#419: Blue Horizons & Fairy Floss Planets: Unveiling the Universe's Softest Secrets

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Hi there, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts where we talk

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astronomy and space science. My name
is Andrew Dunkley, your host. It's

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good to have your company. Coming
up on this episode, we are going

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to be looking at the latest launch
from Blue Origin. It's been a while

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they've had some technical issues, but
they've now had a successful launch and some

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interesting side stories In this one as
well, we're going to look at a

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planet that's well, not made of
but has the consistency of fairy floss.

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That's what we call it in Australia. You might call it cotton candy or

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candy floss depending on where you're from. And gravitational wave background in the universe

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more evidence of that. I guess
you could compare it to what we refer

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to as cosmic microwave background radiation,
but this is in gravitational wave form.

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I think I got that right.
That's all coming up on this episode of

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Space Nuts. In Channel ten nine
ignition Space Nuts or three two and I

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reported real good and once again he
did grace us with his presence is Professor

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Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large.
You got you got some fairy floss on

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your face? Oh sorry, but
that I must have a show. Could

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be could be a mustache. Have
you have you died a pink or something?

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Actually, eating fairy floss is lethal
with a mustache, and it's uh

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yeah. Yeah. The other thing
that's really hard to do is scones with

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jam and cream on because you end
up cream everywhere. Yes, I remember

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my days of being a bearded fellow, And yeah there was something she just

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didn't especially especially if you get like
source or ketchup in it and you don't

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know and it dries out, and
yeah, it's horrible, it's disgusting.

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Actually, we've got a lot to
talk about, Fred and I did.

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I did want to sort of bring
up a topic without notice, But I

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don't know if you saw the story
over the weekend of the bright flash in

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the sky that was seen in Europe, Spain and Portugal. What fascinated me

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about this story is it turned out
to be a piece of comet after they

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did a bit of analysis. Now
how do they know that compared to it

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being a meteor or a meteorite?
Yeah, so I died looked a enough

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story as well. It was scene
of a Portugal and other European countries very

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very bright something like forty four kilometers
per second fly through speed. I checked

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all that. So because there was
so much imagery of it, Andrew,

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you can essentially trace back its orbit
orbit that it was on when it collided

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with this atmosphere, and it's that
that gives you the clue as to where

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it comes from. I assume.
I don't know. I didn't follow up

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on the on the story. I
did see that people were quoting that it

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might be a broken off bit of
comet. If you've got a very elongated

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orbit, one that you know will
be typical of what a comet might look

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like, that would be a clue
to that. Mmmm. Well, yeah,

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would the color be effected, because
that's correct. There can be different

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colors depending on the composition, can't
they. That's right, that's correct,

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And yes, indeed, I think
it was magnesium that was quite strong in

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the coloring, or hypothesized to be
quite strong in the coloring in terms of

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the material that was contained there,
And I think magnesium was another pointer to

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it being of cometary rather than asteroidal
origin. Most most metals are just dust

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left over debris from the version of
the Solar system, so they more related

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to asteroids than comments, but this
might be quite an unusual one. Indeed,

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some of the footage was extraordinary.
I remember one particular video I saw

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of a young woman who was being
filmed, I assumed by her boyfriend,

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and she was just talking. I
think she was in Portugal, and the

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sky just lit up bright green,
and she just looked up and it was

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sort of this silence for a while. It's just beautiful piece of video.

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I've got an amazing shot of it
just streaking over her head basically and then

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disappearing beyond the horizon. But it
just turned night into day very briefly.

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A Green Day, which is also
a great band. But it was quite

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extraordinary. Yeah, worth looking up. There's plenty of footage of it,

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lots I saw it now, going
from green to blue? Now, Fred,

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did you like that segue? It's
pretty good. Yeah, you should

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be more. Yeah. Well,
I think I'm just about to retire.

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Now. Blue Origin has been back
up for the first time in a couple

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of years. They've had some setbacks, but this is actually, I suppose,

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not only a great return to space
for them, but a couple of

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well at least one major record set
in the process. Yeah, and a

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really nice story too. So this
is Blue Origins NS twenty five mission again,

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as these flights are as sub orbital
flights, and you're quite right they

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had issues with an uncrude flight a
couple of years ago which grounded them for

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a while, but they're back in
business now. The flight was uneventful.

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I think one of the return parachutes
was not fully opened when they landed.

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But Blue Origin can land with only
two parachutes. It usually has three,

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and I think they're clearly looking at
all that. But the thing that you

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alluded to, fabulous story. A
gentleman by the name of Ed Dwight,

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who is I think I'm writing saying
ninety years old. He was selected back

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in nineteen sixty one by the President
John F. Kennedy as an astronaut candidate

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to trained at the US Air Force's
Aerospace Research Pilot schools. Was a conduit

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basically into the Astronaut Corps. At
the time, NASA was very young then,

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NASA was only formed in nineteen fifty
eight. So yeah, so what

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it meant was that he was the
first astronaut candidate of color, and so

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that would have been a record breaking
status for him if he'd been the first

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astronaut of color to fly, and
he actually wasn't selected though, so he

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completed his training. He was recommended
by the Air Force for the Astronaut Core,

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but he wasn't selected. In those
days, it was the look of

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the draw. There were many people
available. I think there was a whole

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cohort of female astronauts. I never
got selected either in the very early days.

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But this time he made it.
So he flew into space with the

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Blue Origin New Shepherd mission and his
twenty five A lovely quote from him,

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I thought I didn't need this in
my life, but I lied. I

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really did need it. It was
the first real deal that I got involved

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with in that I wasn't successful at, he added, referring to his non

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selection by and so this is I'm
quoting here on space dot com. So

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he said, I wish I'd gotten
it then, But it's great, That's

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all I can say. Good on
him, Good on your head. And

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what a wonderful you know, what
a wonderful thing to happen. Yeah.

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Holy. He got into space at
the age of ninety years, eight months

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and tender, which is the oldest
person ever to go into space, which

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is extraordinary in terms of his early
selection for potential astronaut candidacy, that it

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was the subject of a lot of
controversy at the time, because, as

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you said, he didn't get selected. He was quoted in nineteen sixty six

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as saying that racial politics had forced
him out of NASA and into the regular

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officer Corps. So it doesn't sound
like he had a smooth run in the

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situation that he faced, and probably
was a bit resentful by the sound of

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it. But he went on.
This is what I found amazing. He

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went on to work as an engineer
and then into real estate, but he

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became a sculptor, yes, which
I find amazing. Is I'm not aware

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of his work, but he's done
some amazing sculptures. Apparently he was commissioned

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by the Colorado Colorado Centennial Commission to
create a series of bronze sculptures entitled Black

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Frontier in the American West. Now, he must have been a talented guy.

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I'm still alive. I'm not know. He's obviously a talented guy and

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has had quite an extraordinary career,
not involving space by the sound of it.

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But he finally got there, which
is fantastic. Yeah, that's what

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a brilliant thing. Yeah, it's
a really nice story. And just to

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mention that he was one of six
passengers on board S twenty five and I

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think all the great time. Yes, And I think he also was in

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twenty twenty inducted into now what was
it, I can't remember, but yeah,

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he was recognized for his candidacy Hall
of Fame. I can't remember something

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like that. Yeah, it's probably
right in front of me and I cannot

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see it. Don't you hate that? Yes? I do. Perhaps to

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be all the tribals PA's nuts.
Yeah, never mind, but yeah,

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a great achievement by him, and
of course Blue Origin back in action after

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a couple of years off. Fred, let's keep moving. We're going through

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lickety split today. But this one, I particularly, this caught my attention

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on the weekend. I'm glad you
picked up on it to talk about.

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This is a newly discovered planet or
newly identified planet. I don't know which

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way you go, because sometimes they
find these things and you don't hear about

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them for years. But this is
a gas giant. It's huge, but

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it's also not very dense. It's
got sort of opposing factors that come into

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play. Here and it's being described
as a cotton candy or candy floss or

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fairy floss planet. Let's talk about
this. It's one of the WASP discoveries.

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That's correct, it is. It
is WASP one. Where I've lost

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the number one nine to three B. What's one nine three B? What's

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if I remember rightly stands for Wide
Angle Search for Planets. It's actually an

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old colleague of mine who started that
program back in the day, somebody I

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worked within the nineteen nineties that ling
Each observatory, so a great program and

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has done very well. It's a
program that looks for planets by the occultation

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method. That means as the planet
passes in front of its parents, start

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the light of the parents start dimm
slightly, and you you recognize the dimming

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as being due to the obscuration by
a planet. And then it goes around.

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It's all bit comes back and does
it again. And when it does

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it again, then you know you've
got a planet and you can work out

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you know, it's always all characteristics
and things of that sort. But what

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you need to do for more details
is to look at the spectrum of the

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object, in particularly the spectrum of
the star to do what we call the

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Doppler wobble technique, where you look
at the wobble in the star's motion which

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is detected is this is its motion
along the line of sight what we call

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the radial velocity that can be detected. That excuse me, wobble caused by

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the planet pulling the star slightly out
of place as it goes around. That

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basically essentially resulted in scientists knowing the
mass of one nine three B And it

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turns out that it's paradoxical. It
is paradoxical, as the headline in sitech

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Daily says, a baffling cosmic mystery, A giant planet as fluffy as cotton

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candy. And so what we have
here is a planet about twelve hundred light

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years away. It's fifty percent bigger
in diameter than Jupiter, but only one

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seventh of the mass, and that
means it's density is very low. There's

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a dog barking outside. Probably it's
the dog star. For read, Yeah,

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that could be it. Yes,
well, the dog star is called

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Jordian in box. At any time
a leaf moves outside or anything like that,

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it's very sensitive. I think his
mummy has probably just come back.

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That's probably what it is anyway,
so that the statistics themselves are quite interesting.

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So it's it's got a density and
I'm working in the old units here

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of grams per cubic centimeter. Remember, water has a denity of one gram

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per cubic centimeter. Our rocky Earth
has a higher density five point five one

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grams per cubic centimeter. Jupiter,
being a gas giant, is lowering density

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on average. It probably has a
rocky core. We don't really know too

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much about the core of Jupiter,
but it's one point three three grams percubic

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centimeter. So that's the density of
Jupiter. And then move to WASP one

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nine three B, and its density
is zero point zero five nine grabs per

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cubic centimeter, which is about the
same as cotton candy. It's about the

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same now cotton candies light, or
candy floss or fairy floss. Because it's

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mostly air, you know, it's
it's essentially an open structure which has air

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air in it. Now, clearly
WASP one nine three B doesn't have air

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because it's it's in space, but
it may well have some sort of structure

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that is that is similar to cotton
candy. We really don't know. It's

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that. The reason why it's hitting
the headlines is that the scientists have made

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this discovery, and mostly in the
US. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one

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of the one of the institutions there. The question now is how did planets

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get like this? How can you
form a planet that's like that? It's

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no, that's just that. That's
the question I actually wrote down on my

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piece of paper. How does a
planet become so fluffy? For one of

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a better term, and you know, what could it possibly be made of?

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Exactly so. So there's a few
comments from some of the researchers.

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One some of them were in Spain. By the way, I did mention

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m I T. But let me
just quote from some of the authors.

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On quotes from some of the authors, here's one. The planet is so

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light that it's difficult to think of
an analog solid state material. The reason

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why it's close to cotton candy is
because both are pretty much air. The

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planet is basically super fluffy. And
then from one of the Spanish show collaborators

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on this, we don't know where
to put this planet in all the formation

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theories we have right now, because
it's an outlier of all of them.

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We cannot explain how this planet was
formed. Looking more closely at its atmosphere

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will allow us to constrain an evolutionary
path of this planet, in other words,

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looking at how something like this might
have come about if you can see

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chemicals in its atmosphere or something of
that sort. And then just one other

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quote, what's one ninety three B
is a cosmic mystery. Solving it will

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require some more observational and theoretical work, notably to measure its atmospheric properties with

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the James Webspace Telescope and to confront
them to different theoretical mechanisms that could possibly

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result in such an extreme inflation.
It is inflated, that's the way.

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It's kind of puffed out. And
yeah, what causes that? Is there

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an energy was in it that's blowing
stuff outwards? I don't know. I

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don't know the answer to that.
Yeah, it makes you wonder why you'd

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call it a planet if if it's
just inconsistent, it's just just a well,

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so you've got to call it.
I don't know, it's a blob

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blob that's more. Yes, let's
see, that would seem more consistent with

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its, with its, with its
ure, and yet its characteristics are very

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much those of a planet's in orbit
around a star. It's quite a short

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orbit, if I remember, it's
just a few days so, and I

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think it's probably a red dwarf.
I can't remember the the star itself,

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the characteristic of its, of its
Yeah, I think they said it was

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actually a young sun like star.
And the orbit is six and a quarter

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days a quarter days, that's correct. Yes, how's that for a memory.

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I only read that a minute ago. I've got in front of me,

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which is even better. Yeah,
it is a mystery. And this

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is like, we don't know so
much about Jupiter and Saturn and the ice

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giants further out, but here's one
that's twelve hundred odd light years away that

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we've we've discovered that it's just so
very different to what we think of in

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terms of the place giants. And
now it's possible it was just made up

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of leftover stuff and there wasn't much
left and it's yeah, but the trouble

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is that's how planets form anyway,
It's left over stuff, and so there

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must be something else going on.
I think this is when we should keep

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an eye on though, so there'll
no doubt be more research coming on.

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Is it actually pink? Do we
know what color it is? That's done?

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We don't actually we yeah, we
don't know, and that's because all

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we can see at the moment is
the obscuration of the planet of the star

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by the planet and the radial velosity
changes in the star itself. So that's

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not much information to tell you what
color it is. But if the James

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Webb telescope gets onto it, there's
every likelihood that when the planet passes in

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front of its Parents style, some
of that light from the Parents star goes

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through the atmosphere of the planet,
and you can actually detect from that what's

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what the constituents of the atmosphere are, and that might tell us first of

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all, what it's made of,
what the atmosphere is made of white,

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so different from all the others,
And whether it has a color, whether

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it's pink or blue. Yeah,
it's probably yellow or reddish in color,

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I would imagine, But who knows
two of ours are blue or no?

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One's blue ones green? Yeah,
actually, yes, they're both looking more

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similar colors. Now, there's been
some work done on this which that the

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difference in coloring has kind of been
exaggerated over the years. Right, Yeah,

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I actually I know you mentioned that. I do remember reading about it

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and they they were basically saying,
the similarities between Neptune and uranus are quite

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extraordinary. They're almost identical twins.
Ye. Yes, But you keep an

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eye out for this one. This
is this is just if you if you

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want to try and spy it in
the night sky. It's right next to

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the big Ferris wheel, so it
shouldn't be hard to fight. But just

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watch out for the cosmic roller coaster, which is probably as well. Yeah,

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and there's terrible showbags, full of
junk, terrible to you. Maybe

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that's what it is. Maybe it's
made of show bags, written showbags.

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Yeah. No. A great story
though, and well worth looking into.

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And you can find that on SI
Tech Daily. This is Space Nuts.

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Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson. Three Space Nuts. Now, Fred

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to one of the most popular topics
on Space Nuts and certainly one that draws

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a lot of questions from the audience, and that is gravitational waves. What

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we are talking about today is not
quite that. This is some work that's

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being done on background gravitational waves.
Now, I said at the beginning that

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this was I would describe this like
the cosmic microwave background radiation the remnants of

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the Big Bang. Well, this
is the remnants of gravitational wave activity,

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and they're calling it gravitational wave background
in the universe? Am I right?

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Or have I just completely decimated this
entire story? You're right? Is rightish?

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Is good enough for me? You
know, the gravity wave background is

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called the background because it's in the
background of everything. Sorry, sorry,

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The cosmic microwave background is in the
background of everything. We can see.

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It's the flash of the Big Bang. It's something that originated in the Big

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Bang, and so it is a
It provides a backdrop to all our observations.

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It's there in the background. If
you've got the microwave telescope, you

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can see it, and indeed you
can map it. We have the best

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map we have today of the microwave
background comes from the Plank spacecraft of European

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spacecraft that mapped in great detail.
And it's because of that mapping that we

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can, excuse me, that we
can see you know, structure, structure

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in the cosmic microwave background radiation.
That tells us about conditions in the Big

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Bang. The background that we're talking
about here is slightly different. Whilst it

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is true that the Big Bang would
have caused gravitational waves, there is something

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else going on that's sort of spread
throughout the whole universe, and that is

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a background of you could call it
interference. It's a little bit like you

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know, if you're broadcasting, as
you often do, and your listeners are

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hearing you over the airwaves, there
might be a bit of a background hiss

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or something that comes from from interference. And I think that's the way in

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which this term is being used for
this, because what has been detected and

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the evidence that you know, the
headline with this story was that the evidence

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is growing for this is a sort
of background heres if I put it that

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way, of gravitational waves that come
from many many phenomena going on in space,

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mostly mergers, mostly neutron star black
cole collisions or black hole black coal

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collisions, or neutron style neutron style
collisions. All that sort of constantly going

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on, which gives you a background
level of gravitational radiations, of gravitational waves

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slashing around through the whole universe.
That can't be pinned down to come from

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a specific source, which is what
the LIGO detector does, and it's you

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know, it's comparable instruments throughout the
world. LIGO Large Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory

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picks up signals that the ripples in
space that come from identifiable phenomena, but

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there is also a kind of background
swill or swell of gravitational waves which are

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detectable in a different way. That's
why this story is an interesting one that

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does include Australian science as well.
So it turns out that binary pulsars,

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which are essentially the a big part
that there are some binary pulsars involved with

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this. But pulsars, let me
just explain what pulsars are. Pulsating radio

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sources that basically are there. They're
rapidly rotating neutron stars which are beaming out

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radiation in a lighthouse like fashion,
and the essentially the beams of radiation they're

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radio waves. Principally, sometimes they're
seen invisible optical pulsars. They they if

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they flash across the direction of Earth, then we see a pulse. And

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it turns out that that rotation of
those neutron stars is very, very constant.

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It's a constant almost better than atomic
clocks. They are timing devices better

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than our best atomic clocks. They're
so irregular, but because they're part of

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the fabric of space, they are
sort of being moved around by gravitational waves

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and that changes the frequency of the
pulsation. And so if you can set

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up what it called pulsar timing networks
or pulsar timing arrays, then and if

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you can do that from many places
on Earth, so you're kind of effectively

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looking in different directions at different pulsars, you can see the effect of gravitational

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waves. And so the timing arrays
that are mentioned in this paper European Pulsar

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Timing Array, the Indian Pulsar Timing
Array, the North American nanots Observatory,

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and the Parks Pulsar Timing Array,
these are basically arrays that are looking at

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the timing of these pulsars and measuring
how they're changing slightly due to this ground

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swell of gravity waves that's sort of
bucketing through the universe in general, and

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he's thought to come from you know, it's it's superimposed gravitational ways from lots

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and lots of things going on in
the universe. Black hole, black black

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old binaries, always seeing one another, collisions. They are more specific events,

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but the smaller ones at great distances
would contribute to this background. So

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what we're talking about, just to
clear it in my head, you've got

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a pond, you're chucking a hundred
pebbles in all the waves just criss cross

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and criss cross backwards and forwards constantly. That's that's the gravitational wave background.

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The absolutely the Ano Logue equivalent and
very nicely put, if I may say

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so, Andrew, that's exactly right. If you've got this, you've got

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to dam it down for me.
Well, no, it's not dumbing down.

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I think that's a very good analogue. But you get what I meaning.

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It is a sort of background.
And then if somebody throws a rock

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in, there's a big, you
know, big spreading out of ripples,

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which you can then detect with a
gravitational wave detector. But you've still got

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this unevenness in the in the surface
of the water. So yeah, great,

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and the wow, Okay, I'm
sure we'll get a lot of questions

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00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:18.279
about this, but it's yeah,
it's a I'd never thought of gravitational waves

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as being just bouncing around constantly and
interrupting things that we can observe, so

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that we can, you know,
we can piece together what's happening to a

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00:28:27.799 --> 00:28:33.039
certain degree. But I'm sure we'll
get questions about it. Fred, Absolutely,

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people are fascinated by these kinds of
things, and I think it's because

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of the mystery that surrounds them that
gets people wondering and coming up with their

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own ideas. And I love that. I love it when people come up

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00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:48.880
with their own ideas of what might
be happening, because that's how you figure

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00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:52.799
things out in the end. It
is indeed, that's right. Oh and

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00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:56.079
you mentioned that background hissed when I'm
on the radio. That's just too many

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00:28:56.079 --> 00:29:02.440
eggs for breakfast, So yeah,
I did much about that. Yeah,

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00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:06.119
yeah, well that's right. You
should move you should move your mic away

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00:29:06.119 --> 00:29:11.279
from your digestive processes. That's something
I've loved, you know. I've got

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00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:15.240
to tell you though, I was
I was on air once and I did

336
00:29:15.319 --> 00:29:19.920
feel a sort of movement and I
thought, just quietly, nah, didn't

337
00:29:19.960 --> 00:29:30.440
quite and it actually happened between words, so it wasn't a his Yeah,

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00:29:30.839 --> 00:29:33.759
great moments in radio. Yeah,
well quite so. Yes, we should

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00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:40.920
find the table. I'm pretty sure
it's long gone. Yes, thank you,

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00:29:41.319 --> 00:29:45.400
Thank goodness, too many other embarrassing
moments that I've managed to keep there.

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Now. If you want to chase
up that story about the gravitational wave

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00:29:48.359 --> 00:29:55.839
background, it's on universetoday dot com
for it. That just about wraps it

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up for us for another week.
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure,

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and I hope we'll do it again
sometime soon. Possibly so maybe in

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a few minutes. You never know. Time is a relative, it is

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00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:12.400
until relative. That's rightly thanks.
Fred, will catch you soon. Fred

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00:30:12.440 --> 00:30:17.519
Watson, Astronomer at large, and
who isn't with us today? How everything

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00:30:17.559 --> 00:30:19.519
went well? And from me Andrew
Uncley, thanks for your company. Catch

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00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:23.839
you on the next episode of Space
Nuts. Bye bye, Spacenuts. You'll

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00:30:23.880 --> 00:30:32.799
be listening to the Space Nuts podcast
available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio,

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00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:37.359
or your favorite podcast player. You
can also stream on demand at bites

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00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:44.079
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