#424: Gravity Waves & Space Junk: Cosmic Queries Unpacked

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Hi there, thanks for joining us. This is a Q and a edition

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of Space Nuts. My name is
Andrew Dunkley. Coming up, we're going

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to be telling Pete he answered his
question about space junk. I think we

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kind of talked about that a bit
in the previous episode. Philip wants to

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know about gravity waves, Gego is
asking about matter, and Beverly wants to

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talk about seeing an eclipse. That's
all coming up on this Q and a

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edition of Space Nuts. Fifteen seconds
in channel ten nine ignition siguench space nuts

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ny or three two space nuts as
when I re bought it. Neil's good

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and he's here again. It's like
he never left. Professor Fred, what's

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an astronomer at La Cello? Fred? I do good to not see you

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today since we see each other.
Yeah, we're flying blind because something's chewing

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up bandwidth and we thought, well, if we just turn the cameras off,

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it might improve. But no,
technology isn't it great? Now?

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Fred? We might as well get
stuck straight into this. I've got a

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couple of text questions and a couple
of audio questions, and being as clever

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as I am, I have completely
lost the questions. As we speak,

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which is very unusual for me.
So I'm going to switch things around and

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we will play an audio question first
up from Philip Old Fred Nun Philip bape

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Here originally on Classical to Australia when
I was a weird bout air never lost

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the upset. Two things for your
debt, so astly I wanted to give

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a big show Gilmot, specially agencies
who of course to putting old rocket up

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the northern end of Australia. They're
amazing and I wish them all the best

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in their grand quest. Factly,
I get the idea that gravity works by

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masters attracting each other and exerting a
pool like magnets do. But what the

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heck are gravity waves made of?
Then? That can't be made at white

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book ons but just pushed things around
you can they? Is it possible?

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Despite what Nicholson and morally discovered,
that there is indeed some kind of matrix

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permeating every square micro into the universe
that has gravity waves flowing through it,

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just as waves on the ocean move
through water until rising the dump swimmers on

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the hedge at on thy Beach.
If I'm right the I reckon, I

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could have my Nobel Prize now I'd
be happy to share it with you.

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Bonny lads Ay, love the show
and why not just keep recording extra shows

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so we can be listening to you
both century if I'm new cheers Philip.

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I love the accent, by the
way, that sounds great, but one

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hundred years worth of episodes that did
take us a little bit of work or

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reckon, Fred, that's what it
feels like already, and true have to

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say yes, never mind a great
question from Philip, and yes, lovely

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accent. I thought I detected a
little bit of Highland in there, as

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well as the Glasgow, but anyway, that's a different story. Be in

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a better position to pick up on
that than me. Ireland. Scottish has

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got a very distinctive sound to it, and there's just a few sounds in

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Philip's accent there made me wonder anyway. Thank you very much for the question

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though, And yes, Gilmour Space
doing a great job gravitational waves. Philip,

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you're kind of on the money.
Really we accept that, we don't.

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We no longer think of gravity as
being forces between between massive objects.

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That's what Newton thought, and it's
actually very nearly the truth modeling it that

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way makes it, you know,
makes the calculations fit what we see in

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space generally very well. But there's
difficulties, which are what led Einstein back

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in nineteen fifteen to propose his general
theory of relativity, which says that actually

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what's happening is a massive object distorts
the space around it, and that distortion

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is what we feel as gravity.
So here's the Earth sitting in space,

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a massive object. It's bending the
space around it so that the space at

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your feet has a slightly different shape
from the space at your head, and

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the effect of that is that you
feel as though you're being pulled down.

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It's an extraordinarily different way of looking
at things from Newtont's but actually worked very

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well, and in fact, we've
never managed to find a flaw in the

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theory of general relativity. And it's
because of that distortion of space that you

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can have gravity wave or gravitational wave, because space can distort. So it's

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not entirely rigid. It's billions of
times more rigid than steel. That's actually

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incredibly rigid, but it's still malleable. It's still bendable by mass, and

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hence its ability to transmit waves.
And so in that regard, what you're

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saying, Philip is it's not too
far from the truth. Yes, because

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and Marley experiment did show that there
was no ether that would transmit light,

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because that would have shown up.
Had the space been permeated by an ether,

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then you would have been able to
see changes in the speed of light

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depending on which way the Earth was
going, you know, in regard to

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which way the light is going,
and those changes were never detected because they

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don't exist. And that's because the
speed of light is an absolute constant that

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you know, doesn't need an ether
to transmit. So the old idea of

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an ether has now become what we
would perhaps refer to as the fabric of

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space, something which can actually bend. It is a matrix, as you

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put it, that doesn't fill space. It's not something in space. It

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just is space, and through that
gravitational waves can travel. It's quite esoteric

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stuff, and I think you're touching
on some really deep questions here in terms

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of the physics that are involved.
But suffice it to say that space does

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have a structure and that it can
change if you put mass in it.

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A few weeks ago we did discuss
gravitational wave background in the universe. Is

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that akin to what Philip was talking
about or is that a completely different concept.

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No, it's a consequence of what
we're talking about. Yeah, that

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you've got the gravitational wave background is
exactly as you described it in that lovely

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analogue that you presented of throwing a
handful of pebbles into a pond. So

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you've got waves. You know,
every pebble has its own splash, and

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you've got all these waves, you
know, basically traveling across the surface of

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the pond, and that would be
a background to you know, if you

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threw a rock in after that,
there'd be a very big splash and lots

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of big waves which will be kind
of superimposed on that background of lower level

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gravitational waves. And that's what the
gravitational wave background is about. Okay,

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Yeah, I love Phillip's question,
not only for the accent, but he's

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obviously been thinking hard about this particular
situation and it's spawned some ideas that yeah,

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he didn't miss the mark at all, really did he, Philip?

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Your Nobel prizes in the post.
It's we're happy to be happy to share

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it with you. Too, thank
you. Yes, absolutely, your name

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can go first. Philip was your
idea. I'm great to hear from you

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and keep sending your questions into us. So I've got a text question Fred,

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Hi, Fred, and Andrew.
As with all questions submitters, I'm

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a great fan of the podcast.
In recent weeks, there's been multiple mentions

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of space debris and dealing with it
is by burning it up through attempted re

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entry to Earth's atmosphere. This may
well deal with most of the larger physical

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pieces that could cause damage. However, presumably at least some of the component

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elements of the junk don't suddenly cease
to exist. I'm wondering if burning up

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is really just another example of what
I've heard Karl Krishlnitski say he was told

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in his early steel meal days.
The solution to pollution is dilution. As

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you often say, space, even
just our atmosphere, is really big.

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But are we kidding ourselves to call
burning up the final solution. That's Pete

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from marmong point. I think Pete's
sent questions in before. It is an

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interesting problem. It is a subject
to a lot of discussion globally how we

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deal with space junk and the people
who sends material into space are responsible for

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it. These days, Jordi knows
that, yes, and I yeah.

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And there are times where space junk
comes back to Earth it doesn't get burnt

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up completely. There was a famous
case in the last year or so where

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a farmer down in the southern Highlands
of New South Wales found a piece of

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a SpaceX rocket. I think it
was on his property. There's been all

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sorts of bits and pieces popping up
from time to time. It is a

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problem, that's right. I think
that was if I remember rightly, it

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was parts of the service module of
a Dragon capsule. If I remember rightly,

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Oh yeah, m yes, but
there was, you know, not

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but roughly at the same time there
was it's a huge fuel tan washed up

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on the beach in Wa which came
from an Indian space launch, so that's

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where it was eventually traced back to. So, yes, you're right,

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Andrew that. For the bigger objects
that you know, maybe way more than

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a few one hundred kilograms, they
often will not burn up completely in the

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atmosphere until you get debris falling to
Earth, and most of it, most

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of that is controlled. You can
sort of control where the spacecraft is going

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to hit the atmosphere, where the
burn up will take place, and where

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any debris might fall. And there
is a particular spot in the Pacific Ocean,

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the South Pacific Ocean, which it's
got a name which I can't remember

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at the moment, but it's the
furthest point from land anywhere on the planet,

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and at the bottom of that ocean, it's a very deep part of

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the Pacific Ocean. There's a lot
of space debris because that's where you know,

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you try and if you've got something
that you gonna is massive and there

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is a risk that it will not
all burn up in the atmosphere, that's

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where you want to put it,
so that you're far away as possible from

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any likely damage. But so that's
one part of the problem. But I

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think what Pete's question is really aimed
at is the stuff that does burn up,

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you know, and for a small
satellite's like a Starling satellite, which

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is yes, it's a quarter of
aton, but it's still relatively small that

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will burn up completely in the atmosphere. And what happens is the materials of

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which it's made are vaporized and they
do hang around, and I think we

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covered a story probably a few weeks
ago, maybe a few months ago,

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that basically amounted to the fact that
atomic species have been detected in the upper

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atmosphere which can only have come from
the material of spacecraft. What it's saying

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is that, yes, the solution
to pollution is dilution, but that dilution

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of the debris by being burned up
and turned into vapor, that's not a

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process that means it disappears. There's
still evidence of stuff being around up there

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in the upper atmosphere, and it's
now in an atomic form rather than you

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know, solid, solid objects,
but we can still detect it. So

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it's a good question that Pete raises. Yep, we are to some extent

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polluting the upper atmosphere by the amount
of re entering debris. Well, the

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alternative is to just shoot it off
into oblivion, I suppose. But yeah,

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that's probably not as easy as it
sounds, that's right, because then

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you've got to, you know,
reach the escape velocity of the Earth that's

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eleven kilometers per second. What they
do at geostationary orbits, So these are

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the orbits of the geostationary satellites thirty
six one thousand kilometers above the surface.

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When they are no longer being used
and regarded as a potential danger to other

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geestationary satellites, they put them into
what are called graveyard orbits. So these

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are orbits that are pretty stable but
a long way out of the way.

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So it's doing exactly what you just
suggested, shooting them off into oblivion.

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You're putting them in an orbit that
where it's in orbit around the Earth,

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but it's not not going to do
any damage down the track. And I

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think that place in the Pacific that
you were referring to is Point Nemo Okay,

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which is twenty six hundred and eighty
eight kilometers from the nearest land,

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and it's the furthest point from anywhere
in the world in terms of solid land.

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It's at forty eight forty eight degrees
fifty two point six minutes south one

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hundred and twenty three degrees twenty three
point six minutes west. If you want

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to pinpoint it. Nearest land is
Dulcey Island, which is part of the

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Pitcan Group. Apparently there you go. Yeah, so if you need to

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go looking for space junk, that's
the spot. It is all right,

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thank you, Pete. Love the
question, and yes, the problem with

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space junk continues. This is Space
Nuts, not Space Junks. With Andrew

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Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Let's
take a quick break from the show to

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Now back to the show. Okay, we take a space Nuts now,

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Fred another text question, Hello Fred
and Andrew. This is Geargo from

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Slovakia. My question is about the
matter we have in our universe. If

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I understand it correctly. All the
matter we have is with us since the

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Big Bang, but energy can be
converted to matter, and with the expansion

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of the universe, new energy,
vacuum energy is being added to our universe.

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Could this vacuum energy be converted into
matter, thus creating matter that has

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not been with us from the very
beginning? Thank you in advance for your

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longer version of no love your show
ge goo. Oh, I love that

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at least is confident. Maybe let's
let's modify it slightly and make it perhaps

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or perhaps not. H So we
we have talked before about the process of

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converting energy into matter. Ah we
we we commonly convert matter into energy.

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That's what happens in nuclear reactors.
You're you know, you're turning the mass

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of your uranium fuel or whatever it
is, directly into energy, without needing

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it to go through other processes chemical
processes, for example. And so that's

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that's where that equivalence come. Excuse
me, it comes from equals mc squared

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the tour are equivalent. There are
only a few natural processes and we did

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talk about them, and I can't
remember what they were that work the other

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way, and I think they only
occur in very high intensity energy situations by

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working the other way, I mean, converting energy directly into matter. There

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are a few examples of it,
but I can't remember what they are.

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We did cover it, and I
remember reading up about it. So you

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know, the idea of the vacuum
energy, the dark energy as we also

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call it, turning into something solid. It's quite frightening. Actually, you

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know, space is getting more and
more rarefied, and so the vacuum energy

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is not in any sense in a
high energy situation where you might get this

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process of energy being directly converted into
matter. But it is an interesting question,

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So I hope that's a long enough
version of no go. I think

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back in the sixties thread they looked
into this problem of dark energy turning into

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matter and decided that the only thing
that dark energy could turn into was a

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rolling pin, so usually in a
domestic environment. Well, that's really that's

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black energy. Isn't it very dangerous
topic too? That one? It is.

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Yeah, Sogo, the answer is
no ish. No great question.

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Thank you for it. It was
a good question, and one more quick

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one to finish off. This is
a little bit behind the times, but

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only because of me having to find
files that got ditched by my computer without

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my permission. It happens. This
is Beverly. Hello, spetsnuts. This

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is Beverly from College Station, Texas. I hope to be seeing my first

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Total Selary clips very soon, and
I'm beyond excited. I was wondering if

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either or both of you had seen
a Total Sulery clips. I would mind

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sharing your experiences and maybe your thoughts, your feelings about seeing Natty clips,

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and any insight you have. I
really appreciate your podcasts and I listened to

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it in the mornings when I walk. Thank you so much, have a

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great day. Thank you, Beverly. A lovely question. I threw that

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one in, Fred because I wanted
to see if you could figure out how

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many you've actually witnessed, because I
know you've seen a few. I haven't

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in person ever witnessed one. Never. Well, you should come with us

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on one of our clips to us. Actually, you are you are going

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to you are going to see one
in twenty twenty eight. So yes,

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yes, yes, indeed exactly.
I don't have to go anywhere, I

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just have to wait. But how
many of you, saying Fred, I

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think the April eighth eclipse, which
is the one Beverly's talking about. She

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was before April eight when she recorded
that. I think that was the sixth.

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In fact, I'm sure it was
the sixth. One of them,

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just one was clouded out, and
that was the one in the Faroe Islands

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where they get two hundred days of
rain per year, and so we weren't

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expecting big events. I did see
just a little bit of the eclipse phenomena.

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I saw something called Bailey's beads,
which is where the Sun's discs shines

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through the valleys between the mountains of
the Moon. So I did see that

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through binoculars, but it wasn't a
crystal clear experience the one in Texas,

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and we were probably not that far
from Beverly. We were in a little

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village called I think it was Bristol
and British name, but it's not very

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far from Fort Worth and Dallas.
So we had a cloudy morning there and

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the eclipse was sort of round about
the middle of the day and Marley had

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forecast she'd looked at all the best
forecasts that said the sky will clear in

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tanthony clips and during the period when
you're leading up to the total eclipse,

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which is as the Moon's disc gradually
covers the disc of the Sun. It's

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an extraordinary times sort of building tension
and it's just like you know, it's

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like a live show, Andrew done
by the very best impresarios, where you

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build up people's excitement and then there's
a climax of a few minutes of the

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Sun being blacked out completely. During
that period when the Moon was gradually crossing

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the disc of the Sun, we
were seeing quite a lot of it through

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holes in the cloud, but it
was still basically cloudy. And then seconds

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before totality, the sky completely cleared. It just cleared totally and we had

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the most perfect view of the total
eclipse that you could expect. And then

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throughout the afternoon it was clear.
It was sensational and just turning to what

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bever Is asked about the you know, the emotional it is almost a spiritual

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00:25:02.799 --> 00:25:07.519
experience, if I can put it
that way, Andrew, where you recognize

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that something deep and profound is happening. You've got this exact alignment between your

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spot on the Earth, and it's
not there for everybody. It's only where

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the Moon's shadow crosses passes across the
Earth and the moonshadow is only typically one

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hundred kilometers or so wide. You've
got that alignment between your spot on the

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Earth, the moon itself, and
the Sun, and it's the geometry of

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that that it just somehow breathtaking,
that it gives you this unique experience of

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a black disk surrounded by the corona
of the Sun and sometimes, as we

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saw on the eighth of April,
Prominence's pink dots around the edge of the

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Sun which are clouds of glowing hydrogen. So it is, Yes, it's

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quite all inspiring. People burst into
tears, you know, there's so much

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emotion tied to it. Of that
is just the build up as the you

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00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:06.319
know, as the thing gradually takes
place, and you see all these interesting

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phenomena as the sky gets darker.
You see things called shadow buns, which

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00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:14.400
are little bunds of shade that race
across the surface of the Earth caused by

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00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:18.799
turbulence in the upper atmosphere. It's
the whole excuse me, a whole array

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of different phenomena that's well worth watching
for so, yes, very very rare.

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00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:32.400
Indeed. Yeah. The next total
solar eclipse is the twelfth of August

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00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:38.480
twenty twenty six, which will start
I would basically up in the northern Arctic

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00:26:38.559 --> 00:26:45.720
region, and then we'll move down
across the Atlantic into southern Europe by the

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00:26:45.720 --> 00:26:49.200
look of it, and then the
next one is the twenty twenty seven August,

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00:26:49.319 --> 00:26:52.359
and then ours in twenty twenty eight, the twenty second of July.

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00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:57.000
In fact, I'm just looking at
the future map for total eclipses for it,

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and this is an interesting phenomenon.
There'll be two in a row that

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will cross the will cross continental Australia
and they will actually intersect around about southwest

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Queensland, northwest New South Wales and
probably northeast South Australia. So that particular

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00:27:15.799 --> 00:27:19.160
spot will get two in a row
in twenty twenty eight and twenty thirty,

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00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:23.960
which will be very exciting. That'd
be the place to go. Yeah,

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00:27:25.240 --> 00:27:30.279
there's actually five if you I think
there's four more if you include the one

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00:27:30.279 --> 00:27:33.160
on the twenty third of April last
year which was off the which just touched

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00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:38.240
the Exmouth, the coast at Exmouth
in western Australia. Including that one,

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00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:41.960
there are five coming up in the
next twenty years or so, I think

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up to twenty thirty five. So
quite right. They are really interesting.

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00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:52.279
They passed to across in an unusual
way that is related to the sort of

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00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:57.160
cycles that determine how eclipses work,
because you know, everything in the in

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00:27:57.200 --> 00:28:02.200
the Solar system is cyclic going round
each other, so they do repeat in

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00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:07.119
a sort of complex way. Twenty
twenty seven. Sorry, the one in

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00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:11.039
twenty twenty seven will intersect with the
one in twenty thirty four, so there'll

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00:28:11.079 --> 00:28:15.519
be another place where you can go
to the same place twice. But I

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00:28:15.559 --> 00:28:22.240
found the interesting one that also the
twenty twenty seven eclipse will end where the

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00:28:22.319 --> 00:28:26.880
twenty twenty eight clips will begin.
Oh that was interesting. Yeah, I

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00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:32.359
think it is a click phenomena.
We're going to be in Gibraltar for the

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00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:37.400
twenty twenty six eclipse, I believe. Nice, So the southern tip of

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00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:42.960
southern tip of Spain if you're interested, Yes, yeah, it could be

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00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:48.160
the go. Yeah, I can
see that one on the screen here.

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00:28:48.200 --> 00:28:52.039
That one's going to stretch out over
the Arctic and then move down through the

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00:28:52.079 --> 00:28:56.720
Atlantic Ocean by the look of it, or that area anyway. But yeah,

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00:28:56.759 --> 00:28:59.400
a lot of them do start in
the ocean. But that's just because

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seventy five percent of the surfaces ocean. I suppose it's just the way it

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00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:06.759
works out exactly, but Beverly,
yeah, I hope you've got great joy

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00:29:06.759 --> 00:29:10.640
out of witnessing your eclipse. I'm
still waiting for my first one, so

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00:29:10.839 --> 00:29:15.240
one ahead of me. And don't
forget to keep sending your questions in.

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00:29:15.400 --> 00:29:18.160
You can do that via our website, space nuts podcast dot com or space

344
00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:22.599
nuts dot io. You can send
text and audio questions via the AMA tab

345
00:29:22.680 --> 00:29:26.039
up the top and on the right
hand side you'll see a little green sideways

346
00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:30.480
button that says send us your or
send us your questions. If you hover

347
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:36.039
over that, it turns purple.
Extraordinary. Never seen that before. Exciting.

348
00:29:36.920 --> 00:29:40.160
I'm easily amused. But yes,
don't forget to tell us who you

349
00:29:40.200 --> 00:29:42.279
are aware you're from. If you've
got a device with a microphone, you're

350
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:48.079
all set. And don't forget to
subscribe to us on YouTube and to send

351
00:29:48.119 --> 00:29:52.240
in your reviews via your favorite podcasting
platform. Fred, we are done.

352
00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:56.279
Thank you so much, great pleasure, Andrew always good to chat and thanks

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00:29:56.319 --> 00:30:00.960
for all the questions. Everybody wonderful. It's fabulous. We'll talk to you

354
00:30:02.039 --> 00:30:04.799
soon. Fred Fred Watson, Astronomer
at Large and Hugh in the studio is

355
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:10.880
doing what he does best and I
don't know what that is, but thanks

356
00:30:10.920 --> 00:30:12.920
anyway, Hugh, and from me
Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company on

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00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:17.720
this episode. Catch you on the
next episode of Space Nuts soon. Bye

358
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:25.599
bye Spacenuts. You'll be listening to
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359
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