#407: Unraveling the Universe's Expansion Enigma & Mars' Hidden Volcano

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Hi there, Thanks for joining us
so on yet another episode of Space Nuts.

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My name is Andrew Dunkley, your
host, and it's good to have

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your company again. Thanks for joining
us. Coming up, we'll be looking

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at an old chestnut, the expansion
speed of the universe. The theory is

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again under the spotlight due to for
a change, non conflicting evidence, so

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we'll talk about that. And a
giant volcano has been discovered and it was

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hiding in plain sight. Guess where. Yeah, you're right, we'll you're

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talking about that on this episode of
Space Nuts. Fifteen second guidance in Channel

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ten nine ignition sequence Space Nuts four
three two Space Nuts as when I report

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it, Bill's good and joining us
to explore all of that is Professor Fratt

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Watson, Astronomer at Large. Hello, Andrew, Good to see your smiling

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face again. You look a bit
healthier than you did last time I saw

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you. Yeah, yeah, improving. I generally don't suffer jet lag for

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very long, but this time it's
really hit me hard. And I think

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it's got everything to do with the
fact that I managed to sleep on the

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flight home, which was bad because
we got home at eight o'clock in the

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evening, so and I calculate I
probably slept seven hours on the plane because

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it left in the evening and good, yeah, yeah, I know.

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And then when we got back,
of course I didn't really feel that sleepy.

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So and it's taken me a long
time to adjust, but I'm starting

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to get it all back, which
is good. And yeah, getting over

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the illness that came with it.
I do not recommend having a heavy cold

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or COVID or whatever it is I
had in conjunction with jet lag. They

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do not like each other and they
fight with a nail. So yeah,

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not a fun combination, but I'm
sure it's not uncommon in this day and

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age. But yeah, we're getting
we're getting through. Its been a bit

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of a long haul. Boom boom, How are you how? Things fine?

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Thanks? Bit chaotic due to my
upcoming trip as well, So we'll

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be we'll be fine. We'll be
fine. Yeah, we can't wait to

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talk to you about that. In
fact, when this episode is out,

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it's probably around the same time as
you'll be at the event that you're attending,

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So that'll be good. Fred.
Let's get stuck into it. We've

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got a couple of really amazing topics
to talk about things we've talked about,

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well, one of which we've talked
about many times before. The other we

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haven't because it's only just been discovered. We'll get to that shortly, but

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let's talk about this situation with the
expansion speed of the universe. We get

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a lot of questions from the audience
about it. It's in the news again

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because an old theory has sort of
been confirmed by more evidence from a new

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source. And and that's I mean, that's great, but it's also got

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people saying, well, hang on
a minute, this can't work. It

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doesn't doesn't add up. There's still
a hole in the information and we can't

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figure it out. It's it's really
quite an intriguing scenario and the real head

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scratcher. And there's a lot of
scratch scratched heads in the astronomical community,

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exactly as you've suggested that, Andrew. So what what are we talking about.

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Let's, as they say on the
radio, let's unpick the story a

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bit. We we have a number
of different ways of measuring the expansion of

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the universe, and what we're talking
about here, Andrew, is the expansion

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of the universe now. In other
words, we're not talking about, you

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know, back in the day or
back in the origins of the universe.

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We're talking about the expansion speed now, and astronomers have got a slightly curious

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way of expressing that it is because
the bottom line is, with an expanding

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universe, the further away you look, the faster something is receding from you,

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and that is just standard geometry.
The further away you look, the

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faster it's moving. That was Hubble's
discovery back in nineteen twenty nine. And

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the speed is that things are moving
away from us are measured in units of

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kilometers per second. That's the speed. We can understand that, but it's

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kilometers per second per megaparsec. In
other words, well, let me just

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tell you what a megaparsec is.
It's a million parsex. One parsec is

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three point twenty six light years,
so a megaparsic megaparsec is three point twenty

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six million light years. To use
the numbers that we're more common more commonly

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familiar with, astronomers use parsex and
megaparsex because that's the measurable quantity. You

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can't measure light year, but we
can turn the measured quantity very easily into

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a light year, which actually is
a nicer way of expressing things. It's

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one most people can get their heads
around. The distance light travels in one

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year. So the value that the
Hubble telescope arrived at. And remember when

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the Hubble telescope was launched back in
nineteen ninety, one of its main aims,

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the main aim of the mission was
to measure the expansion velocity of the

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universe, in other words, measure
the Hubble constant. And that was because

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at that time, and I remember
this very clearly, there was huge disparity

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in different camps on what this constant
was, ranging from fifty kilometers per second

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to megaparsec per megaparseic to one hundred
kilometers per second per megaparsic. In other

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words, they differed by a factor
of two. Two groups of astronomers who

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were both convinced they were right,
but their values were so far apart they

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could never be reconciled. And it
turned out when the Hubble Telescope did its

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work and measured that expansion, the
value was almost exactly the average of those

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two fifteen one hundred it's seventy three
kilometers per second per megaparsec, and that

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is now the accepted value coming from
the Hubble space telescope. However, the

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problem is that there are other ways
of measuring the Hubble constant, and they

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involve looking back at the cosmic microwave
background radiation, which is, as you

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know, we've talked about it many
times before. It means we're looking so

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far in space that we're looking so
far back in time that we're seeing back

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to a time when the universe was
still luminous. We're seeing effectively the last

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vestiges of the flash of the Big
Bang, and in fact we're looking back

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to within about three hundred and eighty
thousand years of the d bank. Now,

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that cosmic microwave background radiation I call
it the cosmic wallpaper because it's behind

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everything else that we see in the
universe, but also because it's got patterns

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on it, like old fashioned wallpaper
often did. And those patterns are caused

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by actually acoustic oscillations within the fireball
of the universe, so slightly warmer and

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slightly cooler zones on that cosmic microwave
background radiation, and by studying those you

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can arrive at a value of the
Hubble constant. The problem is it doesn't

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agree with the Hobble. The method
that the Hubble telescope used, which is

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to look at I didn't say,
this is to look at a particular type

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of variable star SEFID variable stars which
have a known brightness. They are what

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we call standard candles. So that
gives you the Hubble telescope observations gives you

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seventy three kilometers per second permega passec, but looking at the cosmic microwave background

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radiation you get sixty seven kilometers per
second per mega passec, which is it's

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sort of, you know, almost
a ten percent difference, not quite but

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getting on that way. So that
is what we call the Hubble tension.

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That is what whearies people that we
are getting a different answer. And in

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a way, you know, back
in nineteen ninety when the Hubble telescope was

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launched, people would have just ignored
that difference because they would have said,

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well, you know, that's near
enough for us to know what's going on.

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But today we're in an era which
my PhD supervisor, Professor markham Longer

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was described as an era of precision
cosmology. We are in an era of

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precision cosmology in other words, we
can measure these parameters much more accurately than

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we ever could before. And so
this difference from the cosmic microwave background radiation

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sixty seven kilometers per second megapassek to
the Hubble telescopes seventy three kilometers per second

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per megaparsec. That is a problem
and it's something that we would like to

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understand and we don't. So that's
the backstory. Now, enter the James

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Waiting Space Telescope JWST, which I'm
sure many people were hoping would absolutely solve

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this problem and say, Okay,
this is exactly what's happening. And that

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didn't happen. No, it didn't. What the James Webs based telescope has

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done is confirm the Hubble telescope value. They've looked at the same sort of

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the same stars. They've looked with
a much bigger telescope than the Hubble,

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penetrated much further into space because it's
got a bigger mirror, and what they

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get is the same answer. And
by the way, this is research led

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by Adam Reese of Johns Hopkins University. He was one of the three people

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who got the Nobel Prize for the
discovery of the expansion, the accelerated expansion

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of the universe. So he's not
somebody you know that you can ignore.

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Is research is top rank research done
on a top ranked telescope, and it

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basically gives the same answer, in
fact, not basically, it gives exactly

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the same answer seventy three kilometers per
second omegaparsec as the Hubble telescope did.

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And what they're doing is they're using
a a combination of these sephid variable stars

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and another distance indicator, which we
call type one a supernova. These are

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exploding stars that always wind up with
the same maximum brightness. So you you

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could describe these types of stars as
standard candles because they are luminous and they

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have a standard brightness. And you
can describe the work done on the cosmic

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microwave background radiation as being the standard
rulers, because you're measuring the separation of

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hot and cold spots on the cosmic
microwave background radiation glow itself and standard So

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we describe those as standard rulers because
they are telling we kind of know what

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those separations ought to be, and
we can measure how they look. Somebody

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has suggested the possibility of a technique
called standard signs, and I haven't come

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across that term before, but I
like it very much. Where you can

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use gravitational waves, so using gravitational
waves, and I guess the standard sirens

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is because they effectively the same frequency
ranges as audio waves. Standard sirens from

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gravitational waves might one day help to
resolve this problem. But at the moment,

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we simply don't have accurate enough values. The error bars are too big,

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so we don't have accurate enough values
to use the standard siren method to

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resolve the issue. But that might
be the way it goes. At the

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moment, Hubble tension remains with us, and we don't know what the expansion

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rate of the universe is. Well, you know, we know two numbers.

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We know two numbers, but we
don't know which one's right. Yeah,

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So James Webb confirming the data from
Hubble does not absolutely guarantee that that

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number is right. The other number
is sixty seven kilometers per mega PARSEK,

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which was based on the barrier acoustic
oscillation theory or evidence. The difference is

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six, which is a big number
in an era, as you said,

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where accuracy is becoming the norm you, I can throw you on the spot

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here, Fred, do you have
any theories about what the difference might be

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why exists? I mean, it's
the big It's probably a dumb question to

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ask because no one knows the answer. No, But what I mean,

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one possible answer is really intriguing that
you know, there are phenomena play that

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we don't yet understand or know about
new physics. The universe might not be

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as we think it is. We've
got this very neat and tidy view of

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the universe, and that's a fairly
ambitious thing when you think that about a

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whole universe. We might have neglected
something that we have not yet discovered.

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You know, certainly our basic theories
are all correct. Relativity works perfectly,

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quantum theory works perfectly, and themselves
are not reconcileable. So that's another tension

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as well. But the hubble tension
may come down to something that we just

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have not discovered yet, and when
we do, it might change our view

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of the universe markedly. New physics, if I can put it that way,

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Physics that we don't yet understand could
open the door to all kinds of

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different things, extra dimensions, all
sorts of things of that sort. So

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it's very exciting in its own way, this hubble tension. People are going

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to keep chipping away at it until
we get an answer, and somebody will

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come along with a theory that says, ah, what if there was a

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fifth dimension and it did this to
the other four? Ye, that could

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be the answer, but we don't
know yet. Look, let me throw

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a curveball at you, just because
it is a curveball. But if we

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do find some new piece of information
that answers the question, could that then

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put a dint in Einstein's theory of
relativity because he's always thought he was wrong.

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He always wanted to be proven.
Yeah. So, and yet as

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yet all tests have proven him right. Yes, with a very high degree

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of precision. So what it might
show is that Einstein's relativity is only part

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of the story. In a similar
way to Einstein's theory of relativity, the

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general theory, which is all about
gravity, that showed that Newton's theory was

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only part of the story. Newton's
theory works really really well until you get

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into high gravitational fields and it doesn't
work at all. But you didn't know

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about how gravitational feels and it works
really well, but and it's well enough

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that it is telling us part of
the story, but not the complete story.

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Maybe the same is true with general
relativity, with Einstein's theory, that

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part of the story, but not
a complete thing. One more point with

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hubble tension. Somebody is going to
ask the question as to whether or not

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the influence could be dark energy or
dark matter or both. Is that a

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possibility. Well, they're all taken
into account in these calculations, you know,

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we we do know about them,
but they're all taken into account.

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Sorry, that's somebody with the answer. Hope it is. Where my phone's

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gone? All right, just stop
ringing anyway, So fair enough? All

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right, Well, it's it's one
of those questions that will remain mysterious until

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somebody somewhere who will probably win a
Nobel prize comes up with that light bulb

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moment, possibly a standard candle moment, Boombo. We'll have to wait and

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see. With the cosmic microwave background
radiation diminishing, I assume it's diminishing.

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Will there come a time where we
can't rely on that anymore? It's diminishing

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in the sense that that that radiation
that we see that sort of wall of

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radiation, which is what it is
that is actually moving away from us at

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the speed of light. But and
and over time, those patterns what we

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call the baryonic acoustic ostellations, which
you refer to the patterns in the in

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the wallpaper, they will change.
But we're talking about millions, if not

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billions of years, so we've got
a bit of time to this. We've

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got time to work on it.
Andrew, all right, sounds good.

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We need it, Yes, sometimes
we do. If you would like to

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read up on that story, it
is a really fascinating read. It's Science

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alert dot com. This is Space
Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred

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Watson buds Now. Fred to a
discovery that has been confirmed and there will

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be no doubt, and that is
a major announcement at the fifty fifth Lunar

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and Planetary Science Conference in Texas the
other day that they have discovered a new

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volcano beyond Earth and not surprisingly,
it's on Mars. It's a monster and

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it's been in our face all this
time. We just haven't really noticed it,

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probably due to weathering or erosion or
whatever you want to call it.

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But yes, a new well it's
not new, but it's new to us.

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New volcano on Mars. Yeah,
I mean we know of several volcanoes

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of Mars, and including the highest
mountain in the Solar System, Olympus Mons,

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twenty three kilometers high above the plains
of Mars, a huge, huge

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volcano. And this new discovery,
which I might just mention at the beginning

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of our chat about it is is
by Dr Pascal Lee, who's a planetary

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scientist with the Seti Institute and also
the Mars Institute based at NASA Ames and

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he is the lead author of the
study. So what Pascal and his colleagues

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have done is looked at many what
you might call aerial photos of Mars,

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the you know, the the images
imagery taken from orbiting spacecraft of which there

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have been many since Mariner nine in
nineteen seventy one, and combined it with

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the radar measurements, the basically measurements
of the height of the features on Mars's

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surface, which have come from other
spacecraft Mars Expresses one that's got radar on

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board. That's the European so sorry, the European Space Agencies spacecraft Mars Express

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and others too. So they've built
up a topographic map of Mars, and

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what they've looked at is a region
which is called Noctis Labyrinthus or Labyrinthus,

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and that name gives it away.
It's a labyrinth of features, basically features

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of the night, I guess because
notice is what that means. So it's

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essentially what you might call a tangled
area of geology, the Labyrinth of the

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Night, named back in the early
days of Mars exploration. But so it's

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easy to see why people have missed
this. But when this group of scientists

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have looked in detail at actually the
sort of eastern end of Notice Labyrinthus,

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they find basically all the symptom symptomatic
structure of a volcano, an arc of

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mesas of raised hills which slope downhill
away from the high area, the summit

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area, and this extends out more
than two hundred kilometers away from what they

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actually speculate was the Cold era,
the volcanic vent probably once containing a lava

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lake. We see lava lakes actually
on Jupiter Moon EO. We can see

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their effects. They're real. So
we think that the scientists think that this

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caldra on this new volcano or newly
discovered volcano also contained a lava lake.

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It is being called the Noctis volcano. That's the name that is being given

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to it because it is so close
to the Noctis Lebrinthus region. Fantastic discovery.

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Really extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah? It is, And it's a

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big one. It's over nine thousand
meters in height and a diameter of four

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hundred and fifty kilometers or two hundred
and eighty miles and the speak American twenty

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nine six hundred feet from sea level
I suppose to the summit. Do we

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call it sea level on Mars.
No, it's got some weird name like

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the standard day or something like that, but it's it's it's just a you

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know, standard measurement. And it's
funny though because curiously, you know,

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the northern hemisphere of Mars is generally
speaking below that, uh, and we

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think that the northern hemisphere of Mars
once had an ocean in it, and

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so that datum is probably not far
off what would have been sea level then,

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even though the sea's gone. But
the but the you know, the

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standard is the same. So yes, that that's the bottom line we're measuring

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it. And in fact. I
think in this case it's probably at the

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local topography or this volcano, the
newly discovered one, and the major of

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other volcanoes that are on Mars,
including Olympus Mons which is on the edge

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of this area, but this three
other ones, Pavonia and two more.

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They are in a region that's called
the Tarsis. The tharstest rise that Tarsis

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depending on how you whether you're correctly
pronouncing it or not, it's it's a

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high, high level region and that
the thinking is that this was a sort

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of bulge caused by magnetic pressure underneath
that gave rise to the Tarsis rise,

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and the volcanoes have popped out through
that. Olympus Mond is on the edge,

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but not you not, this volcano
is also on that high high ground

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region. So it's fairly you know, it's a fairly good place to look

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if you're going to try and find
a new volcano. This region where there's

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a bulge probably caused by a magnetic
pressure, is a good place to look.

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And the other curious thing about it
is that it's at one end of

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the valley's Marinaris. Yes, so
I noticed that, correct, you know,

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I was going to bring there that. But it's quite a fascinating part

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of the planet around this is around
the equatorial regions, I believe, and

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you've got Vallas Marinaras, you've got
the new volcano, you've got a string

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of three to the west, and
then Olympus Mons on the edge of that

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region. It's a really amazing area, it is. That's right, So

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Valles Marinaris, the Marina Valley's biggest
canyons in the Solar System as far as

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we know. But exactly as you've
said there at one end of it.

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It makes it look very much as
though, you know, back in the

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times when Mars was warm and wet, It's water flowed one way or the

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other and probably away from the notis
volcano down towards the low regions in the

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northern hemisphere of Mars. So yeah, we're kind of building up a picture

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of the of the early geography of
Mars. It would have been quite spectacular

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with the volcanoes and gigantic canyons.
One a time to be off Mars with

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a camera and yeah, absolutely.
The other interesting thing that's come up in

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this story is that of glacial ice. And they're already talking about this new

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discovery being a potential location for a
landing zone because of some of the potential

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resources and what other information might be
able to be gained from the kinds of

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things that you might discovery. Yes, they've already identified a possible landing site

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there. But you're right, and
this glacier ice is thought to lie underneath

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some of the volcanic deposits, so
you know, it's probably pre dates the

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volcanic activity. That means it's going
back almost to the dawn of the Solar

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system three point eight, three point
nine, maybe four billion years ago.

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Really extraordinary, extraordinary discovery, is
there. Fantastic work by this team of

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scientists' they've identified all kinds of volcanic
features, you know, the sort of

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stuff that you get, things called
rootless cones, which are basically mounds that

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surround a volcano, the various lava
flows, pyroclastic deposits, that's all the

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you know, the the rock and
dust that comes out of a volcano.

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We hear about pyroclastic flows on on
our own planet, which are very very

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dangerous because they've got carbon dioxide as
well in the atmosphere. You can't breathe

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in them, but there's ash,
cinders, pomis, all sorts of stuff

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coming down and it's all there in
this region around the Octis volcano. So

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superpose of work, I think,
indeed, yes, and worth a read.

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You can catch that story at the
fizz dot org website. That's the

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end of this particular program. And
don't forget if you would like to follow

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us up at any time, jump
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And don't forget if you want to
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hit the subscribe button button below because
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out, I don't really understand it, but all comes down to statistics in

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the end. And Fred, that
brings us to the end. Thank you

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so much. It's a pleasure.
Andrew, you haven't done the pointing down

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to the button trick there, but
that's where you press. Yes. That's

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one. Yeah, very good.
I'll see you next time. Maybe it's

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a Q and a session sometime.
Okay, it's very possible for it.

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Thank you Professor Fred What's an astronomer
a large part of the team here at

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space Nuts and hoping you can join
us on our Q and a episode coming

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up very very soon. And thanks
to Hugh in the studio for what I

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do not know, but thanks anyway, and we'll catch you on the next

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episode of Space Nuts. Until then, Bye bye, thank Spacenuts. You'll

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