#431: Ancient Universe Revealed by Webb & Space Junk Hits Home

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Hi there, Andrew Dunkley here.
Thanks for joining us. This is Space

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Nuts, the astronomy and space science
podcast also heard on community radio across Australia

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and hello to you too. Coming
up in this episode, we will be

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looking at another James Webb space telescope
discovery and it will blow your mind as

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to how far back this dates.
Space junk has hit home literally and life

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in the Solar System beyond Earth could
exist if the hydrothermal vents of some of

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those ocean worlds exist at the right
temperature. I think Goldilocks lives there.

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That's all coming up on this edition
of Space Nuts. Fifteen second in channel

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ten nine ignition sequence Space Nuts or
three two one Space Nuts. Can I

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record it? Bills good and here
he is again, Professor Fred Watson,

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Hello friend, Hello Andrew. Are
you looking very well? If I may

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say so? I need a haircut? Oh do you okay? Yeah,

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I'm booked. I'm booked in tomorrow. Very good. Yeah. I usually

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get it done every six weeks.
I have not much up top, but

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it sort of fuffs out at the
sides and I start looking like some kind

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of near One of the three sturges, which one was it Larry that had

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the big there's a paradox, because
I believe it or not, I get

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my hair cut every three weeks,
spice as often as you and I've got

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about five percent of the hair that
you've got. But it's a literal haircut.

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You get one haircut, I mean
one once the chance. We talked

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about dollars for it as well.
It's an expensive I've found a backyard business,

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so I get it nice and cheat
with a lawnmower. Pretty much.

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She's jumping the hole and done.
That explains. That explains the ballpatch on

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top of ballparts of the by ah, these are getting worse, terrible man.

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Okay, let us let us talk
about what is on today's agenda,

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and we'll start off with this incredible
discovery made by the James Webb Space Telescope.

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I'm sorry, Jordie, Jordy.
It's blowing Jordy's mind. You can

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tell. Sure has now to probably
get to the nuts and bolts of the

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story straight up. This dates back
to a time when the universe was only

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three percent of its current known age, and this is what the James Webb

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Space Telescope was all about. Going
back so far that we can almost see

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the beginning. Well, that's right. It's so that these that we're seeing

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these objects as they were when the
universe was five hundred million years old,

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And that sounds like a lot.
But the universe is thirteen point eight billion,

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yes, so as you said,
it's kind of a few percent of

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the age of the of the universe. And look, i'd you know,

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suggest all our listeners check out this
image. It is I've got it on

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a press release here from the web
Telescope, but the headline is web captures

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star clusters in cosmic gems are Cosmic
gems is the name of an arc of

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light which is the result of the
of the gravitational attraction of a huge cluster

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of galaxies. And so this image, it is just staggering the amount of

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stuff there is. There's a cluster
of galaxies in the foreground. There are

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a tiny tiny, excuse me,
almost invisible galaxies in the background, excuse

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me, which we see distorted because
of the gravitational lensing effect of the foreground

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cluster. So the foreground cluster is
called sptcl J zero six one five minus

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five seven four six. We get
that that's the cluster and it's a cluster

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that is massive enough that it's you
know, it's distorting the space around it,

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producing this phenomenon we know as a
gravitational lens and acting as a real

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magnifying glass for the distant objects behind
it, which are distorted, you know,

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in their appearance because of the gravitational
lens. Isn't like a perfect lens,

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a glass lens that we use,
kind of thing we think of in

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a pair of spectacles or something like
that. It's actually, this is a

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side note, it's shaped. If
you could imagine a gravitational lens converted into

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glass, it would be very similar
to the bottom of a wine glass,

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the part that sits on the table. That cusp shape of the bottom of

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a wine glass is a very close
approximation. What it does to light is

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very similar to what a cluster of
galaxies does to the light of the of

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whatever's behind it. And you can
see when you look through the bottom of

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a wine glass. It helps if
you've taken the wine out first, because

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as it goes all down your shirt
night did you before as well? Yeah,

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if you can look through it,
you can see that any light source

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is turned into an arc of light
by the refraction of the glass, and

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that's exactly what the gravitational lens does, only there's no glass involved. All

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there is is the distortion of space, which is just fantastic. So when

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you look closely at this image of
that cluster, who's never won't bother repeating,

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you see all these little arcs of
light, and there's a couple of

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them, which I think are what
are being called the cosmic gems arcs.

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They're nearly straight lines actually, and
they've got tiny dots of light in them,

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tiny tiny points of light. And
these have been identified as being due

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to clusters of clusters of stars actually
in a distorted galaxy. So you're probably

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aware we've talked about it before,
Andrew, that the Milky Way galaxy,

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our own galaxy has this swarm of
what we call globular clusters around it.

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There's up to about two hundred of
them, and these are compact star clusters.

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They're almost very cool. Some of
them are slightly flattened. But they've

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got the name globular cluster that comes
from William Herschel back in the day,

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because they look like globes, but
they're fuzzy and they're made of stars.

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When you can look through some of
the bright ones here in the southern hemisphere

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through small telescopes or binoculars and you
tear flop, fuzzy blob. But they

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are in reality hundreds of thousands and
sometimes millions of stars, and they're very

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ancient. We know that these are
some of the most ancient stars we can

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observe. They go back twelve in
our galaxy's case, they go back twelve

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perhaps twelve and a half billion years, so the days when the galaxy was

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just a youngster, when the Milky
Way Galaxy was just a youngster. So

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what we're seeing now is evidence that
those clusters are in existence in some of

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the first galaxies to have formed.
So they must be very very old objects.

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Indeed, they're objects that date from
the very earliest period of the universe.

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And so all the scientists who've worked
on this, and actually principally they're

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Swedish in fact, but of course
sorry the James Webb and NASA scientists from

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the Hubble Telescope are also involved.
It's a very big collaboration. But they

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are so excited about this because this
gives us a window into studying these clusters

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without the gravitational lensing. You simply
would not see them. Without this natural

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magnifying glass provided by a four grand
cluster of galaxies, we wouldn't know that

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those star clusters belonging to much earlier
galaxies, we wouldn't know they were there.

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Well worth checking out the imagery.
It's very easy to find web captures

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star clusters in cosmic gems arc beautiful
stuff, yeah, quite incredible. Pictures

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are very very striking. And you
mentioned those cosmic gems. They kind of

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look like the trail that would be
left like by space junk re entering the

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Earth's aphere. It's breakof and glowing
the little blobs, and that's kind of

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what they look like. But the
whole starfield effect itself is quite staggering.

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My question, Fred, is how
do they know? It dates back to

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four hundred and sixty million years into
the existence of the universe. So it's

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all to do with colors and the
spectrum basically of the of these objects.

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So web is equipped with a way
of forming the spectrum of very very faint

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objects, and you look for you
know, if we're looking at stars,

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for example, in our own galaxy, you look at the spectrum you see

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the light broken up into its rainbow
colors. We never detect the colors because

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we don't need to. All we
want to see is that barcode of information

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that's encapsulated in that and that barcode
of information is there no matter when the

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light was emitted. You know,
even if the light was emitted five hundred

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million years after the birth of the
universe, it's still got that barcode imprinted

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on it. And in fact,
the scientists in this case look for not

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so much a barcode as a very
obvious feature that we know whose wavelength at

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rest we know, and it's red
shifted by the expansion of the universe.

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And by measuring that red shift,
that's what you can that's what how you

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can determine the age of you know, the age of the universe when when

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these these light, this light was
emitted. The particular feature they look for

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is something called the Lyman break.
It's in the ultraviolet where this region of

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the spectrum is, but it shifted
into the infrared because the red shift is

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so great, because we're looking back
so far in time. Yes, all

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right, another question, these images
are so very old. What would be

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there now? What would like they
wouldn't exist as we see them now.

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We're seeing them in history because of
the amount of time it takes for that

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light to reach the James Wor of
Space telescope. So what would be there

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now? Probably a galaxy, probably
these same star clusters as we as we

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know just mentioned that the star clusters
in our own galaxy, the globular clusters,

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have been have been hallmarked with great
age, really since the early days

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of our understanding of the way stars
evolve. We know that these are made

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of very old stars. Indeed,
as I sense, they date back perhaps

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twelve twelve and a half, maybe
even thirteen billion years to the formation of

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our own galaxies. Now our galaxy
is still here, and the globular clusters

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are still here, and I expect
that the particular galaxies that we can see

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those clusters like a string of pearls, actually just these dots of light,

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those clusters they are, they're probably
still in existence. It might even be

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life forms on some of the planets
of the stars in those galaxies. Who

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knows, wouldn't that be something,
But we have to wait somewhere around thirteen

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billion years for them to be able
to see what's happening now, don't we

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Yes, that's correct. Yeah.
To see what those galaxies look like now,

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you've got to wait thirteen billion years, that's right. Yeah. I

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mean it's so hard to get a
head around that we're looking at something that

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was there almost the dawn of time
and to see it as it is now

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we have to wait that time frame
again almost. Yes, yes, you

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know, take your time over that. It's going to be a well,

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put it in your diary. Put
it in your diary. Thirteen point five

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million years. Have another look.
I mean, yeah, you know,

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I think our own galaxy as it
is today, and of course everything in

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our own galaxy we see, well
maybe a few thousand years ago when we

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look at the galactic center, we're
looking back twenty five thousand years. But

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nevertheless that's kind of today by the
standards which we're talking about now, and

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so they may well have evolved into
a galaxy very like ours, you know,

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with all the attributes that we see
in our own galaxy. And the

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other interesting part of this story is
without the James web Space Telescope, these

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images couldn't have been taken, couldn't
exist, correct, that's right, So

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marvelous piece of kit doing such a
great Yes. Indeed, it just keeps

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giving, doesn't it. It keeps
on giving, that's right. Yeah,

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yes, and we're still only really
in the early days of its mission,

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so who knows what we're going to
find out next. Yeah, it is

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mind blowing, absolutely mind blowing.
If you'd like to look at that story,

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you find it in plenty of places, butweb dot org that's a doublebeweb

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dot org. Fred I did mention
space junk re entering our atmosphere and how

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it looked very much like those cosmic
gems. Well that sort of dovetails beautifully

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with the next story, which almost
turned into a horror story because space junk

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did re enter our atmosphere earlier this
year, and it hit a house in

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Florida. Yeah, it went through
the roof. Apparently it's in Naples,

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Florida. A gentleman by the name
of Alejandro Otero. He has a seaside

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home in Naples, and basically March
the eighth, something came through his roof

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and two floors of the family home
very nearly hit his son. So that

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was, you know, the reason
why they got rather miffed about this.

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Turns out that what it was and
NAS has confirmed this an almost three ton

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palette of used batteries International Space station
batteries, which are you know, jettison

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from time to time, three tons
of it, nearly two point nine tons,

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and they were jettisoned in March two
years ago. My word, so

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they three years ago, Beggy Pan, three years ago? Yes, sorry,

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my originally TWE twenty twenty one.
That's right, three years ago.

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They were jettisoned. They were expected
just to the orbit, would be expected

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to k over time, and eventually
they'd re enter the atmosphere. They'd partially

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burn up, but something to two
point nine tons. You know, there's

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enough mass there that it almost certainly
would survive re entry, at least bits

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of it would. And part of
it has now come through the roof.

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And so, as you might expect, Alexandro is not very impressed with this,

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and so there is legal action taking
place which involves a claim to perhaps

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you know, pay for the damage, pay for down for the pawer of

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the damage. I'd certainly be thinking
along those lines. I'm not sure whether

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my home insurance policy covers space junk
coming through your roof. I know it

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covers trees coming through your roof,
because we had one not very long ago

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that did and in fact it did
little damage to ours, but sadly did

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more dumb show. Next door neighbor
was a tree that has had multiple parts

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to it, so they're covered by
our insurance. But if that had been

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space junk falling on our roof,
I don't know what the situation would have

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been. Now, we do know
that under a legal instrument called the Space

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Liability Convention, which is international and
international regulation, if the debris had fallen

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on Canada, for example, or
somewhere in South America, then NASA would

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have been liable for the damage.
Because when you put something into orbit,

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it's the Space Treaty going back to
nineteen sixty seven, it's the country that

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launches that that's responsible for it.
So it's a national thing, and that

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sort of made a lot of sense
back in the day when there were two

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basically two countries, two superpowers that
had had the capability to put stuff into

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orbit. Things are a lot different
now. Anybody with the right equipment can

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put something into orbit, but it's
still the national you know, the nation

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that is responsible for that launch that
actually has to pay for the damage.

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But apparently that doesn't work if it
falls through the roof of somewhere on your

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own territory. And so, as
a quote from the lawyer who's actually acting

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on behalf of the Otto family,
which is, we've asked NASA not to

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apply a different standard towards US citizens
or residents, but instead to take care

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of the Ottero's the family and make
them whole. That's a nice way of

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putting it. So it does set
a precedent this, you know, just

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to work out how much compensation there
should be. And it could turn out

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to be very inventive. You know, if you're insuring against this sort of

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thing, that's going to be a
very very costly way of operating spacecraft.

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You're going to have to build all
that into your liabilities cost. Yeah,

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it is. It really does open
up a can of cosmic worms. But

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going back to the incident itself,
NASA was confident, according to what I

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read, that it would burn up
on re entry completely and it didn't.

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So is it a combination of the
mass, the speed of re entry,

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and the angle of the trajectory that
probably stopped it from completely burning up?

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I suspect that's correct. Andrew the
you know, re entry is fairly well

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controlled process, but it does depend
on things like the atmosphere pressure. You

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know, the kind of ambient temperature
which does determine the pressure. A lot

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of things like that can influence it. We know that you know, periods

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when there's high solar activity, for
example, Yeah, our atmosphere fluffs up.

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It sort of puffs up a bit
like fairy floss, and that means

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that there's more drag on spacecraft that
would normally not be feeling that drag.

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So maybe if you've got the converse
situation where the atmosphere is nice and tight,

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you don't get the same burn up
effect when you put something through it

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to burn up, you don't get
the same perfect combustion. So really interesting

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stuff. And yeah, re entry
is still kind of a bit of a

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black art. I think that's the
bottom line. Yeah, interesting of course,

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law suit side. Does insurance cover
it? Yes or no? I

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don't know what the rules are in
Australia. You mentioned trees falling, but

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these days, at least in New
South Wales where we if you have to

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declare your trees if they're within a
certain distance of your house and a certain

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height. Okay, it's actually a
question when you apply for insurance, do

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you have trees exceeding such a height
within twenty meters of your home? And

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if you don't declare them and it
hits the house, I dare say,

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you can't make a claim. Maybe
it's interesting in the future. Yeah,

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I've had it happen a couple of
times when I've changed insurance companies. That's

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why I chopped all the trees down. No I didn't, No, I

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didn't. But maybe in the future
the option will be to declare the potential

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for space junk hitting your house.
As rare as that is, you might

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be able to add it to your
insurance, to your cover your especially if

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you live in Florida. I mean, you know you're on the you're sort

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of on the space highway there almost, although because this was from the International

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Space Station, it could have fallen
anywhere in the world. It's just that

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it hit Larns rather than see So
yeah, really interesting. Well it nearly

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hit the sea, yes, I
believe. So that's right, it's just

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missed it by that much. Yes, Well, all things being equal,

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I'm just so glad nobody was hurt. But yes, certainly a long way

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to go. Down the road of
this particular lawsuit. By the sound of

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it, this is space nuts.
Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson.

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Okay, we'll take your space nuts. Fred. This story excites me because

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it talks about life beyond the Earth. And this is all to do with

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something we have talked about before.
And you've certainly considered that if we're going

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to find life elsewhere in our Solar
System, it might be in the ocean

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worlds, and particularly if they've got
hydro thermal events, and a new paper

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has been released suggesting just that correct, And yes, you're right. This

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is an exciting piece of It's a
kind of theoretical research in a way,

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although it's based on things that go
on on our own planet. We're talking

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about hydrothermal vents. We're talking about
an ocean floor and what sometimes are called

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black smokers, those plumes of super
hot water that are emitted from cracks and

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fissures in the seafloor. And we
know that the regions around those vents are

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very rich in well in both chemistry
sort of rich organic chemistry and living organisms.

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There are you know, lots and
lots of different species that make their

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home around these warm vents of hot
water, and so that's really the thrust

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of the thinking when it comes to
worlds like that. As you mentioned,

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Europa is one which we know has
a sub ice ocean with a rocky floor

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to it. Enceladus is another.
Enceladus. Of course, we have had

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a spacecraft Cassini, which flew through
the plumes of ice that were in the

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South Pole geysers that spurred out ice
from that ocean. And my recollection is,

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and this goes back to probably twenty
fifteen twenty sixteen or so, that

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there was discovered in those ice plumes
molecular hydrogen, which I think was seen

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as a smoking Garnifiing put it that
way. For there being hydrothermal vents down

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at the bottom of Enceladus's ocean,
the smokers were there and the hydrogen was

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being detected as a consequence of So
there's pretty good evidence that these oceans on

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the ocean worlds probably do have hydrothermal
events. Now, what has happened recently,

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and the reason why this is in
the news is a team of scientists

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at the University of California, Santa
Cruz have looked at some of the lower

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temperature events which are very very common
on the Earth's ocean floor. Not the

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ones where it's coming out boiling,
which you might think would be a little

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bit unsupportive of living organisms. The
lower temperature ones where you're talking about water

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coming out at fairly benign perhaps bath
water temperature. They've looked at the science

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of those, and in particular they've
studied one particular system, which is it's

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somewhere near something all the huanda Fuka
Ridge in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. So

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there is apparently a system of hydrothermal
vents there where you've got an extinct volcano,

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a seamount down at the bottom of
the ocean floor, and water that's

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cold. So water goes into that
through channels in it, and then it

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travels under underground for about forty five
kilometers and then comes back through another seamount,

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which is warmer because the water gets
warmer as it flows underneath the ocean's

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crust. It's quite extraordinary stuff we're
talking about, you know, we're talking

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about cavities and passages in the in
the crust of the earth underneath the ocean.

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The water comes in, it travels
along this forty five kilometers and so

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thirty miles and then pops up in
the sea amount where it's got a nice

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benign temperature. I'm not sure what
the temperature is, but it's not boiling

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hot. It's a sort of,
you know, just a reasonable temperature.

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They call that system Andrew a hydrothermal
siphon. We all know what a siphon

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is. It's the way, you
know, you can change the pressure to

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to get fluids through. It's me. It's how we used to clean the

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bottom of a swimming pool back in
the day before they had pump systems.

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It's how I used to drain my
petrol tank to patch leaks in the bottom

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of it when I had an ancient
car. Steel feel out of a car.

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That's right, yes, and on
that, but it's always my siphon.

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But yeah, so many of us
have had a mouthful of petrels setting

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up this siphon. Well, this
is a lot this is a lot more

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benign. A hydrothermal siphon keeps the
flow going because heat is being in jet

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by the heat of the rocks themselves. So yes, it is quite you

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know. An interesting study that they've
looked at and they apparently places where the

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gravity is very low, and that
includes Enceladus, probably includes Europa. Europe

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is bigger than Enceladus and Tellads only
about five hundred kilometers across. But it's

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they found that that low gravity is
not an an inhibitor for these hydrothermal siphons,

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and in particular, somewhere like Enceladus, you could have circulation taking place

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for millions or billions of years,
and you know, you might well have

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this sort of activity taking place long
enough for living organisms to kick off whatever

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chemistry is involved in setting up life. They might have a stable environment in

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one of these one of these planets. So one of these worlds. Yes,

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So that's that's, you know,
the kind of positive side of the

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story. There's there's lots of uncertainties, but it is a very interesting study.

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The paper, the research paper is
by at Fisheries. The author's sorry,

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00:28:27.319 --> 00:28:36.039
the lead author Etol several other authors
Sustaining hydrothermal circulation with gravity relevant to

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ocean worlds. It's in the journal
Geo Physical Research Planets. It sort of

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is counter to a story we did
a few months ago about a study they

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did on Titan, and what they
found with Titan was, you know,

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life probably can't exist there, and
therefore probably can't exist anywhere in the Solar

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System beyond Earth. So yes,
one sort of counters that that's right,

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Yeah, And I can't remember.
It was something about what was leaking up

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through the ice, wasn't it from
the ocean? Something I've forgotten the details

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of it. That's a good point, which did. Yes, you're quite

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right. It did pour cold water
on the idea of there being living organisms

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in the sub ice ocean of Titan. Titan, of course, another ocean

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world. And I think it also
had relevance to the chemistry on the surface,

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because it's possible that Titan might have
life forms that don't look anything like

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what we have on Earth, that
don't use water as they're working fluid,

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00:29:37.880 --> 00:29:42.160
but use liquid natural gas, liquid
ethane and methane. And we're talking about

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that last time, with the seas
of Titan perhaps having waves on them.

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So look, all these studies are
they're all trying to build up a picture

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of what we might expect. The
only way to find out is to go

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00:29:57.039 --> 00:30:03.400
there and start looking detail. And
of course I think is it juice that's

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00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:06.880
on its way? I think juice
is the one that's on its way out

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00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:11.799
to EUROPEFT should check that because there's
two spacecraft heading in that direction. One's

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00:30:11.839 --> 00:30:17.519
on its way and one's not.
And I'm remissing not know which is which.

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Never mind everything, but around our
black smokers inersations that there are there

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00:30:25.440 --> 00:30:27.240
are worms, there are shrimp,
there are crabs, there are fish.

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I dare say, we wouldn't expect
to find that on ocean worlds beyond our

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planet, but there could be microscopic
life. Who knows, it could be

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something completely different that we wouldn't even
imagine. So it would be hopefully one

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00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:45.799
day we'll find out. Won't be
tomorrow, probably not tomorrow, but hopefully

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within the lifetime of space. Yeah
it was. Did you say it was

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Cassini that went through the plume and
picked up all that. Yeah, it

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also picked up a note from Goldilock
saying send help, can't bear it.

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That's where it came from. I
wonder I thought it was much true.

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00:31:07.559 --> 00:31:11.759
Is that the one with the ps
that says where's my porridge? Yeah,

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00:31:12.680 --> 00:31:18.240
it's exactly. I think we'll leave
it there, Fred, Thank you so

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00:31:18.319 --> 00:31:29.480
much already, but don't forget to
chase our our episodes on our website was

351
00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:32.920
what I was trying to say.
Space Nuts podcast dot com, Space Nuts

352
00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:37.200
dot Io. You can listen to
the back catalog. Some people are still

353
00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:41.039
doing that, and don't forget to
check out all the other things on our

354
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:44.960
website while you're there. At the
Astronomy Daily newsletter, you can sign up

355
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:48.519
for that. You can become a
supporter of Space Nuts. It's all on

356
00:31:48.519 --> 00:31:52.119
our website, so check it out. And if you're a YouTube follower,

357
00:31:52.160 --> 00:31:56.359
don't forget to subscribe. Fred,
thanks so much. We'll catch you next

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00:31:56.359 --> 00:32:00.079
time. I hope so sounds good. See you soon, all right,

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00:32:00.359 --> 00:32:04.960
Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large.
And Hugh in the studio who's not in

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00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:07.960
the studio again, And from me
Andrew Duncley, thanks for your company.

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00:32:08.079 --> 00:32:14.039
Catch you next time on another edition
of Space Nuts. Bye bye. You'll

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00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:21.599
be listening to the Space Nuts podcast
available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart

363
00:32:21.680 --> 00:32:25.119
Radio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at

364
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