
you know, she's constantly conjuring up these

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tours that we do to take people
around to places where we've never been.

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Well, if you want the year
to seem like it's lasting longer. You've

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got to bring new things into your
life, apparently, yeah, yeah,

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yeawise. Otherwise it just becomes routine
and every day is the same. And

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who would have thought space notes would
become routine. Yeah, it doesn't feel

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routine. And certainly something that,
certainly something that wasn't routine was the situation

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with the Ingenuity helicopter. Now we've
been talking about Ingenuity the last couple of

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weeks because it had an incident.
They thought they lost it, they found

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it again, but now it is
end of mission, yes, because we

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know that it's suffered damage. And
so the story is that the just try

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to bring up the right page.
I kind of know what the story is.

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Here we are. We've got a
lovely picture of Ingenuity on my screen,

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taken during its fifty fourth flight.
And so yeah, so flight seventy

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two, which was I think we've
spoken about before, was just meant to

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be an up and down to check
that's something that went wrong on the previous

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flight with its excuse me, with
its communications was okay. But it turned

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out that that seventy second flight something
went wrong, probably in the landing,

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and it broke one of the rotor
blades, the two rotor blades that counter

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rotate on top of Ingenuity. One
of them is now broken off. And

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there's an easy to find photograph actually
of the shadow of the rotor blade taken

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by one of Ingenuity's cameras, the
shadow of the rotor blade on the Martian

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sand, and you can see the
end of it looks as though it's not

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there. Yeah, So that sort
of essentially writes off the helicopter. It

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reached actually an altitude of twelve meters
or forty feet with a four point five

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second hover, so it was obvi
say in reasonable shape at that stage.

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But then when it landed, it
looks as though something went wrong with the

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landing and it broke the rotor blade. And so it's now been deemed unusable

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after seventy two flights compared with the
expected five. Astonishing. Yeah, and

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it's covered seventeen kilometers a bit more
than ten miles in its couple of years

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of flying. Actually it's three.
Its first one was, Yeah, it's

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nearly three years. April nineteenth,
twenty twenty one was the first flight.

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And you can actually go online Andrew
and you can get the full flight log

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of it Genuity, So yeah,
it's not that's again not very hard to

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find. I I think it's just
it's such an astonishing achievement that this has

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been able to happen. That's been
three really exciting years of Mars exploration,

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and of course the less has learned
from that because this was originally just a

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technology demonstrator. It's you know,
the idea is to just demonstrate whether you

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can fly helicopter on Mars and attach
cameras to it, and all of that

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has been proven. Absolutely positive that
the information that we've learned from Ingenuity will

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be fed into the Dragonfly mission,
which is another helicopter which eventually will go

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to Titan. Schedule for launch not
very far down the track twenty twenty eight,

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four years time, sending a mission
to Titan with a helicopter on board

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to look at the thick atmosphere of
Titan and have a look at the methane

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lakes and seas that there are there. It's in extraordinary what this will lead

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to. So yeah, all credit
to Ingenuity. Rip. What a wonderful

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mission had to come to an end
some time, But I think it's done

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pretty well. Yeah, it's been
fantastic. Now, wow, closely to

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home. Jackson has sent a mission
to the Moon. It's the SLIM mission,

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which stands for and I looked it
up and now I can't remember,

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but smart Lander investigating Moon. Yes, yes, now they had a bit

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of a problem as well. And
they have successfully landed on the Moon's surface.

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But she's upside down, that's right. And what's more, we've got

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pictures of it being upside down or
yeah, how does that happen? So

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the landing was twentieth of January.
It's everything went really well, but obviously

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during the last few seconds something went
wrong with one of the one of the

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engines. You know that basically they've
got down with firing engines that are slowing

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down the trajectory of the spacecraft as
it gets near the Moon, and basically

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you want the velocity zero when it
touches the Moon's surface. Something went wrong

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with one of the engines and that
seems to have tilted it over. But

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it made a soft landing because they
could communicate with it and what they couldn't

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do and I think we talked about
this. The first hint that something was

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wrong. There was nothing coming through
the solar panels. And the suggestion then

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was that something had happened that skewed
the direction that the solar panels were pointing

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in and they couldn't see the sun, which means yes, bad news.

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And in fact, if you remember, do you remember phil I that was

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the lander that went down onto the
surface of Comet sixty seven P was that

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its name? Certainly I think that
Sharia muf Grass in Menko, which was

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a little lander from the Rosetta spacecraft
that had the same problem. It fell

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over when it landed and landed in
the shadow of a cliff, and so

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its solar panels never got the light. So the story continues with slim because

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I think they shot their systems down
with something like an hour of juice left

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in order to see whether the spacecraft
would survive the lunar night, which lasts

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for fourteen days in fourteen of our
days or thereabouts, and whether when the

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sun rose again, it would rise
in such a way that it would actually

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light up the solar panels. And
in fact that seems to have happened because

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it has been restored. They've actually
powered up. It surprised everybody. I

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think this was what day was this? It was the twenty eighth or thereabouts.

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They succeeded in establishing communication again and
we saw basically images. Now the

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way we know that it's tilted on
its side or basically upside down is that

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SLIM also carried a couple of little
rovers, one of which was the size

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of a tennis ball. Oh wow, and sort of bounces along the surface

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with camera. And I think it's
that one rather than the other one.

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I think the other one does something
slightly different. But they're very very small

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devices. They were obviously deployed after
the landing successfully, and sure enough one

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of them has sent back a picture
of the spacecraft at the jaunty angle,

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not the right way up on the
surface of the Moon. Quite extra.

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You can actually see the booster pointing
up to the scar that's right, Yes

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you can, yeah, yeah,
it's amazing one to see see the jet

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nos, yes, rocket. Will
they be able to do what they want

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to do now that that's happened,
They're still going to be able to perform

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all the tasks, some of it, I think it will be, you

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know, I think it will.
What they're doing is essentially doing, you

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know, powering up the various scientific
experiments and seeing what they can what they

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can do. I think they've done
very well with an instrument that's called the

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multiband spectroscopic camera, the NBC Multi
Band camera, which essentially is a device

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that lets you take an image but
do an analysis of the exact distribution of

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colors in that image, in other
words, the wavelengths that are being returned,

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which is actually a diagnostic for different
kinds of minerals and rocks and things

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of that sort. So yeah,
they've got stuff working. I think it's

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not going to be the full mission
obviously, because it's not sitting where it

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should have been. But the big
trendh which I haven't mentioned, is that

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they got They landed this within I
think fifty five meters of their target landing

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site, and that was the other
real function of this experiment to try and

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do a high precision landing. So
didn't they call it the Moon Sniper.

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I think the Moon Sniper was a
nickname for this spacecraft, indicating that the

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the targeting of on the Moon's surface
was going to be much better than anything

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that's ever been done before. They
were expecting better than one hundred meters and

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they actually got with it. They
got to half that fifty five meters from

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where they expected the touchdown point.
That is again extraordinary. It's a really

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really significant piece of space engineering.
We're very, very excited about it and

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a very short mission. They're not
planning to do more than a lunar day.

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Is that it was something and I
think that was Yeah, that was

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the idea, a lunar day.
And it might be cut short by the

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fact that the toil the panels are
pointing in the wrong direction, but they'll

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do what they call yeah, and
it might wake it up again the next

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lunar day, but they're not up
banking on it and it doesn't matter.

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But yeah, it's yeah. Well, you've got to give them credit for

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the resilience of their equipment. It's
it's had a tough landing and it still

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works, which is extraordinary. One
more thing in this segment, and this

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is a bit of a sad story. Physicist Nobel laureate and a man who's

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done some amazing things in astronomy and
space science, Arno Penzies has passed away.

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Indeed, that's right. He was
ninety years old due to complications from

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Alzheimer's disease. Were told horrible horrible
disease. And Arno's name is absolutely engraved

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on the minds of astrophysicists everywhere because
he and a man called Bob Wilson,

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who's still alive, still going strong. He's eighty eight now, they were

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the two who first detected the cosmic
microwave background radiation, that's right, and

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they did it by accident. They
were testing a receiver, a radio astronomy

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receiver at the Bell Labs back in
I think it was nineteen sixty four,

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it was. It was at Holme
Dell in New Jersey. They were doing

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experiments with this new antenna and they
found basically a continuous signal that seemed to

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be coming from everywhere, and famously
they tried everything to get rid of it

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because they thought it was interference.
And you know the most famous stories that

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they found a lot of pigeon droppings
in the antenna, so they shoveled them

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out because they thought that might be
what was doing it. But it didn't

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go away, and it turned out
to be the radiation of the Big Bang,

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which had been predicted before that but
was not detected until that nineteen sixty

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four experiment. So they won together. They won the Nobel Price for Physics

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in nineteen seventy eight. Such an
extraordinary discovery, and it's actually what really

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put the final nail in the coffin
of the steady state theory of the universe,

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which was in the nineteen sixties.
This Big Bang theory and the steady

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state theory sat side by side and
we didn't know which one was right.

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But the discovery Panzas and Wilson really
sealed the face of the steady state universe

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and said, no, it's not
all right. So he was ninety.

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As we say in Australia, that's
a good knock. It's a good milk

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here. Yeah, it's a cricket
reference for those who are saying, what

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on earth are they talking about?
Yeah, it's a good good innings will

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be the way too. Good innings
is another well pollball sense. All I

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can say is thank god we don't
live for the length of an innings in

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baseball. Okay, you know your
story about the pigeon poo in the antenna

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reminded me that when I worked for
the ab SO, we went off air

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once and we had to get a
technician to go up to the satellite dish

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to find out what was going on. He found chicken bones in the in

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the in whatever I can't remember the
name of the thing, the feed,

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the feed probably Yeah. We'd had
people up on the roof looking at the

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air conditioner and they stopped for lunch
and they decided to take the cap off.

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The shut up full of chicken mates, and that locked us off the

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air. Cost us a fortune to
fix. But and then another another time,

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another time it was a spider.
The spider got in there and made

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a where knocked us off the air. You just never know, do you?

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All right, straw, This is
very funny. It's one of my

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favorite stories. This is Space Nuts
Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Vrad what's ace

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MUDs? Yes, indeed, and
thanks for joining us. Now we're going

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to talk about dark matter, a
topic that rarely comes up, but this

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is a little bit of a change
of pace in the dark matter story.

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We're looking at our own dark matter, the dark matter of the Milky Way,

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and it looks like it's it's behaving
in a way that might make our

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galaxy unique. And because it's because
of the way it's behaving and what's happening

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in the extremities of our galaxy is
what I gleaned from this. What's the

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story? Phraid? This is all
very strange, it is, and we've

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got to preface this by saying that
anything to do with our own galaxy,

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and certainly it's geometry and things of
that sort, it's quite difficult to establish

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because we're sitting in it. The
Sun is one of four hundred or so

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billion stars, most of which are
in the disc of the galaxy, and

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we are just one of them.
So we're in a dusty disc and we're

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trying to map the galaxy. We're
trying also to map the part of the

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galaxy that nobody can see, the
dark matter halo. Why do we know

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galaxies sit in dark matter halos because
we can look at other galaxies and we

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can measure the way the stars rotate. That was something that was actually it

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was first noticed that the rotation of
galaxies not making sense was first is by

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Ken Freeman, one of our colleagues
here in Australia, Ken Freeman of the

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Australian National University, and then followed
up that was in nineteen seventy I think

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you won the Prime Minister Science Prize
for that work. It was in the

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late seventies nineteen seventy eight, if
I remember rightly, that Vera, Rubin

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and colleagues really brought it to the
attention of the world's astrophysicists when they measured

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the way galaxies some galaxies rotate.
I discovered it didn't make sense. And

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so what you do. You look
at a galaxy. You can measure its

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rotation, either by using a spectrograph
and looking at the starlight because the Doppler

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effect. If the galaxy is edge
on or nearly edgeH on, the Doppler

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effect will show you the rotation,
and you can actually do it, as

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I think Vera did, by looking
at clouds of gas with radio telescopes.

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Either way, what you find is
that instead of the rotation speed of stars

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and gas in a galaxy dropping off
as you go farther away from the center

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of the galaxy, which is what
you would expect if there was nothing else

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there other than what you could see, instead of doing that, the velocities

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stay flat. In other words,
the velocities are always the same no matter

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how far out in the galaxy you
go. It's what we call a flat

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rotation curve. And that's what led
to the theory that galaxies are embedded in

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a blob of dark matter, a
giant dark matter halo. Now, probing

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that kind of detail with our own
galaxies not easy because we're sitting in it.

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But with new technology, and in
particular it's the Gaya spacecraft that can

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measure the motions of stars very very
accurately. A group of scientists based actually

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in the United States. I think
MIT is the main institution where these scientists

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work. One of them is a
I just I know actually Anna Freeball.

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She's somebody I've worked within the Rave
project. But what they've done is they

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have very carefully measured the speeds of
stars at a great distance is from the

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center of our galaxy, in fact, going out to something like one hundred

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thousand light years. Now, at
that distance from the center of our galaxy,

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there are very very few stars because
you know, they're real outliers,

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because we think the diameter of the
galaxy is much more than one hundred thousand

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light years. So if you're kind
of doubling the radius of that and finding

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stars there, you're really looking at
distant, faint stars. They're difficult to

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measure, but you can do.
But what they've found is that yes,

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there is a flat rotation curve exactly
as we see in other galaxies out to

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something like eighty thousand light years,
but after that the velocities fall away and

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you get a fall in the rotation
veloc of stars. And the interpretation of

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that is that the dark matter halo
that actually controls these rotations is not as

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you would expect, which is basically
a blob that's more dense in the middle

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than the outer edges. They're suggesting
that the middle is less dense, that

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it's like an apple with its core
taken out. I think that's the analogue

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that's being used in the paper that
they've in, which is published by the

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way, in the monthly Notis Is
of the Royal Astronomical Society, so really

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really interesting. A lot of this, of course, is due to computer

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simulations, and I think that's the
next step is to if you have got

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a falling rotation curve, which is
what they think they've detected, then you've

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got to turn that into models of
the distribution of the dark matter and try

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and understand why our galaxy shows that
and why other galaxies don't. So that's

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you know, as you said,
it's pointing to the idea that maybe our

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galaxy maybe not unique, but certainly
very unusual compared with the general number of

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galaxies. The question, obviously is
why why is this happening? Exactly why

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is it so? And we don't
know the answer to that. So I

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think, I actually think we would
well, but but people don't just say,

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like I would, I don't know
the answer to that. What they

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do is they then look back at
their models of galaxy evolution and how galaxies

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form and see whether they can replicate
the galaxy with a less dense center in

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its dark matter halo. So it's
not you know, throwing up your hands

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and saying we don't know. The
answer is we don't know, but we'll

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find out. Could it be fraid
that this is just part of the life

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cycle of a galaxy exactly that's that's
exactly right, So that maybe you know

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the model the evolution of galaxies and
the dark mater halos, over time,

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they might be able to find that
this, yes, is a normal part

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of the process, that all galaxies
do this, but at the moment,

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we don't know that. Yes.
Fascinating, isn't it? If you Yeah,

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if you want to chase that up. Space dot COM's got a great

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article on it, or you can
go to the Royal College thingy thing Society.

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Yeah yeah, and read read the
whole report, but be prepared to

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read fifteen thousand pages of authors.
Yep, all right, let's move on

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to another story involving Mars. And
we've spoken about this a couple of times

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before, and it's defied explanation,
and that is that they've been detecting methane

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on Mars and it's given rise to
suggestions that it might still have seismic activity,

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it might still have some kind of
you know, volcanic action going on,

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all of which have been sort of
looked at with a giant question mark.

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Now something new has popped up to
suggest these verbs might be caused by

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something else. Fred, Yes,
that's right. Well it doesn't actually really,

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it doesn't give us much insight into
the origin of the methane because,

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as you say, Angry, yes, that's right, methane could be formed

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by a volcanic, residual, tectonic
activity of some sort, or, more

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intriguingly, methanogenic microbes. If there
are methane burping microbes alive on Mars under

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the surface, that is another possibility, and that's why it's exciting. You

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know, because on Earth, most
of the methane in the atmosphere is produced

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by a life or it comes from
cows. In fact. Now, the

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thing about methane is it doesn't last
long. If you generate CH four the

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methane molecule, put it into sunlight
or daylight, and it separates into carbon

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and hydrogen. It doesn't last.
It doesn't stick around long. So if

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you find it in an atmosphere,
you know that there is some source that

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is replenishing it. And that's why
this again, why it's so intriguing.

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We've known about methane on Mars since
nineteen ninety nine. Some of the detections

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made from Well detections then made from
the surface of our own planet because he

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can detect it in the atmosphere of
Mars. But several missions that have had

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methane sensing apparatus, both on the
surface of Mars and in orbit around Mars,

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have basically given us ambivalent results.
You find, for example that I

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think Curiosity periodically detected a burst of
methane in the part of Mars where it's

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sitting on the surface, which was
completely unnoticed and undetected by orbiting spacecraft.

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Only in a very few occasions have
these various different spacecraft actually both been able

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to detect a single methane event.
So why does it pop out like this?

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Where does it come from? And
what's now happened is a group of

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scientists actually I think, led from
the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United

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States. What they've done is they've
they've suggested that maybe the methane is being

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sucked out from underground by changes in
Mars' atmospheric pressure. Now, Mars's atmospheric

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pressure is less than one percent of
the Earth, so it's not much,

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but it does exist and it does
change well basically you know, giving rise

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to weather on Mars. And so
what they've done is they've done a simulation

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of how methane might if there's methane
in underground networks, you know, fractures

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of between the rocks and places like
that where it might lurk if the methane

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is there. What they've done is
they've simulated how it moves in those networks,

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and it turns out that seasonal changes
in Mars's atmosphere might be what actually

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bring the methane to the surface where
it's detected. And they've actually gone a

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step further with this because they've predicted
what might happen with seasonal changes. They

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basically, in fact, I'm quoting
here from the Universe Today's article, which

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is that the simulations predict short lived
methane pulses prior to sunrise for Mars's upcoming

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northern summer period, which is a
candidate time frame for Curiosity's next atmospheric sampling

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campaign. So what they're doing is
they're saying, there's Curiosity's sitting on the

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you know, on on Mars.
It's got methane sensing equipment on it.

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We think that as the northern summer
on Mars evolves, we're going to start

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seeing short lived pulses of methane discuss
So that's the you know, that's basically

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what's happening. They're suggesting that the
the Curiosity scientists should should keep an eye

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out for this, and I think
that would be great if we started seeing

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pulses of methane when this you know, when these things are predicted, then

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it would give us some confidence that
those simulations are on the right line.

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So they yeah, it would add
a significant amount of evidence to their theory

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that this is an you know,
a Mars atmospheric pressure issue. It doesn't

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answer the question as to why methane
exists, and that's right, what's produce

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00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:04.519
seeing it? But yeah, mystery, that's right, That mystery remains.

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But it's what it's saying is we
can at least we could at least suggest

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whether methane is lurking, you know, if it is in fractures in the

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00:29:14.839 --> 00:29:18.440
rocks and it's being pulled out by
it, it's fake pressure changes and you

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can predict that that will be a
step forward, even though exactly as you

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00:29:22.559 --> 00:29:29.400
say, we don't know whether it's
methanogenelic methanogenic microbe sitting there and emitting methane,

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or whether it's residual volcanic activity.
Space cares. That's what it is,

340
00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:41.759
space caves. Blame the space cows. It's always it's actually a poker

341
00:29:41.799 --> 00:29:45.720
machine for your Americans, a slot
machine that does have space cares. I

342
00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:52.200
saw it one day. Very weird, very strange. But yeah, well

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we'll wait with interest. It might
be more to report on this particular story.

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Is space Nod's Andrew Uncley here with
Professor Fred what's and s maare we

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00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:07.000
reach out at least? No,
this is this is space and we do

346
00:30:07.160 --> 00:30:11.519
encourage questions, and we've got questions
from a few individuals today, the first

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00:30:11.519 --> 00:30:17.680
one being Ray take it away.
Ray. Well, this is Ray Kruz

348
00:30:17.920 --> 00:30:25.599
calling Troum Hollow out of California.
Again. I'm we're thinking about meteor showers

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there. They do the geminids,
and I just heard your podcast about the

350
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new one that may or may not
have path on twelve. I hope you

351
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:38.160
guys will follow up with that.
But we talk, we speak of burning

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00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:47.039
these bits of like probably sanitized particles
burning up in the atmosphere. But it

353
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occurred to me that maybe these things
are not oxidizing, but they're vaporizing.

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These are a small piece of silicon
or iron or something popping up the atmosphere

355
00:31:00.279 --> 00:31:04.480
before it had a chance to actually
burn, as it were, to archidize,

356
00:31:04.519 --> 00:31:10.759
it's going to just vaporize. So
that's my question. I mean,

357
00:31:11.039 --> 00:31:12.559
is it panominantly one or the other? Is it both? I mentioned it's

358
00:31:12.559 --> 00:31:18.400
a little bit of both. I
love your show. Thank you for taking

359
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:23.240
questions. Thank you, Ray.
Yeah, So when we get into a

360
00:31:23.279 --> 00:31:30.720
medior shower, is it oxidization or
vaporization or both? Oh well, I

361
00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:38.240
think raised rice is both. So
yeah, so the vaporization, so you

362
00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:44.519
basically it's the you know, this
particle hits the atmosphere high velocity, feels

363
00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:51.160
the friction of the atmosphere and vaporizes
and then I think oxidizes, in other

364
00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:59.759
words, burns and so so that
process may explain why sometimes with with bribe

365
00:31:59.759 --> 00:32:06.400
meat you see color changes. Often
you see green, which is caused by

366
00:32:06.400 --> 00:32:13.880
the excitement of oxygen atoms in the
upper atmosphere. But but you know,

367
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:16.200
sometimes they're white as well. I
think, No, I'm not a meteor

368
00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:22.240
specialist, but I think I think
a ray raises a really interesting topic,

369
00:32:22.279 --> 00:32:27.519
and I think it is true that
both those processes are at play in when

370
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we see a shooting star a meteor, and we should He's right, we

371
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:37.400
should follow up on that predicted twelfth
of December meteor shower. I should check

372
00:32:37.440 --> 00:32:43.480
with the people I know who are
meteor specialists and see whether there's any news

373
00:32:43.519 --> 00:32:47.759
on that. And it may well
be that there's still an analysis going on

374
00:32:47.799 --> 00:32:52.160
of what's what we're seen on that
night. But you might remember it came

375
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:55.559
immediately before the geminid meteor shower,
but it was a predicted new one,

376
00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:00.680
so we'll we'll talk about that again
some later day. Thank you Ray for

377
00:33:00.720 --> 00:33:06.400
the reminder. Yeah, appreciate it. Ray, And like Ray, you

378
00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:08.480
should be aware that whenever they say, you know, there's a discovery in

379
00:33:08.519 --> 00:33:13.519
astronomy, it happened a decade ago, it just takes them takes them a

380
00:33:13.559 --> 00:33:16.160
long time to write the report with
a quill and an ink. Well,

381
00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:21.279
astronomers sort of, you know,
a bit slawer to take up the new

382
00:33:21.359 --> 00:33:29.200
tech. Sometimes. Sure that that's
but I do you know your points well

383
00:33:29.240 --> 00:33:36.880
made? There's certainly to get your
data into the published record, what we

384
00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:40.319
call the literature, it's got to
be peer reviewed, and that's a process

385
00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:45.279
that often does take the time,
and I'm not surprised it's quite a hard

386
00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:46.960
thing to do. I don't really
do it anymore, but when I used

387
00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:52.119
to peer review other people's work,
you've got criteria against which it needs to

388
00:33:52.160 --> 00:33:57.599
be judged, and you basically need
to redo the research yourself to check whether

389
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:00.240
what they've done is correct. It's
pretty hard work. Yeah, it sounds

390
00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:07.000
sounds like a right royal pain.
Sometimes they give you twenty dollars for it

391
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:12.760
as well. If you really lucky, nice area. Okay, thank you,

392
00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:15.480
Ray. We will follow that up. I've written a note to remind

393
00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:20.559
Fred to do his homework and I
used a real pen. Yes, now

394
00:34:20.639 --> 00:34:25.360
the same thing that's read. I
hope yours is a good luck one is

395
00:34:25.400 --> 00:34:29.719
too. Where you go two reds, I'll teach I'll teach you how to

396
00:34:29.800 --> 00:34:32.840
use one next time. I down
there. Now, let's let's go to

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00:34:34.079 --> 00:34:37.880
Rusty and Donnybrook. I love I
love this question. This is a speculator.

398
00:34:37.880 --> 00:34:40.039
We've got a couple of speculators to
finish up off the show this week.

399
00:34:40.960 --> 00:34:49.079
Rusty is suggesting a solar Pergola Bredan
Andrew. Good morning. It's Rusty

400
00:34:49.119 --> 00:34:54.920
and Donnybrook. Just been thinking about
putting a sunscreen for the Earth out at

401
00:34:55.239 --> 00:35:00.760
L one between a son and the
Earth, and for a two percent coverage

402
00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:06.960
it would be about eight hundred square
kilometers. Just wondering if that sort of

403
00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:14.559
thing using an opake membrane would be
possible for our technology in the next say

404
00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:20.880
twenty years and two percent, I
think that would be enough to make the

405
00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:23.840
difference we need at this stage of
the game. So he could act as

406
00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:30.280
a solar pergola, and they could
tilt to let more or less come through.

407
00:35:30.239 --> 00:35:36.199
Just wondering what you think of that
idea. Cheeers guys, thanks for

408
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:38.800
usty. I assume he's talking about
cooling the planet a little bit. Is

409
00:35:38.840 --> 00:35:45.599
that where he's going two percent?
I mean, what you're trying to do

410
00:35:45.079 --> 00:35:53.800
is put darkness onto a spot.
It would have to be well, it

411
00:35:53.800 --> 00:35:57.400
wouldn't have to be actually no,
it wouldn't have to be on the equator.

412
00:35:57.760 --> 00:36:00.719
It would be probably between the topics, but it would move all the

413
00:36:00.760 --> 00:36:07.679
time as the Earth rotates, because
the L two point stays a big about

414
00:36:07.719 --> 00:36:10.280
the L one point, which is
what he's talking about, that stays stationary

415
00:36:10.760 --> 00:36:15.400
in relation to the Earth and the
Sun, but the Earth is rotating.

416
00:36:16.599 --> 00:36:22.519
What I don't know, So you've
got eight hundred square kilometers I think is

417
00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:27.760
what Roster stays. It would have
to be, which is a megastructure.

418
00:36:29.159 --> 00:36:34.639
It's bigger than anything we've ever built. And I'd need to just do a

419
00:36:34.719 --> 00:36:39.239
sum to see what the how what
angle that would subtend at the Earth's surface,

420
00:36:39.440 --> 00:36:43.800
just to see how much of the
Sun's light is blocked out that.

421
00:36:43.880 --> 00:36:47.199
The bottom line, though, is
it might be possible. It might be

422
00:36:47.360 --> 00:36:52.000
the kind of engineering that could be
done. I'm not suggesting it will be

423
00:36:52.079 --> 00:36:55.519
anytime soon. I think it's beyond
us for at least a century that scale

424
00:36:55.559 --> 00:37:04.079
of engineering. Right. The question
is whether you actually want to do it.

425
00:37:05.119 --> 00:37:10.400
You know, quite a few solutions
have been proposed for the issue of

426
00:37:10.960 --> 00:37:19.440
climate change that involved this kind of
engineering. I think it's called geoengineering.

427
00:37:19.519 --> 00:37:22.440
Basically, you're trying to you try
to change the properties of the Earth by

428
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:29.199
building something or sticking something into the
atmosphere. You know, there's been I

429
00:37:29.199 --> 00:37:32.119
think it's half a dioxide that you
can inject into the atmosphere that increases the

430
00:37:32.159 --> 00:37:37.760
opacity of the atmosphere. The trouble
with all those issues, all those suggestions,

431
00:37:37.960 --> 00:37:44.239
is that they're potentially dangerous because like
you know, we in Australia know

432
00:37:44.280 --> 00:37:47.360
all about cantoads, which are introduced
with the best will in the world.

433
00:37:47.840 --> 00:37:54.519
Oh yeah, and now you know
a hideous problem. So I would always

434
00:37:54.559 --> 00:38:01.039
counsel against too many ambitious, over
ambitious projects. But I do like the

435
00:38:01.079 --> 00:38:06.159
sound of that one. I think
Russi's thinking is good. Putting it in

436
00:38:06.199 --> 00:38:10.639
the right place. There you've got
a two percent reduction in the solar radiation.

437
00:38:12.239 --> 00:38:16.599
That's absolutely significant. If you can
sustain that over a long period,

438
00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:23.800
you might need rockets to keep the
thing in its right orientation because gravitational forces

439
00:38:23.840 --> 00:38:30.119
would tend to disturb its orientation and
it probably would not be sitting stationary at

440
00:38:30.239 --> 00:38:32.960
L one. It would probably be
in orbit around L one, which might

441
00:38:34.039 --> 00:38:37.280
mean its shadow moves all over the
place. Now that's not the issue.

442
00:38:37.320 --> 00:38:43.920
Here's we're just talking about that,
the reduction of the solar radiance in one

443
00:38:43.960 --> 00:38:49.199
spot. And I'm not sure to
what extent that affects the overall temperature of

444
00:38:49.239 --> 00:38:54.480
the planet, whether it's a simple
two percent drop or whether there are other

445
00:38:54.559 --> 00:39:00.119
factors at play, which they might
be. Not a climate scientist, that

446
00:39:00.280 --> 00:39:05.000
mare of climate science. So yeah, it could be the case. If

447
00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:08.079
it's anything like solar panels, it'll
it'll lose a lot in the translation.

448
00:39:08.760 --> 00:39:15.079
So it knows. Just a side
thought to that theory of rusties. If

449
00:39:15.079 --> 00:39:22.760
we built this megastructure, would that
reclassify ourselves civilization? Oh yeah, so

450
00:39:22.840 --> 00:39:25.599
the what's that called that? Yeah? I forgot what it's called as a

451
00:39:25.639 --> 00:39:30.199
scale of classific Yeah, but we're
at like zero point seven now, and

452
00:39:30.280 --> 00:39:34.920
to be you know, the best
we're going to be at one, and

453
00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:37.920
that requires a megastructure, as it
does. Yeah, maybe it's the first

454
00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:43.960
step, and it would be certainly
not that that really you know, that's

455
00:39:44.159 --> 00:39:50.519
that's that that scale is very much
one that's predicated on there being other Civilization's

456
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:55.440
course, fucking use the word.
And we don't know the answer. No,

457
00:39:55.559 --> 00:40:00.840
we don't not yet, well we
might I never know it, that's

458
00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:06.840
all. Probably probably that you can't
rule out aliens until you've just you know,

459
00:40:06.920 --> 00:40:13.360
not ruled them out by discovering one
civilization. Okay, thanks Rusty.

460
00:40:13.559 --> 00:40:22.280
And finally we are going to get
another what if from Duncan. Hello Duncan

461
00:40:22.360 --> 00:40:30.199
here from Weymouth in the UK.
Question that come to mind with research going

462
00:40:30.239 --> 00:40:37.480
on on Mars and Venus, would
it be possible to make it easier in

463
00:40:37.519 --> 00:40:43.360
the long run to bring the planets
closer to worth, maybe using some asteroids

464
00:40:43.400 --> 00:40:49.679
in the oben transfer or bit something
like that. So maybe move Mars in

465
00:40:49.840 --> 00:40:54.599
a bit closer and Venus out a
bit further. And also with that that

466
00:40:54.679 --> 00:41:00.159
would hopefully cal Venus down a bit
and wal Mars up a bit. It

467
00:41:00.559 --> 00:41:07.159
maybe even we could set up some
sort of siphon to siphon some atmosphere directly

468
00:41:07.239 --> 00:41:14.719
from Venus on to Mars or something
like that that would help terror form them

469
00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:19.960
knowing for them at the same time. I don't know, just the thought

470
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:22.719
that came to mind. What do
you think? Oh, go your way.

471
00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:30.800
I bought Ace Space Nuts T shirt. Very nice. I've been wearing

472
00:41:30.840 --> 00:41:36.679
it all about. Thanks for the
good work, keep it up. Thank

473
00:41:36.719 --> 00:41:39.920
you, Duncan. Bye, I
want to I want a photo of him

474
00:41:39.920 --> 00:41:44.639
with the T shirt. Yeah,
we should do. Yeah, it's great

475
00:41:44.679 --> 00:41:49.920
stuff, Duncan. Look, he's
thinking way outside the box, but I

476
00:41:49.960 --> 00:41:52.639
have it. I have an idea
on how we might move Mars. Get

477
00:41:52.639 --> 00:41:54.960
someone up there with a box of
matches and just fire up that methane.

478
00:41:58.119 --> 00:42:01.960
Ah, there's a problem with that. No, no message, no question.

479
00:42:04.519 --> 00:42:15.280
Yeah yeah torch then without oxygen canister. Duncan's question is, Look,

480
00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:19.840
it's great. It's great stuff.
I love the way people think about this

481
00:42:19.920 --> 00:42:27.199
sort of thing. And if if
Rosty's speculation was mega engineering, what Duncan's

482
00:42:27.199 --> 00:42:35.079
suggesting is hyper mega engineering or something
even bigger, because moving planets is actually

483
00:42:35.599 --> 00:42:43.480
very hard, indeed, because they're
big and there's the big and they're set

484
00:42:43.480 --> 00:42:47.119
in their ways. Because they're so
old, so I think, and well,

485
00:42:47.119 --> 00:42:51.440
that's very set in their ways.
That's right. Four points four point

486
00:42:51.480 --> 00:42:54.599
six billion years tends to make you
a bit interested in routine, doesn't it.

487
00:42:54.639 --> 00:43:00.920
Really. I'm not moving, Yes, I'm not going to move so

488
00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:06.199
for terraforming, and as you know, I'm not a big fan of terraforming

489
00:43:06.239 --> 00:43:10.599
because I think it's slightly you know, off the wall idea. But if

490
00:43:10.639 --> 00:43:15.199
you were going to do that,
I think there would be easier ways than

491
00:43:15.320 --> 00:43:20.880
trying to move the planets, and
in particular the you know, the high

492
00:43:20.920 --> 00:43:24.800
temperature of Venus and the low temperature
of Mars. Yes, it makes sense

493
00:43:24.840 --> 00:43:29.360
because Venus is nearer the Sun that
we are. Mars is further away from

494
00:43:29.400 --> 00:43:31.639
the Sun than we are, but
there's all kinds of atmospheric physics going on

495
00:43:31.840 --> 00:43:37.280
there as well, and moving Venus
to an orbit that was nearest to the

496
00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:44.159
Earth would not necessarily make it any
more habitable because you've still got this runaway

497
00:43:44.159 --> 00:43:49.480
greenhouse effect. It's a carbon dioxide
atmosphere, very very thick atmosphere. You

498
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:53.440
really need to fix that, and
I don't think just moving its orbit would

499
00:43:53.559 --> 00:44:01.000
be enough to do that unless you
built a lest you built a really big

500
00:44:01.159 --> 00:44:12.880
screen. Yeah, well that's right, that might be trick. So good

501
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:15.880
thinking, Duncan. Duncan's thinking is
always good. And by the way,

502
00:44:15.960 --> 00:44:19.000
Duncan, we've got some text questions
from you which we will look out there

503
00:44:19.039 --> 00:44:23.079
on the track. Thank you for
them. Thank you for this what if

504
00:44:23.280 --> 00:44:30.920
suggestion, And I think this one
is perhaps at the more unlikely end of

505
00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:37.039
the spectrum of what you could do. I think planetary orbits are You might

506
00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:40.719
put it that they are literally set
in stone because out of rocky planets that

507
00:44:40.719 --> 00:44:46.239
we're talking about. Y's not thinking
though. Somebody will pick that up for

508
00:44:46.239 --> 00:44:51.599
a sci fi novel somewhere along the
line, though I imagine probably probably you.

509
00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:55.000
I'm still working on thoughts. I'm
still I'm still trying to get my

510
00:44:55.039 --> 00:45:01.159
audio book down for Parallax. It's
just I have much time, and it's

511
00:45:01.159 --> 00:45:05.760
a hard one to do because there's
so many characters in it and I'm running

512
00:45:05.760 --> 00:45:10.119
out of voice ideas. But anyway, we'll keep working on that. I'm

513
00:45:10.159 --> 00:45:15.440
about halfway, so only plus better
than starting. Only two hundred chapters to

514
00:45:15.480 --> 00:45:19.280
go. Thank you, Dunk,
and thank you Rusty, thank you Ray.

515
00:45:19.920 --> 00:45:22.199
And a reminder if you would like
to send us some questions. You're

516
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:27.800
all always welcome to do so via
our website, Spacenuts podcast dot com or

517
00:45:27.840 --> 00:45:31.239
spacenuts dot io. Click on the
AMA link or the little purple button on

518
00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:35.000
the right hand side of the home
page. And if you've got a device

519
00:45:35.039 --> 00:45:38.440
with a microphone, easypasy, and
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520
00:45:38.440 --> 00:45:42.239
who you are and where you're from. We always like to know what you're

521
00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:45.880
up to and have a look around
while you're on the website and check out

522
00:45:45.880 --> 00:45:50.119
the shop and all the other things. Maybe you want to become a patron.

523
00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:54.119
We have plenty of those, and
they've been staunch supporters of space Nuts

524
00:45:54.119 --> 00:46:00.599
for a long time. And we
so very much appreciate that. We're done

525
00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:04.480
and dusted for another week. Oh
by the way, next week's episode,

526
00:46:04.559 --> 00:46:07.840
All Questions, All question episode episode
three hundred and ninety. Nearly forgot to

527
00:46:07.880 --> 00:46:13.639
mention that, thank you Fred as
always, Thank you very much, Andrew.

528
00:46:14.599 --> 00:46:17.719
It's always a pleasure. We'll speak
again soon, maybe we will,

529
00:46:17.719 --> 00:46:22.119
indeed, Professor Fred Watson, an
astronomer at large, And to Hugh in

530
00:46:22.199 --> 00:46:28.039
the studio, thanks for doing the
tests this week. We were testing my

531
00:46:28.119 --> 00:46:30.679
technology to make sure it worked and
we got it all right. And what's

532
00:46:30.679 --> 00:46:36.239
wrong with me? I said something
nice about Hugh. It happens occasionally and

533
00:46:36.320 --> 00:46:37.719
from me Andrew Unkley, thanks for
your company. I hope you can join

534
00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:43.679
us on the next episode of Space
Nuts. Bye bye Nuts. You'll be

535
00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:52.000
listening to The Nuts podcast available at
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or

536
00:46:52.039 --> 00:46:55.960
your favorite podcast player. You can
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537
00:46:57.159 --> 00:47:00.239
This has been another quality podcast production. Nights dot com