#427: Martian Mysteries & Space Health: Unveiling Cosmic Secrets

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:03.520
Hi there, Thanks again for joining
us. This is Space Nuts. My

2
00:00:03.640 --> 00:00:06.719
name is Andrew Dunkley, looking forward
to your company. For the next little

3
00:00:06.759 --> 00:00:12.199
while. Will we be talking astronomy
in space science. And on this episode

4
00:00:12.279 --> 00:00:17.199
we've found a weird rock on Mars. It just sort of stands out like

5
00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:22.440
a pustule on a face and that's
kind of what it looks like. Also

6
00:00:22.519 --> 00:00:27.280
an unusual side effect to space travel, and it's a positive one sort of.

7
00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.600
And the James Web Space Telescope in
the news again it's spotted an asteroid

8
00:00:32.719 --> 00:00:38.640
collision. We'll talk about all of
that soon on Space Nuts. Fifteen second

9
00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:51.119
is in channel ten nine ignition sequence
Space Nuts side or three two Space Nurse

10
00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:56.439
as and I report it Bills good
and here to unravel it all is Professor

11
00:00:56.520 --> 00:01:02.359
Fred Watson, astronomer at Larch.
Hello Fred, Hello Andrew. Not very

12
00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:07.159
large at the moment. I'm sitting
at home, but I'll be last see.

13
00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:14.319
Yes, it's good to see.
I've just come back from a little

14
00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:19.840
sojourn to China and had a fabulous
time and what a lovely country, beautiful

15
00:01:19.879 --> 00:01:26.239
people, really nice people. And
it was the one of the time frames

16
00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:29.760
we were there was the weekend of
a public holiday and national public holiday,

17
00:01:29.799 --> 00:01:37.359
the dragon Boat Festival. They basically
shut down everything for the week and it

18
00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:41.200
brings people from the far north of
China down into the big cities. And

19
00:01:41.239 --> 00:01:45.519
we were warned that a lot of
them have never seen Westerners in real life

20
00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:51.719
before, and we could expect some
weird interactions. And sure enough, especially

21
00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:56.000
people like my wife who were blue
eyed and blonde, got mobbed, absolutely

22
00:01:56.079 --> 00:02:00.400
mobbed. Photos. Yeah, there
was one stage there, she's sitting down

23
00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:04.439
and three women just converged on and
sat down, hugged her and got their

24
00:02:04.439 --> 00:02:08.680
photo taken. And at one point, this is hilarious, they pushed one

25
00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:13.280
of the men who was a bit
too shy over to sit with my wife

26
00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:19.599
for a photo. It was amazing. Yeah, and sneaky photos being taken

27
00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:23.240
of us all the time as we
travel around the country. Yeah, you

28
00:02:23.319 --> 00:02:27.479
don't think about it, really,
you're so used to the way things are

29
00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:31.080
with us. Everybody knows everybody kind
of, But in China there's still a

30
00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:38.120
lot of people who've never seen a
white person upfront. And yeah, it

31
00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:43.159
really excited them. It's nice to
be not to be able to excite people

32
00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:46.280
for some reason or another, but
to a terrific trip. Got to see

33
00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:51.360
so much, climbed the Great Wall, nearly killed me. Went to Tianneman

34
00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:57.599
Square just after the anniversary of that
fateful Day in nineteen eighty nine. Security

35
00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:00.840
was very tight, but what an
amazing place. And I went to the

36
00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:04.800
terra Cotta Warriors Fred which was an
optional tour, and I thought, we're

37
00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:07.919
here, we can't not do it. And it was the best thing I

38
00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:12.680
did. It's just, you know, we were gobsmacked. It was like

39
00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:15.879
a rugby scrum of twenty thousand people
to get in there and have a look.

40
00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:23.479
But it's just just a maze.
It just a maze. It's enclosed

41
00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:27.000
in the building, isn't it the
site? Yeah, and this is fully

42
00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:34.400
excavated. Now, No, that's
just one pit of three that they've opened

43
00:03:34.439 --> 00:03:38.280
up. It's the biggest. It's
probably an area the size of a soccer

44
00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:44.800
stadium that's undercover with all the soldiers
lined up in the pits. But they

45
00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:50.719
told us there are six hundred of
those pits surrounding the tomb of the Emperor.

46
00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:55.000
So yeah, there's still a lot
to discover out there. Incredible,

47
00:03:55.080 --> 00:04:01.360
extraordinary, Yes, lovely people and
I think one of our favorite nights was

48
00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:05.400
going out to have a meal and
finding a place called a hot pot where

49
00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:10.400
it's like a sushi train. The
food just goes around on a conveyor belt,

50
00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:13.000
but you've got to cook it yourself. And we didn't have a clue

51
00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:15.079
what to do. And no,
it spoke English, and the family next

52
00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:20.120
to us was so lovely and helpful, and we talked with Google Translate and

53
00:04:20.199 --> 00:04:24.759
it worked over there, believe it
or not, because Google is not usually

54
00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:30.000
something that works in China, but
we had a terrific time. Terrific time.

55
00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:33.199
Highly recommend it. Ah, Now, Fred, we better get down

56
00:04:33.240 --> 00:04:39.800
to business. They found a weird
rock on Mars, and this is another

57
00:04:39.959 --> 00:04:46.959
discovery by the rover that's basically wandering
around looking for science of past life on

58
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:51.560
Mars, but it's looking at rocks
as well. And this is a curious

59
00:04:51.560 --> 00:04:57.480
discovery because it sort of stands out
like a sore thumb or a pimple.

60
00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:02.879
This one really remarkable when you see
the image that's come back. It's the

61
00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:12.439
Perseverance Rover, which is at Jesuro
Crater and it's been exploring the river delta

62
00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:17.560
that used to represent flow of water
into the crater probably three billion years or

63
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:24.519
so ago, and there's a remarkable
image that's been sent back by Perseverance which

64
00:05:24.519 --> 00:05:30.319
shows sort of a hillside which is
strewn with boulders, all of which are

65
00:05:30.439 --> 00:05:35.959
dark in color, except one that
stands out vividly as being much much lighter

66
00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:41.519
in shade. And it's actually textured
as well. It's not just it's not

67
00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:46.000
just sort of white looking, but
it's got textured through it. And it

68
00:05:46.079 --> 00:05:53.560
has been identified as something called a
north of site I hope I'm saying it

69
00:05:53.680 --> 00:06:00.399
right, and north of side,
which is a rock that's currently found or

70
00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:06.920
that we believe has come from the
crust of a rocky planet, fairly deep

71
00:06:06.959 --> 00:06:13.399
in the crust. Now, these
things are quite common. An AUTHO site

72
00:06:13.480 --> 00:06:19.879
is quite common on Earth and on
the Moon as well, but I thought

73
00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:27.399
to be very rare elsewhere in the
Solar System. And so this has certainly

74
00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:33.120
caused, you know, a great
deal of interest among the Perseverance mission controllers,

75
00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:42.199
and it's basically one that will be
the subject of further research, although

76
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:49.199
curiously what they haven't done is gone
up to it and taken samples of the

77
00:06:49.399 --> 00:06:57.519
rock, and that is because the
mission team believes that there will be more

78
00:06:57.560 --> 00:07:03.839
of these An author site in the
rim of the Jesuro Crater, which is

79
00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:08.759
kind of where they're heading for,
and so they expect to see many more

80
00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:13.240
of them. And the reason for
that, Andrew, is that if these

81
00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:16.839
things are rocks that have come from
fairly deep in the crust of Mars.

82
00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:21.279
The Jesuro Crater is an impact crater. It's an ancient impact crater which was

83
00:07:21.319 --> 00:07:26.959
caused by probably a small asteroid hitting
the surface of Mars maybe three point five

84
00:07:27.160 --> 00:07:31.120
getting on for four billion years ago, And the thinking is that they're likely

85
00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:36.959
to find these remnant rocks from the
crust around the rim of the crater.

86
00:07:38.199 --> 00:07:46.639
So rather than sort of spend time
analyzing this particular one, they are expecting

87
00:07:46.680 --> 00:07:49.199
to see more as they traverse up
the rim of the crater. But if

88
00:07:49.240 --> 00:07:56.079
they don't, they'll come back and
have a look at this author site,

89
00:07:56.839 --> 00:08:00.360
which by the way, has been
given the name of I Took Up Point,

90
00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:05.759
which is one of the landmarks of
the Grand Canyon. Ah. Of

91
00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:09.199
course, well, that makes that
makes perfect sense. It does stand out.

92
00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:11.560
I mean, when you look at
the landscape, the soil is or

93
00:08:11.639 --> 00:08:16.720
the regolith is red. The rocks
are mainly reddish to grayish, but this

94
00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:22.480
one is white. It looks like
a big hunk of chalk, really it

95
00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:26.759
does. It's actually a minerraal call
Feldspar, which is one well known on

96
00:08:26.839 --> 00:08:35.840
Earth linked to lava flows, and
it's white because of its rich silica content.

97
00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:41.919
The other ones are probably basalts,
the darker rocks. But the yes,

98
00:08:41.960 --> 00:08:48.759
as I said, the north site
is Feldspar. Well, ba'sal that's

99
00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:50.960
like, that's as common as dirt, isn't it. Well, it is

100
00:08:52.039 --> 00:08:56.120
dirt. That's what makes dirt.
Yeah, when it's worn down, it

101
00:08:56.159 --> 00:09:01.080
turns into dirt. So yeah,
and of course basalts rock, yeah yeah,

102
00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:07.000
yeah, yeah, Well this is
somewhat volcanic, isn't it. From

103
00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:13.480
what I've read, it's got a
I read the definition, the granitic magmas

104
00:09:13.519 --> 00:09:18.799
appear to be produced by partial melting
of lower crustal rocks. Yeah, so

105
00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:24.799
that's sorry, volcanism is involved,
but it's it's it's definitely lava flow stuff

106
00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:31.200
rather than volcano stuff, if I
can put it that way. Yeah,

107
00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:33.200
so it'd be really interesting, you
know. Sorry, go ahead, Andrew,

108
00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:37.000
I was going to say. My
first thought when I saw it was

109
00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:45.840
pummus. Yes, that's that's a
really interesting comparison, because you're absolutely right,

110
00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:48.559
it does look like it looks attle
bit more solid than Pummis, if

111
00:09:48.559 --> 00:09:52.159
I can put it that way.
Pummis, of course, is again it's

112
00:09:52.399 --> 00:09:58.440
volcanic rock that's been that's been exuded
from the earth in water, and so

113
00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:03.879
you get all the steam know that
was formed creating the voids in Pomis.

114
00:10:03.639 --> 00:10:07.559
So it does look a bit like
Pomis, but perhaps only in its color

115
00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:11.360
that the close up of the rock
that I've seen, it does look quite

116
00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:13.879
solid. It's got a hard edge
to it that looks as though, you

117
00:10:13.879 --> 00:10:18.399
know, it's broken at some point
there must be another half of it somewhere

118
00:10:18.480 --> 00:10:22.399
or something like that. Very interesting, and I think what, you know,

119
00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:28.039
what we should be looking out for
is future mention of these and author

120
00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:33.120
sites when they are found or if
they're found on the rim of the Gesuro

121
00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:39.360
Crater. Yeah, well, the
funny thing will be not funny. The

122
00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:43.039
funny not funny thing will be if
they get to the rim of Gesero Crater

123
00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:46.840
and don't find any and go,
yeah, we should have just you know,

124
00:10:46.279 --> 00:10:50.080
we should have done that, should
have done it, should have done

125
00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:52.879
it. You know, of course, samples of what you think of but

126
00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:58.720
they said, you know the comments
that I've read, if they don't find

127
00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:03.559
them on the rim, going to
come back and actually start digging, digging

128
00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:07.399
into this one, so we'll see
more more of its contents. Yes,

129
00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:11.960
indeed, and it certainly will give
us a little bit more information to work

130
00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:18.679
with in terms of the history of
the red planet with white specks. Now

131
00:11:20.360 --> 00:11:26.879
let's move on to a really interesting
story about space travel and health. Now

132
00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:33.919
we've talked about space travel in the
past and how it can have negative effects

133
00:11:33.960 --> 00:11:39.320
on the human body muscle wastage,
bone wastage, particularly with male astronauts,

134
00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:46.080
potential damage to the eyes. But
this story goes back a couple of years

135
00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:52.480
to a civilian mission which was aimed
at looking at the effects of space travel

136
00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:56.279
on the human body, and what
they discovered is astounding. Yes, it

137
00:11:56.399 --> 00:12:03.399
is. I mean, the the
bottom line is that, you know,

138
00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:09.480
space travel is bad for your health
in some of the things that it does,

139
00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:15.000
but you recover very quickly when you
get back to Earth. That's one

140
00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:18.320
of the findings. So the backstory
is exactly as you've said, Andrew.

141
00:12:18.919 --> 00:12:26.279
This goes back to September twenty twenty
one when there was a mission which was

142
00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:33.960
carried out using one of the crew
Dragon spacecraft that manufactured by SpaceX, and

143
00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:41.600
it was four astronauts who were effectively
space tourists. There weren't people who'd had

144
00:12:41.679 --> 00:12:46.799
years of training and years of physical
preparation to get them ready for a space

145
00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:50.480
flight. They were just ordinary people. They probably had a little bit of

146
00:12:50.519 --> 00:12:54.080
training. It was funded by a
billionaire who was one of the people who

147
00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:58.600
rode on the trip. And as
I said, they flew in crew Dragon

148
00:12:58.679 --> 00:13:05.799
for almost three days, so this
wasn't a spaceflight that linked with the International

149
00:13:05.799 --> 00:13:09.120
Space Station. They were in the
capsule for those three days. What I

150
00:13:09.159 --> 00:13:15.200
didn't know until I read up on
this, you know, to talk to

151
00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:20.919
you about it, I didn't know
that the docking ports on the spacecraft.

152
00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:24.320
So you remember the crew Dragon a
lot like the old Apollo spacecraft. They're

153
00:13:24.320 --> 00:13:30.919
conical in shape and at the nose
end there is a doorway and that's basically

154
00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:41.559
what you essentially dock into the International
Space Station with and can transfer astronauts through

155
00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:43.840
the doorway into the space station.
So that wasn't needed because they were never

156
00:13:43.879 --> 00:13:46.480
going to be anywhere near the space
station. In fact, they weren't quite

157
00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:52.440
high higher in space I think about
six hundred kilometers than the space station did

158
00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:58.679
is space stations at about four hundred
kilometers. And so rather than have just

159
00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:03.639
a wasted door that wasn't going to
be used, they had a transparent window,

160
00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:07.440
a kind of cupola, a bit
sort of miniature of the one that's

161
00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:11.519
on the International Space Station, and
so they got some brilliant views of Earth

162
00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:22.639
from orbit. But cutting to the
story itself, one of those astronauts,

163
00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:26.480
which is I guess what they were
because they were flying in space, whose

164
00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:31.279
name is I think I'm pronouncing this
correctly. Haley also know is a doctor

165
00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:41.519
effectively or certainly has training in medical
science, and she was basically the medical

166
00:14:41.559 --> 00:14:46.759
specialist on the flight, and for
the three days she took pretty regular blood

167
00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:56.639
samples, biopsy samples from skin samples
that were designed to show what the short

168
00:14:56.759 --> 00:15:01.039
term effects of spaceflight are, given
that this was on a three day mission,

169
00:15:01.399 --> 00:15:05.559
but the fact that they had so
many samples taken meant that there was

170
00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:13.879
a treasure trove of medical information which
was brought back with these astronauts. And

171
00:15:15.279 --> 00:15:20.200
what's happened is that they were distributed
to more than one hundred institutions all around

172
00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:26.240
the world, in order to do
an analysis of all of these things.

173
00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:28.440
And in fact, there was a
kind of special issue of the journal Nature

174
00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:37.679
last week which presented several papers which
were related to exactly this. And so

175
00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:46.279
one of the things that these data
show is that it's within a few hours

176
00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:50.279
of your being in space in weightless
conditions, your body starts changing, and

177
00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:58.679
that those changes are fairly rapid.
They're basically to do with the you know,

178
00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:03.720
the sort of the changes in your
blood. There's changes to your skin,

179
00:16:03.799 --> 00:16:11.279
the proteins, your kidneys, your
genetic makeup changes slightly, all sorts

180
00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:17.279
of other health indicators actually change very
quickly. But as I mentioned minutes ago,

181
00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:25.279
something like ninety five percent of these
changes come back to normal within three

182
00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:29.279
months. One that, and I
think this is the one that you're really

183
00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:33.480
referring to, that it's an astonishing
one is to do with the telomeres,

184
00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:41.120
which are the caps on the ends
of chromosomes. They've been likened to the

185
00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:45.600
little caps on the ends of a
shoelace. So telomeres are, yeah,

186
00:16:45.639 --> 00:16:52.279
they're an important part of our makeup
at a microscopic level, and they normally

187
00:16:52.919 --> 00:17:00.360
what happens as you age. The
telomeres in fact, they shorten. Actually,

188
00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:06.400
fiz dot org have got a typo
there in their article about this because

189
00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:11.279
it says their lengthen as you asually
don't they shortened. But what happened within

190
00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:15.960
you know, almost hours of these
astronauts being in space, they started lengthening,

191
00:17:17.079 --> 00:17:19.240
so that you know, it's almost
like time running backwards. The telling

192
00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:25.440
me has actually started lengthening. And
they you know, they're an indicator of

193
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:29.920
your well being, your longevity and
things of that sort. So that was

194
00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:36.039
really quite remarkable. When they got
back to Earth, they started shortening again

195
00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:40.839
the telomeres, and they shortened just
rather more than they would have done had

196
00:17:40.839 --> 00:17:45.400
they not gone into space. So
while when they were in space there was

197
00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:52.119
this reaction by the body that was
almost like reversing aging, they caught up

198
00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:55.359
with it when they got back to
Earth. The telling me has shrunk back

199
00:17:55.400 --> 00:18:02.039
to their original length. Wow,
I mean yeah, I mean I'm looking

200
00:18:02.119 --> 00:18:03.839
at some of the wording that's been
used in the story, and you know,

201
00:18:04.039 --> 00:18:08.960
anti aging and reversing the that sort
of thing, which is probably a

202
00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.079
little bit of creative license. But
could this be studied? Could we learn

203
00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:18.960
something from this fact? Well,
that's right, that's exactly what you know

204
00:18:18.119 --> 00:18:22.160
has come out of this, whether
you could whether you could have I don't

205
00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:26.200
know, face creams or something like
that, or skin creams that would rejuvenate

206
00:18:26.279 --> 00:18:33.160
your your body to its youthful appearance. I've got an idea. I've got

207
00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:37.200
for an idea. Look, well, I mean this is happening in space.

208
00:18:37.359 --> 00:18:40.839
Space is sort of a big void. So I think if we just

209
00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:45.559
sold empty jars to people and said
rub this on your face, we could

210
00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:52.480
make a mint. The problem is, and I've struggled with this, Andrew,

211
00:18:52.599 --> 00:18:56.759
is getting zero gravity into a jar
that really is mine? Ricky.

212
00:18:56.039 --> 00:19:00.839
Maybe you could take a jar up
in the space open in space, then

213
00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:03.960
steal it again and bring it back. What would happen then you just get

214
00:19:04.599 --> 00:19:10.079
some of the moldy air from the
International Space Station or whatever that you're bringing

215
00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:15.319
back. Apparently MIA was the worst
one, you know, the space station

216
00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:22.279
that preceded the International Space Station of
Russian venture. Apparently that was not very

217
00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:26.920
wholesome by the time it was finished
its occupancy, which I think was in

218
00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:33.759
the early two thousands, late nineteen
nineties. Actually, maybe they could use

219
00:19:33.799 --> 00:19:37.160
the robotic arm to take the jar
out, take the lid off then put

220
00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:41.720
the lid back on and then you've
got space in a jar. Yes you

221
00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:45.200
do. Yeah, you've got a
jar with a vacuum in it. But

222
00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:49.000
as I said, the really important
thing in this study is getting rid of

223
00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:55.200
gravity, and that's a lot harder. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the

224
00:19:55.240 --> 00:20:00.319
problem, isn't It's the zero G. Maybe the day will come years years

225
00:20:00.359 --> 00:20:03.960
from now where they will have hospitals
in space for people who gain benefit from

226
00:20:04.039 --> 00:20:08.920
zero G or even the health resource. Yes, yeah, you'd never know.

227
00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:17.240
I think that's a distinct possibility.
But they were fascinating findings and if

228
00:20:17.279 --> 00:20:19.839
you want to read about them,
you can go to the fizz dot org

229
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:26.240
phys dot org website. This is
Space Nuts with Andrew Dunpley and Professor Fred

230
00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:32.400
Watson. Let's take a quick break
from the show to talk about our sponsor,

231
00:20:32.599 --> 00:20:37.119
Nord VPN. And as you've probably
heard, I've just come back from

232
00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:41.519
overseas with Judy doing a trip throughout
China, and of course in China you

233
00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:48.480
do have restrictions on access to the
Internet, particularly the likes of Google and

234
00:20:48.599 --> 00:20:52.640
Facebook and WhatsApp and a few others. You can't use them unless you have

235
00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:56.400
a VPN. Now, this is
in a Wi Fi scenario. You can

236
00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:03.319
access a little bit more when you're
using your mobile phone in the normal scheme

237
00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:07.839
of things, but if you're using
Wi Fi, you generally are restricted.

238
00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:15.839
So Nord VPN was extremely useful in
that regard and so very helpful to enable

239
00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:19.920
me to access stuff that I normally
access at home day to day that I

240
00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:26.839
couldn't get to without a VPN in
China. Now, our sponsor has got

241
00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:33.559
some great deals going and some exclusive
deals for space Nuts listeners, and as

242
00:21:33.599 --> 00:21:37.799
I've mentioned many times, you can
sign up for all sorts of different levels

243
00:21:37.799 --> 00:21:44.160
of service over different periods of time, depending on what you need and what

244
00:21:44.200 --> 00:21:47.519
sort of price you're willing to pay. You can get a big discount at

245
00:21:47.519 --> 00:21:52.960
the moment, which we've talked about
before, for extra months when you sign

246
00:21:52.039 --> 00:21:56.880
up. But here's an interesting little
bonus that they've got on offer at the

247
00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:03.880
moment for a short time. It's
a it's an e SIM eSIM data and

248
00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:07.559
if you buy any two year Nord
VPN plan you can get up to ten

249
00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:15.920
gigabytes of free mobile data on sale. And that's a global e SIM application

250
00:22:15.039 --> 00:22:19.960
for travelers, and when you do
travel sometimes an eSIM is the way to

251
00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:26.039
go. I had to do that
in Egypt because my service provider didn't actually

252
00:22:26.119 --> 00:22:30.200
offer international roaming in Egypt, so
I got an eSIM to be able to

253
00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:36.599
get ten gig for travel for free. That is awesome. That's plenty of

254
00:22:36.680 --> 00:22:41.039
data. So it depends on your
plan, but you will be rewarded with

255
00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:47.480
one to three gig or up to
ten gig of mobile data which you can

256
00:22:47.559 --> 00:22:51.279
use in one hundred and fifty different
countries around the world, and you'll receive

257
00:22:51.319 --> 00:22:55.960
your sale voucher right after your Nord
VPN plan is purchased. So there's something

258
00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:00.440
else to consider, as well as
all the other remarkable tools available through annwed

259
00:23:00.519 --> 00:23:07.720
VPNs subscription, such as your high
speed Virtual Private Network, which I've done

260
00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:11.640
speed tests on in the past if
you've heard them, and they are incredibly

261
00:23:11.680 --> 00:23:15.559
fast. In fact, I found
that were faster than my direct connection to

262
00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:22.599
my internet service provider. You can
secure ten devices at once through an AWED

263
00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:26.519
plan. That's on all levels of
plan. But if you want to go

264
00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:33.119
the extra mile and get malware protection
and the ad blocker and the tracker software,

265
00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:37.920
there's a plan for that. Or
if you want to get everything which

266
00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:41.720
adds on the cross platform password manager, the data bridge scanner, and one

267
00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:47.960
terabyte of encryptive cloud storage. You
go for the top notch plan. Now

268
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:51.839
if you buy it over a long
period of time, the price goes down

269
00:23:51.880 --> 00:23:55.480
on a month by month basis.
The best way to choose what you want

270
00:23:55.559 --> 00:23:59.119
is to log on through our special
URL and have a look at the different

271
00:23:59.160 --> 00:24:03.720
options. It's certainly a good time
to get NordVPN with that e sim data

272
00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:11.160
package available for a limited time only. So the URL is nord vpn dot

273
00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:15.880
com, slash space nuts. That's
nord vpn dot com, slash space nuts.

274
00:24:15.960 --> 00:24:19.119
Check it all out and see what
works for you. They have been

275
00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:23.400
fabulous supporters of us, and look, honestly, they are the best in

276
00:24:23.599 --> 00:24:27.720
the business when it comes to virtual
private networks and all those other amazing tools.

277
00:24:29.119 --> 00:24:32.599
The cross platform password manager, I
would buy that on its own.

278
00:24:33.279 --> 00:24:37.319
It is the best thing since slice
spread. That's NordVPN dot com slash space

279
00:24:37.559 --> 00:24:42.319
nuts. Check it out today.
Now back to the show. Okay,

280
00:24:42.359 --> 00:24:49.039
we've checked all space nuts. Now
to our final story, Fred, and

281
00:24:49.359 --> 00:24:56.599
this one is involving something we never
talk about, the James web Space Telescope.

282
00:24:57.200 --> 00:25:03.440
What I find really what I felt
really interesting about this story is that

283
00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:10.559
it has observed something a long way
away that is probably very difficult to witness,

284
00:25:10.599 --> 00:25:14.680
even if you're standing right in front
of it. Well, that's right,

285
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:18.799
yes, so's it's a very clever
piece of you know, detective work,

286
00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:22.880
and that's kind of what astronomy is
all about. And it concerns a

287
00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:27.960
star which rejoices in the name of
Beta Pictoris, which is a young star.

288
00:25:29.039 --> 00:25:32.559
It's only about twenty million years old, so it's very much in its

289
00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:38.519
infancy, and it's surrounded by a
disc of dust. Now, dust is

290
00:25:38.599 --> 00:25:42.559
the raw material of planets, and
we took it call it dust, but

291
00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:47.559
it is kind of in many ways
better to imagine smoke, because that's more

292
00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:53.680
or less what it's like. And
it's circulating around this star. But the

293
00:25:53.799 --> 00:26:02.319
story goes back actually to two thousand
and five when another infrared spacecraft called Spitzer,

294
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:10.000
another of NASA's great observatories, that
was used to observe Beta Pictories and

295
00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:15.920
sort of analyze the disc of dust, and they found one section of the

296
00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:25.839
disc that was very rich in a
particular kind of dust silicates of a certain

297
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:33.920
type, which basically revealed that there
was different sorts of dust in this particular

298
00:26:34.039 --> 00:26:42.200
part of the disc of the dust
disc, and that really there wasn't really

299
00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:48.640
an understanding of what was causing that
that you know, it was the analysis

300
00:26:48.680 --> 00:26:52.279
of the spectrum of the dust with
infrared, which you can do, that

301
00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:59.079
showed these particular peaks that came from, you know, a certain type of

302
00:26:59.559 --> 00:27:08.279
dust that was presented in the literature
but not really analyzed in depth. So

303
00:27:10.039 --> 00:27:15.519
now move forward to today and the
James web Space Telescope which has looked at

304
00:27:15.559 --> 00:27:22.200
the same bit of the Beta Pictoris
dusty disc and finds no trace of that

305
00:27:22.720 --> 00:27:30.759
earlier dust that was revealed by Spitzer. And so what they're suggesting this is

306
00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:34.480
very very fine dust apparently that we're
talking about here. What they're suggesting,

307
00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:38.160
and this is scientists by the way, from Johns Hopkins University in the United

308
00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:44.200
States, they're suggesting that what we
were seeing back in two thousand and five

309
00:27:45.240 --> 00:27:52.039
was the debris from a collision of
baby asteroids which are resident in that dusty

310
00:27:52.119 --> 00:27:59.839
disc. So actually probably not that
small. The asteroids they think were probably

311
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:03.799
one hundred thousand times bigger than the
asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. So

312
00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:11.960
they're fairly substantial, but they are
still asteroidal. They're not planets. They're

313
00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:17.119
small objects which are probably you know, the precursors to planets, because we

314
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:22.359
think that planetary formation something that starts
small and builds up gradually. So what

315
00:28:22.440 --> 00:28:27.359
they're saying is that the dust that
was seen to in two thousand and five

316
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:33.279
was from a collision of asteroids,
and the reason why we don't see it

317
00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:37.599
now is because it's been blown away
by the radiation from the star itself.

318
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:44.319
The solar wind from Be to Pictoris
itself has cleared that area of this very

319
00:28:44.440 --> 00:28:49.279
fine dust that was seen before,
and that is why this interpretation has been

320
00:28:51.119 --> 00:28:55.279
you know, has been arrived at
by the Johns Hopkins University team. There's

321
00:28:55.359 --> 00:29:00.440
not really any other explanation for why
you should see these dust particles one time

322
00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:03.759
and then twenty years or nearly twenty
years later, find they've gone altogether.

323
00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:12.799
And so yes, they have a
cogent story to tell, and it's you

324
00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:21.119
know, illustrates just how wild early
solar systems are, because that's what we

325
00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:25.880
think happened in our solar system.
There's a gradual build up of objects,

326
00:29:26.279 --> 00:29:32.079
but that was often interrupted by collisions
between these objects, and you know exactly

327
00:29:32.200 --> 00:29:36.960
like we think has occurred in Beter
Pictoris, which just to type the loose

328
00:29:37.079 --> 00:29:40.000
end it is. Yes, it's
a long way away, as the crow

329
00:29:40.079 --> 00:29:45.119
flies if you're walking, but it's
relatively close star. It's sixty three point

330
00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:48.000
four light years from our Solar system, so it's within the solar neighborhood,

331
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:53.759
within the Sun's neighborhood. You and
I have talked about how our solar system

332
00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:00.039
and the planets themselves were probably created
early in our existence, and that happened

333
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:06.960
a long long time ago. Is
it fair to say that what we're seeing

334
00:30:07.119 --> 00:30:11.480
here is the same process, but
we're catching it at a much earlier stage

335
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:15.440
in that Solar system, something we
obviously could never have witnessed here. And

336
00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:21.400
if that system goes on to develop
intelligent life, doll not a witness to

337
00:30:21.559 --> 00:30:26.079
either, but we have. Yes, that's right, there's a precursor.

338
00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:29.839
Actually, just thinking back, and
I think this is a story that we

339
00:30:29.960 --> 00:30:36.640
covered probably a year or so ago. There's a star culled Formulo fom Alhaut

340
00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:42.640
I think it's spelled, which also
has a dusty disc around it, and

341
00:30:44.319 --> 00:30:48.519
for a while what was thought to
be a planet was being observed in that

342
00:30:48.759 --> 00:30:52.920
disc by which telescope. I don't
think it was the JWST. I think

343
00:30:53.160 --> 00:30:59.279
that was before the web telescope came
into action. But that planet seemed to

344
00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:06.319
be swelling up, but it eventually
dispersed, and again it was thought that

345
00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:08.920
what had been seen there was the
result of a collision. You have a

346
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:17.440
cloud of dust, that's that's the
debris from something that's been collided with and

347
00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:21.960
that eventually disperses and disappears. I
think the headline we had was the disappearing

348
00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:26.079
planet because it was originally thought to
be a planet and eventually dispersed and wasn't

349
00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:32.160
there anymore. That's what we talked
about, and this is a similar situation.

350
00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:34.200
What surprised me in regard to this
story, Fred, though, was

351
00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:38.920
like they've made the early observations of
the collision and the follow up pictures were

352
00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:45.519
only twenty years later issue and the
yeah, the dust has gone. It's

353
00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:49.319
yes, you don't. You don't
think about things happening that fast in Solar

354
00:31:49.400 --> 00:31:56.279
system formation with a collision, though, yes, I think you would.

355
00:31:56.839 --> 00:32:02.079
You know, we we've seen colliding
asteroids in our own Solar System and the

356
00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:10.440
debris takes not very long to disperse. What usually happens is because what you're

357
00:32:10.480 --> 00:32:15.720
seeing is lots of debris being illuminated
by the sun. As that debris spreads

358
00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:19.759
apart, it becomes less and less
obvious. You can't see the individual bits

359
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:22.319
of debris. All you can see
is the effect of the cloud itself,

360
00:32:22.839 --> 00:32:27.160
and so it just gradually gets fainter
and fainter as the cloud gets more dispersed.

361
00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:31.440
I suppose if we just sort of
set our watches and weighed another thirty

362
00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:35.640
or forty million years, we might
be able to see what it turns into.

363
00:32:37.279 --> 00:32:39.640
Yeah, we might, Yeah,
or maybe even two to three hundred

364
00:32:39.680 --> 00:32:45.799
million years, we might see what
is turning in. Yeah. But it's

365
00:32:45.839 --> 00:32:52.039
certainly proving what a great tool the
James Webspace Telescope has become. It's just

366
00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:59.240
doing exactly what they promised. It's
finding these things that we couldn't have hoped

367
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:04.200
to have seen twenty thirty years ago, and giving us so much darta to

368
00:33:04.279 --> 00:33:07.480
work with and so much information.
But you'd love to get you, you

369
00:33:07.559 --> 00:33:13.319
know, your talents into the Jay
James Webspace Telescope for it. No,

370
00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:16.079
I don't think I'm clever enough to
write a proposal to do that. What

371
00:33:16.160 --> 00:33:20.039
I'd have to do is what I've
tended to do for a long time,

372
00:33:20.279 --> 00:33:23.160
has tag along with a lot of
other very clever people who've got the ideas,

373
00:33:23.240 --> 00:33:29.759
and I can kind of help it
somewhere another. Yeah, gosh,

374
00:33:30.200 --> 00:33:34.039
so much more to discover. But
it's yeah, of course it's throwing up

375
00:33:34.119 --> 00:33:37.440
new questions with all the things is
at sees, but it's also coming up

376
00:33:37.440 --> 00:33:42.319
with a few answers. That's right, And you're absolutely right what you just

377
00:33:42.359 --> 00:33:46.519
said before. You know, it's
so many different bits of astronomy, different

378
00:33:47.359 --> 00:33:52.279
problems that we're looking at, different
questions that we want answered on a vastly

379
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:54.720
different scale. Because at the same
time as it's doing all this, it's

380
00:33:54.759 --> 00:33:59.960
also looking at some of the youngest
galaxies that we've ever seen in the universe,

381
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:05.039
whether early two hundred ninety million years
you know, the universe is only

382
00:34:05.039 --> 00:34:08.280
two hundred ninety million years old.
It's an extraordinary tool. You're absolutely right,

383
00:34:09.719 --> 00:34:13.800
Yeah, incredible, all right.
If you want to chase up that

384
00:34:13.920 --> 00:34:19.119
story, it is at the space
dot Com website and definitely a great read

385
00:34:19.719 --> 00:34:25.199
to observe something so far away and
learn what's happening and sort of correlate it

386
00:34:25.280 --> 00:34:30.960
to what our early solar system went
through. Is yes, a it's a

387
00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:36.679
revelation, like we knew what happened
to us, but now we've got physical,

388
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:40.880
physical proof. Fred. That's just
about it for another week. Thank

389
00:34:40.920 --> 00:34:45.360
you very much. It's a great
pleasure Andrew. Nice to see you back

390
00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:50.719
home in Suly, Australia, and
we'll talk again soon. We will,

391
00:34:50.760 --> 00:34:54.400
indeed, Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer
at Large. Don't forget though, if

392
00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:59.519
you're on social media, don't forget
to follow us on Facebook and Instagram or

393
00:34:59.559 --> 00:35:02.360
the space That's podcast group where you
can talk to each other and share photos

394
00:35:02.440 --> 00:35:07.360
and stories, And don't forget to
visit our website. And if you're a

395
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:12.320
YouTube follower, don't forget to subscribe. We really appreciate that and we welcome

396
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:15.760
your reviews on whatever platform you use. And thanks to here in the studio

397
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:19.800
who's had a long weekend, and
from me Andrew Dunkley. Catch you on

398
00:35:19.880 --> 00:35:24.360
the next episode of Space Nuts.
Bye bye, Spacenuts. You'll be listening

399
00:35:24.519 --> 00:35:32.159
to the Space Nuts podcast available at
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or

400
00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:37.800
your favorite podcast player. You can
also stream on demand at guides dot com.

401
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:42.320
This has been another quality podcast production
from sites dot com.