#401: Titan's Troubles & UN's Satellite Summits: Life on Ice Moons and Space Traffic Control

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Hi there, Thank you for joining
us yet again on another episode of Space

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Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host, and good to have

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your company. Got a couple of
things to talk about on today's show.

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Not all good news, I'm afraid. One in relation to Saturn's moon Titan.

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They've released some new information about the
potential for life on Titan and that

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doesn't augur well. Unfortunately. They've
been crunching the numbers and looking at the

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elephants and they've basically come up with
an elephant in a room that they don't

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like the look of. That all
makes sense, promise you that. And

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we are also going to the United
Nations because there's been an agreement to talk

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about something that needs to be talked
about so that they can talk about it

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again and then maybe make it about
talking about whatever they're going to talk about

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at the first meeting that they're going
to talk about. That all makes sense

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as well. That's all coming up
on this episode of Space Nuts Channel ten

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nine, Ignition, Space Nuts three
two Space Notes. As I reported,

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real good and joining me to unravel
quite literally all of that is Professor Fred

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Watson, Astronomer at Large. Hello
Fred, Hello, Andrew, how are

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you doing. I'm confused. Well, join the club. Yes, No,

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I'm all right, I'm alright.
Are you okay? Yeah, much

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better than I have been, Thank
you. Now that the antibiotics have got

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rid of the it's technically called rickets
here, but it's usually also known as

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a spotted fever. That describes it
perfectly. And it was caused by a

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tick bite. Yeah. So yeah, that is nasty. It's been a

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long haul, really, hasn't it. I mean it does, it's been

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about three weeks. Nasty, nasty. Let us get stuck into the news

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of this episode, and our first
story concerns Titan. Now, Titan held

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a lot of promise in terms of
potential life because we know that it's got

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all those elements for creating life,
plus you know, probably a subterranean ocean

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or a suber ice ocean. That
could mean that the mix is right to

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create potentially life. And of course
there's a big mission going there in the

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not too distant future. And the
people who published this study were actually a

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little bit worried that what they discovered
might put a torpedo in the mission,

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but it's probably going to do the
opposite for other reasons, But let's sort

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of just get down to tintas.
Titan probably looked like one of the best

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prospects for life beyond Earth, and
now they are starting to suggest that's probably

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not true. What's happened? Ye, yeah, so, And I think

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the kind of slightly depressing bit of
this is that it may well be that

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what has been evaluated for Titan will
apply to the other ice moons like Europa,

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Enceladus and now Mimas, which we
talked about a couple of weeks ago.

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Yes, all have sub ice oceans. So this is a study by

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an astrobologist Catherine Nisch, and what
she's shown is that the sub ice ocean

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on Titan. So remember the model
of Titan, it's a rocky world.

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It's a big world. It's bigger
than Mercury, which has an ocean overlaying

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the rock and ice on the surface
of that. And on the surface of

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the ice there are other liquids which
are with hydrocarbons. That's another story which

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we might touch on in a minute
as well. But what Catherine has done

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is looked at how material from the
surface of Titan, which is known to

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be rich in hydrocarbons, how that
might filter down to the subsurface ocean.

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And the basically the outcome is that
it is very very slow indeed, and

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you know, not something that might
might make for a a prebiotic mix in

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the oceans of Titan, the sub
ocean. And I'm putting that succinctly.

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But basically the story is this excuse
me, and I should say this study

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is published in the journal Astrobiology.
It's all about how you know, this

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transfer from the surface, which is
gone to be organic rich down to the

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ocean. And so what has what
the modeling looks at is the fact that

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comets, which will have impacted Titan
like they have done the Earth and probably

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more so in the early history of
Titan, hits the surface. The heat

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of impact melts the surface, so
you've got a pool of liquid water for

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a little while that's got the surface
organics mixed with it. And what she

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has done then is said, okay, first of all, how many comets

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are going to strike Tighten every year, and that gives you an idea of

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the flow of water rate carrying these
organics from the surface to the interior.

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But then to work out just how
they will get down through the ice.

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I mean, there are all kinds
of unknowns in this, I have to

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say, Andrew, because we don't
actually know how thick that ice layer is,

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and we don't know what the kind
of consistency of what's underneath it is.

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It may be the sort of slush
because we're talking about very low temperatures,

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but that ocean is known to exist
because of this phenomenon of if you

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stand on tighten, your longitude changes, and that's because the surface is moving

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with respect to the interior core.
Anyway, what they discovered was that every

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year, I think it's every year. Let me just make sure I'm saying

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the right thing here. Yeah,
so this is every year, every year

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you would get roughly seven and a
half tons of glycine, which is the

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simplest of the amino acids and is
one of the constituents of proteins in living

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organisms. And I'll leave you to
draw the line with the elephant there,

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but seven point five tons of glycine
we're going to filter down to the ocean.

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Now, the ocean is we think
at least twelve times the volume of

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the Earth's ocean, So seven and
a half tons per year into that isn't

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going to cut the mustard when it
comes to forming life, which is the

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equivalent to the mess of an African
male elephant. That's very much that's where

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we're drawing the analogy an elephant in
the room. Yes, that's right.

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So one elephant's worth of glycine per
year going into an ocean twelve times the

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volume of Earth oceans. You can
see the difficulty there, aren't you.

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It's going to be very, very
dilute. Indeed, Now that's that's for

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a world that is rich in surface
organic surface chemicals containing carbon, whereas the

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other icy worlds that we just mentioned, europeaganymye Enceladus, they're virtually no carbon

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compounds on their surface. And so
you know, if Titan's subsurface moon is

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not going to be habitable because of
this very poor flow of good stuff down

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from the surface, then it's going
to be worse for the other, you

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know, the other ocean worlds,
the other ice moons of the Solar system.

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So, actually, Catherineiche summarized it
very nicely. This work shows that

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it is very hard to transfer the
carbon on Titan's surface to its subsurface ocean.

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Basically, it's hard to have both
the water and the carbon needed for

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life in the same place. And
so that's as you said, there is

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still much to learn about about Titan. The Dragonfly mission, which will launch

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a double quad cocktail lander on Titan
twenty twenty eight. It's not that far

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down the track, going to take
a few years to get there, but

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that'll be exciting when it happens.
So we're still excited about Titan, but

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this kind of is a bit of
a downer when it comes to the sub

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sub ocean, So sorry, sub
ice ocean. Well, the question for

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me is how do they know they're
most likely to be right because they've had

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to make assumptions on several levels in
releasing this paper. They've had to assume

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a certain number of comments, a
certain amount of material, And how do

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we know that the interior of the
planet didn't already contain all that exactly that

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that is a very good question because
like all science, you're working on assumptions.

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You know, you're making these assumptions
about what the constituents are with.

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The assumptions are always ba on the
best understanding that we have, but may

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not be the right answer, and
that's the beauty of science. You know,

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something might turn up next week that
says, oh, wait a minute,

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we've got the comic flux wrong.
Oh wait a minute, we've done

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the maths wrong. That's not usually
the maths that have been done wrong.

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It's usually that one of the assumptions
might change because of new discoveries. So

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it's like all particular astrobiology, you're
pulling together strands from many, many different

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fields of science, and you're making
a conclusion on the basis of that.

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Now, you did you did mention, you did mention liquid hydrocarbons on the

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surface. So what's the story?
Like, I know, I know that

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exists, but how is it relevant
to this story? Well, my take

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on this is less specimistic because one
of the things that has excited astrobiologists in

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the past, certainly in the early
days of the Cassini Huygen's mission when we

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landed a spacecraft on the surface of
Titan, the fact that so the argument

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that niche Ander colleagues are making very
much on standard biology as we know,

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it's water based life with carbon as
the sorry carbon based life with water as

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the working fluid. And that's certainly
true of all life that we know.

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We know of nothing that works differently, but there have been speculations that you

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could have a different basis of life, and there were certainly ideas put forward

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back in the nearly two thousands which
suggested that maybe they were. There were

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organisms, again carbon based organisms,
but ones that use liquid natural gas as

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they're working fluid, the ethane and
methane which might breathe hydrogen and eat a

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settling, which is another another carbon
containing pound. And there was a bit

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of a little bit of a flush
of excitement about that when when Cassini discovered

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that both the stylene and carbon sorry
acetylene and hydrogen a bigie pad, they're

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both depleted near the surface of these
hydrocarbon lakes. Now, that observation might

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have gone away, it's not something
I've heard about for a long time,

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but it does mean that we we
shouldn't limit ourselves to looking at life as

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we know it Jim, because that's
you know, water based, carbon based

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life on a on a water on
a water working fluid. There might be

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other possibilities and titan might be a
place where it exists. Okay, so

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we can't absolutely rite it off,
but the evidence based on certain mathematical assumptions

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does sort of tip a bit of
water apple on the on the on the

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Titan theory, cold water too,
definitely cooled. I think I've got a

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solution though. Let's go to Titan
and build a room. I reckon if

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we go in that, inside that
room, we will find an elephant on

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its way down through the artist fit. Maybe it's got to be a bit

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of a disappointment for people. Even
though they're saying, oh, no,

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no, you know this this new
horizon, other dragonfly, sorry, mission,

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We'll go ahead, go ahead,
We're still excited. There's so many

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more questions to answer. Well,
that's right, but it's got to be

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a bit of a gut punch to
hear this. Yeah, yes, it's

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it's science. Yeah, it's science. You know. We we take we

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roll with the falls is done it
but you know, and once again,

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Titan is a fast interest, not
just because of the possibility of there being

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life there. It's a huge interest. It's unique. It's the only world

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in the entire universe that we know
other than the Earth where there are liquid

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pools of liquid pools of liquid,
and its hydrocarbons are on water, which

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are in equilibrium with the atmosphere.
So you've got this weather cycle there you

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get methane and ethane rain there will
be Andrew get this, there will be

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methane and ethane rainbows on Tysan,
which will have a different radius from rainbows

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on Earth because it's water that causes
our water droplets that cause our rainbows.

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It'll be water, sorry, methane
ethane droplets that cause theirs. And they've

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got different refractive indices stuff like that. It's going to be fabulous for Dragonfly.

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Yeah. Well, how long is
that going to take to get there

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there? Yeah, that's the problem. A long time. Yeah. So

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even though the launch is what twenty
twenty eight, by the time it gets

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there and I'm you know, it
gets down to business, it'll be much

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much later. Yeah. I'm not
sure what the orbital trajectory is. There

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will be slingshots involved, I'm sure, but I don't know what the details

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are anyway, Yeah, something still
to look forward to. And it's not

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you know, it's an interesting comment
I see as a yes, as a

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comment on our journey towards seeking life
elsewhere in the universe. Indeed, if

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you'd like to read that story in
full, you can find it on the

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site tech Daily website. This is
space N's Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred

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what's an Let's take a short break
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So there, it's pushing up just
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as it is, all right,
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so I'm getting more than I'm paying
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upload speed is around forty Okay,
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we are connected. So we've connected
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three. I'll have to close the
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gets a fresh connection via the VPN. And then we will do a speed

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test, all right, speed test, and I'll use exactly the same server

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so that we can compare the numbers. Can you remember what I said before?

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Find the optimal server or I'm going
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go? There it is that one. So once again, of course the

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server that I'm going through now is
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a VPN. So click go,
let's see what the numbers say and boom

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ninety nine, one hundred Yeah,
so what have I lost the one hundred

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and two I've lost practically nothing.
One hundred and three so around one hundred,

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two hundred and three megabits per second
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than I'm paying for and the upload
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thirty day money back guarantee. Now
back to the show, Space Nuts the

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00:19:27.599 --> 00:19:37.599
second half of our program FRED is
dedicated to bureaucracy. Not I'm probably I'm

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00:19:37.640 --> 00:19:42.240
probably being a bit too tough.
But it's finally come to pass that the

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United Nations has put on an agenda
for a meeting later this year. The

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they we'll be looking into the issue
of concentrations of satellites or satellite constellations or

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whatever you want to call them,
because as we speak, there are over

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eight thousand satellites in orbit around Earth, and there are plans to send up

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many, many, many many more. Even Rwanda wants to get in on

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this. They announced a few years
ago now that they would have put three

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three hundred thousand satellites in orbit.
SpaceX wants to put sixty thousand up there,

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and there are so many others that
want to add to that number,

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and it's starting well, it's beyond
becoming a concern for those who use telescope,

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visual telescopes and radio telescopes, because
you want to keep the skies dark

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and quiet, and having hundreds of
thousands of satellites orbiting the planet or in

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geostationary orbit probably would make that difficult. It's a challenge. So this story

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goes back really to twenty twenty nine. Sorry, doesn't go back to tonight.

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See I'm still not well enough.
I felt very old there for a

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moment. Yeah, it goes back
to twenty nineteen. In fact, May

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twenty nineteen when the first transch of
Stalink satellites were launched and astronomers were taken

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by surprise, and when they realized
that SpaceX had approval for another, well

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another twelve thousand of them, they
started to get upset. So that's the

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backstory. Now, this is a
story that I've been very closely involved with,

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Andrew, because it's part of my
job to help to counter this issue.

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And since that time there's been a
lot has happened. Astronomers grumbled like

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Matt to start with, but they
have since then had many many conferences,

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done a lot of work on actually
evaluating the risk to astronomical observation. And

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you're quite right, it's both optical
telescopes and radio telescopes which were affected by

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this. So all of that has
led a couple of years ago to the

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formation by the International Astronomical Union,
which is the sort of governing body of

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astronomy, of something that is called
the Center for the Protection of the dark

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and quiet sky from the effects of
satellite constellations, usually abbreviated to the CPS.

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It's a lot easier to say.
In fact, it's a lot of

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colleagues and friends of mine who are
involved with that. So that's at one

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level, and that organization, the
CPS, one of its it does many

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things. It does, you know, works out how you can remediate observations

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that have been affected by satellite transmissions, whether they're radio or satellite reflections.

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In the case of optical telescopes,
They've done a huge amount of work on

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that. There is also a strong
part of the organization which is about liaising

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with the space industry, which,
in the body the bottom line, is

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one of the most important ones because
the space industry is the key to this,

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and in particular the biggest basically the
person or the organization with the most

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investment in this so far is SpaceX
with Starlink, and I'm very glad to

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say that SpaceX has been one of
the foremost, if not the foremost company

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to engage with astronomers and look at
the problems and how you fix them.

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And indeed there are some really good
people working within the Starlink organization who are

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actually also members of the CPS the
IAU Center. So there's a lot of

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there's a good news aspect to this
story. The less good news aspect was

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something I was closely involved with this
time last year. I just in fact,

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I was just returning from a couple
of weeks in v where the Science

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and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations
Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space

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had just finished its annual two week
meeting, and during that meeting we were

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very kind of urgently trying to get
this issue of the deleterious effects of satellite

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constellations on astronomy onto the agenda.
The permanent agenda of kupwas the Committee on

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the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
That proved difficult because everything in the UN

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works by consensus. It's not a
vote. Everybody has to agree, and

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there were certain nations which will would
not agree to this agenda item. And

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I came away it was the United
States one of them. The United States

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was not one of them, No, it was other countries who were constantly

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in the news because of wars and
things of that sort. So it was

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all about, you know, it
was all about trying to push this through

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we were very disappointed at the end
of that couple of weeks that we didn't

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make it through with the agenda item. There was a full meeting of the

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Committee on the Peaceful Uses of out
of Space rather than their Scientific and Technical

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Subcommittee, which is what I was
involved with. That full committee met in

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June and the hope was that they
would push it forward there too. That

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didn't happen either because of another country
that objected, and in fact that's where

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it stood. And you might remember, but in October I was sort of

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meeting in La Palma in the Canary
Islands, which was actually an International Astronomical

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Union meeting where we discussed this again
and there were glimmers of hope there that

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we could see a way forward to
take this issue onto the agenda of the

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UN. And Okay, so in
the meeting that's just gone, which I

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wasn't at, and in fact it
was an in person only meeting so I

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couldn't even log in online. But
my colleagues from the Australians Base Agency were

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there, fantastic people who are right
across this issue, and in the end

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it was agreed. So there is
actually a very nice International Astronomical Union press

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release, which is headed as you
said, United Nations agrees to address the

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impact of satellite constellations on astronomy.
And so the agenda item, which will

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come up now for the next five
years and that is pretty amazing for UN

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issues, has the title dark and
Quiet Skies, Astronomy and large Constellations addressing

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emerging issues and challenges. And I
hope that I might be involved with that

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work down the track. I'm not
sure whether that's going to happen, but

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it's certainly very close to my heart
to be able to do that. So

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that step forward now, as you
have kind of indicated at the start of

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this segment, the wheels of the
UN turned very slowly, indeed, and

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this is an issue on which essentially
nimbleness is really the watchwork, because you

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know, the industry is moving ahead
so quickly. But I do believe that

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what the UN agreement now will do
is it just adds that little bit more

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gravitas to what we're already doing in
the astronomy world, engaging with the space

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industry, looking at how things can
be improved and how we can, you

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know, how we can mitigate the
effects of these mega constellations because the bottom

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line is the mega constellations are actually
doing good things now. You know,

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they are providing Internet services where they
would never have been there before. And

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we've seen examples with the wars that
are going on at the moment how those

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services are invaluable. There is the
industry itself, I should just start as

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a PostScript to this, is concerned
about the crowding of space because you know,

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the Castler syndrome haunts us all one
big collision and you've suddenly got so

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much debut that space becomes unusable.
Exactly. Yeah, I have a devil's

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advocate question. Okay, the UNS
now agreed to put this on the agenda

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and discuss it and look at the
problem over the next five years. How

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much power have they got to actually
deal with it when the time comes?

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Well, the time has come,
but how much power have they got?

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So they do have power in the
sense that it may well be that another

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body that sort of sits under the
UN, which is the International Telecommunications Union,

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and that's the body that actually allocates
frequencies and basically say yes, you

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00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:07.079
can launch your spacecraft. And there
is there is thinking which I think is

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shared across the board that that you
know, their mandate needs to be tightened

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up, that the ITU needs some
revision in the way it deals with with

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00:29:18.079 --> 00:29:23.640
requests for orbital launches and orbital slots, and and that that can be done.

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That's something that will probably be encouraged
by the fact that this, uh,

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00:29:29.279 --> 00:29:34.759
this agenda item has gone ahead.
If I may just segue from that

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00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:41.319
andrew to another story that kind of
highlights really what we're talking about, and

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00:29:41.400 --> 00:29:48.119
that is the announcement again from SpaceX
that they are going to d orbit one

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00:29:48.200 --> 00:29:56.039
hundred of its older Starlink satellites in
order to sort of clear the air a

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00:29:56.039 --> 00:30:03.839
bit. It's to to basically get
rid of a threat for collisions because I

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think these are the older I think
this is among the first group of the

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Starlink satellites. They're what they're called
the Version one satellite, and so over

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00:30:12.519 --> 00:30:15.359
the next few weeks they're going to
deorbit one hundred of them. Now,

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00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:21.200
exactly as you've said, Stalink already
has more than five thousand of these in

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orbit, but the later versions are
actually I think more sophisticated in their collision

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00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:34.000
avoidance capabilities and things of that sort. So you know, SpaceX announced in

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00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:41.279
an X tweet mix my metaphors there
that this is the right thing to do

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00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:45.799
to keep space safe and sustainable,
which is really what it's all about.

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00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:49.920
And I have to say, and
I've said this already, but yes,

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00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:56.799
SpaceX they're starlink constellations are certainly the
biggest offenders in terms of numbers, but

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00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:00.720
they are also the ones that have
come closest to the party by things like

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00:31:00.759 --> 00:31:04.119
the Visa SATs, which we're aiming
to darken the satellites. We now have

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00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:12.119
reflective coatings on the satellites that can
deflect the beams of light from the Sun.

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00:31:12.559 --> 00:31:15.839
Rather than those beams being scattered down
to Earth where they become visible in

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00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:21.279
twilight, you beam them straight out
into space and make the satellites invisible.

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00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:26.680
It reduces their brightness, and they're
also engaging in some quite stringent mitigation properties

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00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:32.720
in regard to radio astronomy as well. So in that regard, you know,

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00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:37.400
it's a good news story. It
is one that's still a difficulty.

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00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:42.039
Astronomy will never be the same again
with all this satellite constellation interference, but

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00:31:42.079 --> 00:31:47.799
we're learning how to deal with it, and I think forging very good relationships

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00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:52.279
with the space industry. I hope
the space industry is listening to this too.

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00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:56.960
Let's hope the UN works faster than
our roads and traffic authorities here in

352
00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:01.200
New South Wales, who have just
agreed that we should register horse drawn vehicles

353
00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:08.039
keys. All right, all right, I can't help myself sometimes. Yeah,

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00:32:08.079 --> 00:32:15.000
it is interesting news and you can
find out more at the International Astronomical

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00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:21.279
Union dot org website. That wraps
it up. Fred. Just a reminder

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00:32:21.319 --> 00:32:24.240
too, if you want to listen
to Space Nuts Q and A that will

357
00:32:24.279 --> 00:32:30.759
be coming up on Monday. It'll
get downloaded to your respective platforms automatically if

358
00:32:30.759 --> 00:32:35.680
you subscribe to us, and if
you're a follower on YouTube, don't forget

359
00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:39.559
to hit the subscribe button below.
Thanks Fred, We will catch up with

360
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:45.000
you real real soon. Sounds great, Andrew, talk soon. Fred Watson

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00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.759
an Astronomer at Large and he joins
us every week on Space Nuts, and

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00:32:49.799 --> 00:32:52.160
I hope you'll join us again very
very soon. We'll catch you then,

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00:32:52.480 --> 00:33:02.680
from me Andrew Dunkley. Bye BYEPA
Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

364
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:07.799
iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand

365
00:33:07.839 --> 00:33:20.200
at bites dot com. This has
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