July 11, 2024

#433: Marsquakes Surge & Parker Probe's Record Speed

#433: Marsquakes Surge & Parker Probe's Record Speed

Marsquakes, Parker Solar Probe, and Ancient Supernova
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this captivating episode of Space Nuts, where they explore the latest cosmic discoveries and delve into the history of the universe.

Episode...

Marsquakes, Parker Solar Probe, and Ancient Supernova
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this captivating episode of Space Nuts, where they explore the latest cosmic discoveries and delve into the history of the universe.

Episode Highlights:

  • Marsquakes Unveiled: Discover the unexpected frequency of Marsquakes, thanks to data from the now-retired InSight mission. Fred explains how these findings are reshaping our understanding of Martian geology and the impact rates on the Red Planet.
  • - Parker Solar Probe's Record-Breaking Speed: The Parker Solar Probe has set a new speed record as it skims the sun at an astonishing pace. Learn about the spacecraft's incredible journey and its upcoming close passes.
  • - Ancient Supernova of 1181: Uncover the mysteries of a supernova first observed in 1181. Fred discusses recent discoveries and what they reveal about this rare cosmic event, including the collision of two white dwarf stars.
  • Don't forget to send us your questions via our website... spacenuts.io.
  • Support Space Nuts and join us on this interstellar journey by visiting our website support page. Your contributions help us continue our mission to explore the wonders of the universe.Clear skies and boundless exploration await on Space Nuts, where we make the cosmos your backyard.
  • For an extra special deal from our sponsor, Malwarebytes - cyber security for everyone, visit www.bitesz.com/malwarebytes ....but be quick. For a very limited time you get 50% off. You really don't want to miss this. It's one we use to protect all our devices and swear by. It just works!

 

 

WEBVTT

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Hi there, thanks for joining us
again. This is Space Nuts. My

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name is Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for
your company. Coming up, we will

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be looking at a couple of things. Mars quakes looks like they're happening at

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a faster and more furious pace than
ever thought, and that's because we can

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detect them now with much more accuracy. Also, the Parker solar probe has

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made the news again. It is
skimming around the Sun almost literally, but

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it's doing it at a thunderclap race
a pace. And we'll also be looking

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at a super nova first scene in
eleven eighty one, but now we know

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all about it, or at least
more than they did back then. That's

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all coming up on this edition of
Space Nuts fifteen second guidance in channel ten

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nine ignition sequence Space Nuts or three
two one Space Nuts. When I report

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it. Bill's good and here again
to furnish us with his knowledge, or

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at least help my son move furniture
because he's got a new apartment in Sydney.

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Is Professor Fred Watson, Astronoment at
large, high friend. Thanks Andre,

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just let me know, and yeah, we'll be there hoping. If

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we're planning the trip down he hasn't
quite got it yet all the legal stuff,

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you know, well, how to
deal with that? Whereabols is it?

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What suburb is in campsy more specifically
a place called Clempton Park, which

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is very pretty leafy little suburb.
And best of all, he's not on

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a main road whatsoever, so no
traffic. Very hard to do in Sydney,

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very hard to do. We're kind
of we're quite proud of him because

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he's managed to do this all by
himself in the second most difficult real estate

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market in the world, which I
think is really impressive. It is.

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So yes, ladies, he's a
catch. Okay, there you go.

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Well, lad your friends note yeah, yeah, Now before we get into

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our stories, you've just come back
from a little trip to South Australia where

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you took a tour group around and
show them rocks and things. It must

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have been exciting. It was.
It was a lot more exciting than you

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made it sound. So it was
a round trip really. We started off

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in Adelaide, headed up to a
Portagusta and then to Kuba Pede via Woomera,

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which is a name I've had in
my vocabulary since I was about six

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because the you know, it was
always in the news, was Woomera when

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I was growing up in the nineteen
fifties, that this was the spaceport for

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British rocket tests and all kinds of
other things, and it was all happening

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very much front of mine, very
prominent in the media. But I've never

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been, Andrew never visited now and
it's worth a look. Look you would

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enjoy it too. There's a lot
of vintage space stuff there, reminiscent of

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I guess the Kennedy Space Center,
but an earlier generation when rocketry was in

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its kind of the modern era of
rocketry was in its infancy in the post

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World War II period. Lots to
see some really interesting aircraft and missiles,

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rockets and all the rest of it. Is the Australia's first ever rocket still

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in that chuck shed. That's probably
I didn't see it there somewhere apparently yeah,

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it will be, yeah, but
of course it's still an active site.

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I think it's the OLAF that operates
now. There's the Woomor Prohibited Area.

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It's a huge area of South Australia. I don't know how many thousand

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squareculus as it is, but they
still do launches and people in the area,

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the station station dwellers, station halls, people have got sheep stations and

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things like that. They get to
all every so often we're going to evacuate

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you for a day. So well
they do. And it's very secret,

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so we'll just find out about any
of that. But we did talk about

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the history and it was great.
And then of course I should mention the

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reason it's called woomera is because that's
a an aboriginal device to launch a speed

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it is gives it gives a spear
a much greater and extra a great name,

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great name. They made some spaces
too, we did. Yes,

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we followed the paths around two places
like Williams Creek and Marie. Marie is

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interesting because it's got a it's got
a man, the mari Mon, which

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when you see it from the air, is an Aboriginal elder probably has got

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a long beard and he's four kilometers
long and nobody knows how he got there,

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but it looks as done by bulldozers
or something like that. And then

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and then down to our karula of
place where there's a dark SkyPark, and

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to a place called nil Pina,
and in fact the Nilpina Ediacara National Park.

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Eddie Kara is the name of the
hills in which some very interesting fossils

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were found some years ago, and
these are the fossils of the first animals,

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basically the first things that moved around
on beds of microbial mats in shallow

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seas. And we met the chief
ranger there, Kim Goyer I think is

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the way his name is pronounced,
who flashed his space Nuts t shirt as

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soon as as soon as we arrived, which was great. So it was

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good to see Kim and talk to
him. And then a bit further on

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we met another space nutcase down on
the Murray River. We were at a

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place called Manham at the time,
but we had a lovely dark sky vet.

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All the locals came out and we
did some talks and everybody dressed up

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in stars and spacey kind of stuff. One of our tour guests came fully

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cloud in an astronaut suit which she
apparently needed a pump to keep the air

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blowing through it so he didn't die. Fantastic stuff. But there we also

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met Tracy Hill. There's another space
nut and Tracy was very gracious in the

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fact that she took part in a
charity auction which was to buy a copy

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of a book called wis Uranus Upside
Down that had something to do with me.

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So she paid a handsome price for
that, and Tracy well done.

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There was a slight mix up with
Tracy's name when the winner was announced,

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so I had to rewrite the inscription
in the book. But it was great

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to meet Tracy with a nice chart. And we'll stay in touch with both

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Kim and Tracy because these are people
who are passionate about the district they live

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in, passionate about the things that
they can show people wonderful. All right,

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Hello Kim, Hello Tracy, and
thanks for being space Nuts followers.

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They're all over the world. I
think you know, it would be hard

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pressed not to run into one these
days, the way things are going.

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It fantastic to be like that,
wouldn't it. I didn't run into any

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in China though when I was there. Yes, we've never had a question

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from China. I don't think more
than welcome, more than welcome. Yeah.

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So you're back down to Earth now, so to speak, and back

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to normal for a little while.
But Space Nuts continues, and we're going

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to talk about Mars quakes. Now. And this is a really interesting story

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because we have talked about Mars quakes
before and they've been investigating them courtesy of

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the Insight mission. But now they're
starting to come up with numbers that are

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a little bit bigger than they expected. That's correct. The the the analysis

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of this, Andrew, comes from
a spacecraft that's no longer operational, our

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old friend Insight, which was fitted
with a seismograph seismometers to measure mass quakes.

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And the bottom line with this story
is that some of the mass quakes

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have been misinterpreted, which is easy
to do when you're looking at a record

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of I guess little tremors that you
know, you don't really have much of

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a clue with that tremor as to
where they come from. We did talk

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about this recently actually because some people
said, when you've only got one size

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bomby to how do you know where
these tremors are coming from? And there's

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various signatures in the tremors that you
can interpret as to what the what the

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path that these tremors have taken through
through the you know, through the Martian

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crust, what that path is.
So this is work that has been carried

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out by scientists at et h Jury, which you might know is the university

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that Einstein attended and Imperial College London, and I once did a course there,

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so it's a common ground for us
in the world of astronomy. So

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these scientists, what they've done is
they've essentially made a kind of estimate from

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the seismic data from Insight as to
the global meteorite impacts, and that gives

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them a number of somewhere in the
region quote between two hundred and eighty and

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three hundred and sixty meteorites striking the
planet each year, forming impact craters greater

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than eight meters, which is about
twenty six feet. So these are impact

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craters that you could detect from space, you know, with the various Mars

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orbiting spacecraft, and indeed they have
they've managed to link and I think this

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is the crux of the matter.
They've managed to link some of the seismic

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traces with what are obviously newly excavated
impact craters, so that you can tell

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by the color if you're looking down
from an orbiting spacecraft and you see something

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that has a particular color against the
red of the Martian dust, you can

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get a clue as to whether that
crater is a new one or not,

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whether that is the result of a
recent impact. And in fact, I

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think they've been able to tie down
some of the seismic traces with a particular

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new impact feature. And so basically
what it means is that I think it's

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something like five times the number of
impacts that we thought were hitting the surface

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is what is now estimated from this
new new research and what the conclusion they

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come to. Actually, let me
quote Geraldine zen Heisen from eh Turich who

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says the rate was about five times
higher than the number estimated from orbital imagery

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alone. Aligned with orbital imagery,
our findings demonstrate that seismology is an excellent

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tool for measuring impact rates. So
there's that link between what you can see

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from orbit and what the seismograph is
telling you. I'm fascinated by this because

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they're giving us numbers in the hundreds, but Earth gets hit to the tune

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of thousands a year and we don't
seem to see those sorts of cratering effects.

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What's the difference? Is it because
Mars atmosphere is so thin and yeah,

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chartistics, that's right. So you
know, if Mark if we had

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the same atmosphere density as Mars two
or three hundred, hate me to create

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us every year would be headline making
news. Yeah, because we just sort

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of you really want to go anywhere
without experiencing the risk of something hitting you

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all the head that could cause and
ape me to create it. And so

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that's you know, that's the crucial
part is the Mars's atmospheric pressure is point

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zero six sorry, it's point six
percent. Zero point six percent of Earth's

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atmospheric pressure is less than one percent, So there's much less of a breaking

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influence by the atmosphere on Mars than
there is on Earth. And by breaking

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that's br br a k i n
G, not br e a k i

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n g. So what it means
is that these meteorites always hit Mars's surface

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a very high velocity, what they
call hYP hyper hypervelocity impacts, and it's

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that that really betrays the to orbiting
spacecraft, that reveals that something's happened recently,

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because they they apparently cause a debris
zone around the crater which is more

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than one hundred times bigger than the
crater itself, so that they stand out

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from orbit. You've got to create
maybe eight meters across, that's pretty big,

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but with something eight hundred meters you
know, around it, that tells

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you that there's there's something's happened there. So actually the points made in the

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paper that they've written, knowing the
number of impacts is going to be really

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important for the safety of any explore
exploring spacecraft, whether they're robotic or whether

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they've got humans on board. And
I suppose there'd be no pattern to this,

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so I guess if you had the
time to analyze that, you might

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be able to figure out where and
when these things might happen. But you

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know, yeah, it increases the
risk. I mean, if this was

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Earth, our insurance policies just wouldn't
be we couldn't afford them. But that's

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right, when you're talking space usitions
in an environment that's hostile and we're not

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built to suit Mars's atmosphere, you'd
want to collide as much data as possible

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to try and avoid these situations.
I imagine, yes, So it's obviously

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something that will be taken into account
in future future mission planning. It's a

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bit of a warning really that Mars
is a rather more hostile environment than we

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expected at the same time, it's
not it's not going to rule out Mars

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exploration, you know, I don't
I think it's safe to say that we've

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had how many rovers on Mars?
You know, it's probably it's probably,

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it's probably ten if you include the
Chinese rovers, you include not just spirit

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an, opportunity, and curiosity and
perseverance. They're the big four, But

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there were rovers before that Pathfinder was
one of them. Maybe it's not ten,

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but perhaps six, seven or eight
something like that. Rovers on Mars.

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None of them, as far as
we know, have been zolked by

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incoming meteorite. So it's a risk, but it's a low risk, yes,

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yes, And I suppose we should
also say that not all these earth

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tremors that have been picked up over
the course of its mission are caused by

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meteorites, So yes, that's correct. There's been other factors as well,

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and some of them are still a
bit of a mystery. Yes, So

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that's really the I guess, the
pole point of their argument that they've been

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able to isolate the ones just by
the characteristic signature. They've been able to

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isolate the ones that are caused by
meteorites rather than by tectonic activity. There

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isn't much tectonic activity on Mars in
that regard. Its core is much cooler

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than the Earth and so it doesn't
drive the tectonic activity that we have.

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Okay, if you want to follow
up on that story, it's been published

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in the journal Nature Astronomy. This
is Space. That's Andrew Ankley here with

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Profess Fred what's an the piece MUDs. This next story is interesting too,

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fredd In that we've been hearing about, well, we've heard about this once

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before, but it's happened again.
The Parker Solar Probe, which is orbiting

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the Sun and has been since oh
gosh was it. It's been up there

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for five or six years, I
think something like that. It's just achieved

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or equalled a speed record during one
of its recent orbits. And we're talking

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numbers that are just mind blowing.
I mean, tens of hundreds of thousands

192
00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:48.119
of kilometer, isn't it. It's
amazing, it is. So. The

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00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:52.960
Parker solo probe is interesting. It's
one we've talked about much, but it's

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been it has been active, as
you've said, for some years. It's

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00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:06.000
just deleted its twentieth close approach to
the Sun, and that's telling you that

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this is the the spacecraft that comes
closest to the Sun. Of all the

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solar orbiting spacecraft that we have launched, this one is the closest, and

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00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:23.599
in fact, its twentieth close approach
was on the thirtieth of June twenty twenty

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four, not very long ago.
Its distance was seven point twenty six million

200
00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:33.720
kilometers from the solar surface, and
by that we mean the photosphere, the

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00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:37.079
bit beyond which you can't see.
The Sun doesn't have a surface because it's

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a ball of gas. That's about
four point five one million miles, so

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00:18:41.720 --> 00:18:45.359
it's you know, in terms of
cosmic distances, that is grazing the surface

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00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:51.759
of the Sun. It's very very
close. And Kepler's laws tell us that

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00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:56.160
the closer you get to the body
that you are orbiting around, the faster

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00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:59.920
your velocity is. Is how it
works, and that's why we've got this

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00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:04.640
record speed. In miles an hour, it's three hundred and ninety four thousand,

208
00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:10.200
seven hundred and thirty six kilometers per
hour. It's six hundred and thirty

209
00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:15.599
five, two hundred and sixty six
kilometers per hour, which, let me

210
00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:21.839
do it in my head, is
somewhere under two hundred kilometers per second.

211
00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:26.319
I've got a calculator handed, but
it's in that region. You divide it

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00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:30.119
by three thousand, six hundred to
get kilometers per hour into kilometers per second,

213
00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:34.119
So it seems in the region of
two hundred. It's Yeah, that's

214
00:19:34.359 --> 00:19:41.759
a phenomenal velocity. And but that
speed, you've really got to take relativity

215
00:19:41.799 --> 00:19:45.799
into account, not just because of
the speed, but because of the gravitational

216
00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:49.359
potential that you're in. You know, you're in a strong gravitational field,

217
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:56.240
and both of those things mean that
Einstein's two theories of relativity, the special

218
00:19:56.279 --> 00:19:59.880
theory which is about speed, and
the general theory, which is about gravity,

219
00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:07.119
those two absolutely start dominating your calculations. So really interesting stuff for all

220
00:20:07.240 --> 00:20:12.400
kinds of reasons. The park Asolo
probe is fitted with heat shields that seem

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00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:18.000
to bewithstanding the stresses and strains on
the spacecraft that come from being so close

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00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:22.079
to the Sun. And we look
forward to hearing what data have been collected

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00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:27.559
during that twentieth close approach to the
Sun. Yeah, it seems to operate

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00:20:27.599 --> 00:20:34.359
in a very complex orbittle pattern because
it uses gravity assists from Venus in some

225
00:20:34.920 --> 00:20:38.640
situations. Just depends on what's available
at the time, I think, but

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00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:44.519
it would all be mapped out.
But it will be doing its next pass

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00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:48.799
on the twenty fourth of December,
and they expect it will probably crack near

228
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:56.440
seven hundred thousand kilometers an hour in
that pass. And that's just unthinkable,

229
00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:59.839
isn't it That this has got to
be the fastest thing ever? Yeah,

230
00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:04.240
that's well, that's right. It's
you know, it's not the fastest that

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00:21:04.359 --> 00:21:08.319
was launched, but because it's been
wound up by all these gravity assists to

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00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:12.000
push it so near the Sun.
Yes, it probably is the fastest spacecraft

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00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:18.319
ever. I wonder how to survive
so the environment that it's exposed to,

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00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:23.519
I mean just the radio radiation it's
bombarying it for one. But it would

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00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:26.720
be exposed to tremendous heat, wouldn't
it. Yes, that's right. So

236
00:21:27.160 --> 00:21:33.039
it's got a pretty substantial heat heat
shield, which if I'm remembering correctly,

237
00:21:33.079 --> 00:21:37.039
I think it the spacecraft is turned
so that when it's closest to the Sun,

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00:21:37.119 --> 00:21:42.119
the heats the heat shield is doing
all the work, and you know,

239
00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:48.680
well the spacecraft kind of behind the
heat shield is faking the measurements so

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00:21:48.359 --> 00:21:55.519
yeah, very intriguing and very very
successful mission. Actually, so I think

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00:21:55.599 --> 00:22:02.160
it's got is it four more or
three more close passes to the Sun?

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00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:07.920
I think it's three more, and
actually I know it's four more. It's

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00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:14.359
got four more close passes. So
the mission is sort of coming to its

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00:22:14.519 --> 00:22:18.079
closing phases. But we will,
no doubt here more about it. We

245
00:22:18.119 --> 00:22:22.480
probably should do a nice story on
the parkasolo probo sometimes down the track when

246
00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:26.599
we see some of these results.
Yeah, I just found that the final

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00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:30.160
pass will be next year, the
twenty fourth fly by the Sun. So

248
00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:33.519
it's mission comes to an end in
twenty twenty five. And that's how long

249
00:22:33.559 --> 00:22:37.279
it takes to sort of work its
way into position to do a pass.

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00:22:37.799 --> 00:22:41.640
Because it's going so fast, it
just can't just sort of stop and go

251
00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:47.720
back. It's got to go out
and do another lap around whatever it can

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00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:51.440
do. A lap around Mercury would
be involved, I imagined it. Yeah,

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00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:55.079
it's quite extraordinary, what a fascinating
mission, And yes, we should

254
00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:59.279
talk more about it when they start
releasing some of the data. I guess

255
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:03.319
who knows what they could learn.
There's so much we don't know about the

256
00:23:03.319 --> 00:23:06.279
Sun, which makes it such an
interesting thing, and it is the nearest

257
00:23:06.359 --> 00:23:10.000
star to our planet, so we
can learn a lot about things that are

258
00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:15.400
so far away and untouchable just by
observing what's right next door. Fred,

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00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:21.240
Let's get onto our final story.
This one I also find intriguing, and

260
00:23:21.279 --> 00:23:26.240
this one dates back to the year
eleven eighty one when there was a super

261
00:23:26.279 --> 00:23:32.200
nova recorded, but we're only now
starting to learn more about it. Yeah,

262
00:23:32.200 --> 00:23:37.319
that's right, eleven eighty one.
It's a time. We often associate

263
00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:47.200
these super and over ancient super and
ova explosions or observations with Chinese scientists,

264
00:23:47.359 --> 00:23:51.440
and in fact, probably the best
known is the super and over of ten

265
00:23:51.599 --> 00:23:57.200
fifty four, which was observed by
Chinese scientists, if I can call them

266
00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:02.559
that, there were certainly a US
observers of the sky. That ten point

267
00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:06.319
fifty four super and over is what
produced the crab Nebula, one of the

268
00:24:06.359 --> 00:24:11.000
most famous super and ova remnants in
the sky in the northern constellation of tourists,

269
00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:14.759
the Bull. The crab Nebula is
well studied, and in fact we've

270
00:24:15.400 --> 00:24:19.799
in the last few months seen some
extraordinary images of it from the web Space

271
00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:25.160
Telescope Gene web Space Telescope. But
this one is different. The super and

272
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:30.200
Ova of eleven eighty one was recorded. It was recorded throughout Asia, but

273
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:37.880
mostly in Japan. Japan was,
you know, again the home of people

274
00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:47.440
who were very, very clever and
careful skywatchers. And it's a time actually

275
00:24:47.480 --> 00:24:56.400
when Japan was at war with you
know, as often was the case in

276
00:24:56.480 --> 00:25:00.240
past history. It seems to be
still the case today, but Japan was

277
00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:11.000
at war and there were records kept
of that time which were put in a

278
00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:17.200
kind of it's what's described by our
old friend fizz dot org, which is

279
00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:23.240
the website that's carrying this story,
described as in diary format, so you

280
00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:29.039
know, it's like a journal I
guess called the Azuma Kagami, I hope

281
00:25:29.559 --> 00:25:34.839
pronouncing that correctly, which chronicled what
was going on, the events taking place,

282
00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:37.960
mostly to do with the war.
This was all not very far from

283
00:25:37.960 --> 00:25:44.920
modern day Tokyo. But other things, including this appearance of the new star.

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00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:52.680
They they they are called a guest
stars in those ancient texts because they

285
00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:57.599
are just a guest in the sky
that then goes away. And indeed there

286
00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:03.799
is a note here that they weren't
that. This one was also observed in

287
00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:08.720
China and Korea as well, and
was bright enough to be quite noticeable.

288
00:26:08.759 --> 00:26:12.440
It wasn't a daylight supernova, which
we think the ten fifty four one was,

289
00:26:14.799 --> 00:26:19.519
but was bright. It's comparable in
brightness to the planet Saturn, which

290
00:26:19.559 --> 00:26:23.359
is certainly noticeable. It's not the
rightest of the planets, but it's up

291
00:26:23.359 --> 00:26:29.319
there with the with the ones that
you really do notice in the in the

292
00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:33.640
night sky. Apparently it was visible
for about one hundred and eighty one hundred

293
00:26:33.640 --> 00:26:41.240
and eighty days and then dimmed away
and was lost, and it took a

294
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:51.279
long time for modern day scientists to
find it. They what's happened is that

295
00:26:52.519 --> 00:27:00.759
basically using the the the you know, the text of this die record of

296
00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:08.440
the supernova, the Azuma Kagami people
have narrowed things down to the constellation of

297
00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:12.559
Kassiopeir, which is another It's a
far northern constellation in the northern sky.

298
00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:19.400
We see it from certainly from the
latitude where I am in Sydney. But

299
00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:26.960
it so that gave me scientists enough
of a clue to look for a remnant

300
00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:33.359
from this explosion, and it's quite
different from the remnant from the crab nebula,

301
00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:42.000
which is just like a tangle of
material dust gas that's that's obviously got

302
00:27:42.079 --> 00:27:47.960
shock waves propelling through it in all
different kinds of directions. This is something

303
00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:52.559
quite different. First of all,
it's visible in X rays, and what

304
00:27:52.599 --> 00:28:02.839
we have is an X ray image
from the XMM satellite with some infrared components

305
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:07.160
as well from an infrared spacecraft called
WISE, so we're looking at this in

306
00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:14.720
two different wavebands. And what we
can see in the structure is it's,

307
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:23.400
first of all, it's a spherical
object which has some really detailed what we

308
00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:27.920
might call contours in it, where
you've got things like, first of all,

309
00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:32.359
in the middle, we've got the
wind bubble. This is coming from

310
00:28:32.359 --> 00:28:37.599
the paper about this. Then there's
going outwards a wind termination shock, and

311
00:28:37.640 --> 00:28:42.359
then a region of unshocked ejector that's
material that's come from the explosion but hasn't

312
00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:45.880
had a shock wave going through it. And then there's something called a reverse

313
00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:52.519
shock and then a forward shock,
and all this complexity can be sort of

314
00:28:52.799 --> 00:29:00.680
seen in the X ray image and
it sounds like my Golove game got forward

315
00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:08.079
sharks in it. I can just
see you doing a reverse shop with your

316
00:29:08.359 --> 00:29:15.160
number five iron or whatever. Anyway, but that study has given enough detail

317
00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:21.680
that scientists can now work out what
this super and ova was, and it's

318
00:29:21.720 --> 00:29:27.200
a very rare one, something that
does not normally happen. Two white dwarf

319
00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:33.119
stars, now white dwarf stars are
what our Sun will end up as it's

320
00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:37.680
basically a thing the size of the
Earth with the density with the mass of

321
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:42.039
the star, so very very dense
and very hot. That's how the Sun

322
00:29:42.039 --> 00:29:45.839
will end its days in a few
billion years time. But two of these

323
00:29:45.880 --> 00:29:52.240
objects apparently have collided, and that's
what has caused this very unusual type of

324
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:56.200
super and over. A lot of
the work has done has been done with

325
00:29:56.279 --> 00:30:04.279
computer modeling, of course, and
analyzing the observations and the rarity is this

326
00:30:04.359 --> 00:30:08.200
double shock formation that we've just spoken
about, the forward shot and the reverse

327
00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:17.680
shock and then the inner shock.
And so there is a sort of footnote

328
00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:22.839
to the story though that comes from
these observations. The sort of winds that

329
00:30:23.039 --> 00:30:27.920
blow from this event, what we
call stellar winds. They are thought to

330
00:30:29.039 --> 00:30:34.400
be relatively recent in their formation,
so that they say, perhaps only with

331
00:30:34.599 --> 00:30:38.480
the past twenty or thirty years,
these high speed stellar winds have been blowing

332
00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:42.559
from the surface of the star,
which is quite extraordinary really just you know,

333
00:30:42.680 --> 00:30:47.720
we happen to be looking at it
at the right time to see some

334
00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:52.160
of the action. Yeah, indeed, And it's you know, we get

335
00:30:52.279 --> 00:30:56.839
very lucky sometimes with observations. But
I suppose we could also suggest that these

336
00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:02.839
things are happening so regularly. Maybe
it's not luck. We're just picking them

337
00:31:02.920 --> 00:31:06.720
up because they're happening and at a
rate of a dime. A dozen't But

338
00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:11.279
this one, this one's different.
This one's been quite unusual and a very

339
00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:15.279
lucky discovery. Indeed, my hope
Fred one day is we do get to

340
00:31:15.279 --> 00:31:21.720
see one for real in our lifetime, Beetle juice being the optimum candidate.

341
00:31:21.759 --> 00:31:26.839
I suppose, Yeah, that's correct. It's it's we don't want want too

342
00:31:26.839 --> 00:31:32.319
close, Andrew, But yeah,
Beatle, this is about battle Jos,

343
00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:37.440
however you pronounce it. It's about
seven hundred light years away, I think,

344
00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:44.240
which is it's far enough away that
we would certainly see something visible in

345
00:31:44.279 --> 00:31:48.279
the daylight sky. It will be
very bright, but it's not going to

346
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:55.200
be lethal to life on Earth,
which a nearer one might be. Yeah.

347
00:31:53.759 --> 00:32:00.279
Yeah, And in recent discussions we've
talked about things that have happen been

348
00:32:00.359 --> 00:32:02.799
so far away from us that have
actually affected our atmosphere. So yes,

349
00:32:02.880 --> 00:32:09.240
that's right. It is really mind
boggling to consider that there's so much influence

350
00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:13.960
out there that is so far away
and we think we're all safe and well,

351
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:17.680
and we are, but you've just
always got to consider the possibilities,

352
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:22.759
I guess. But yeah, that
story was published in the Astrophysical Journal,

353
00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:30.319
if you're interested in finding out about
the SN eleven eighty one supernova. Fred,

354
00:32:30.359 --> 00:32:34.759
we've reached the end of the program. Thank you so much. Well,

355
00:32:34.799 --> 00:32:37.960
it's a great pleasure, and it's
not a pleasure to have reached the

356
00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:42.200
end, but it's always a pleasure
to talk about these things. The end

357
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:47.960
is nigh. Yes'm we'll see you
on the next episode. Sounds good.

358
00:32:47.960 --> 00:32:52.839
Thanks very much, and we take
care and we'll speak to Fred Watson,

359
00:32:52.960 --> 00:32:55.559
Astronomer at Large, and thanks for
listening. Don't forget to follow us on

360
00:32:55.640 --> 00:33:00.039
social media or if you're on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, and don't

361
00:33:00.039 --> 00:33:05.200
forget to visit our web website,
Space Nuts podcast dot com. Oh,

362
00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:08.279
and thanks to here in the studio
who couldn't be with us today, but

363
00:33:08.839 --> 00:33:14.359
all the best to his wife who's
dealing with some medical issues. As we

364
00:33:14.400 --> 00:33:16.880
all are when we reach this age
and from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for

365
00:33:16.920 --> 00:33:21.519
your company. See you on the
next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye

366
00:33:21.839 --> 00:33:29.079
Spacenuts. You'll be listening to the
Space Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts,

367
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368
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