Astronomical Adventures: Exploring Titan's Ocean, Cassini's Legacy & the Future of Artemis

WEBVTT

0
00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:03.240
Heidi Campo: All right, Fred, let's light this candle. This

1
00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:05.600
is the another episode of

2
00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:07.120
space nuts.

3
00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:09.760
Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

4
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.520
10, 9.

5
00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:14.918
Professor Fred Watson: Ignition sequence start. Space nuts. 5,

6
00:00:14.990 --> 00:00:17.777
4, 3, 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5,

7
00:00:17.849 --> 00:00:20.080
5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Space

8
00:00:20.240 --> 00:00:22.720
nuts. Astronauts report it feels good.

9
00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:26.320
Heidi Campo: And I am your host for, for this,

10
00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:29.640
American summer, Australian winter, Heidi Campo.

11
00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:32.160
And joining us is Professor Fred Watson,

12
00:00:32.160 --> 00:00:34.600
astronomer at large. Hey Fred.

13
00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:37.880
Professor Fred Watson: Good to see you. Heidi. I can't remember which astronaut

14
00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:40.880
that light this candle quotes come from. Do you remember which

15
00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:43.520
one it was? It was one of the early days of

16
00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:44.440
spaceflight, I think.

17
00:00:44.440 --> 00:00:47.200
Heidi Campo: Definitely early days. And you're testing

18
00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:48.920
my history and I'm failing.

19
00:00:49.720 --> 00:00:50.440
Professor Fred Watson: It's all right.

20
00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:53.700
Heidi Campo: Fred and I, we discovered, a

21
00:00:53.700 --> 00:00:56.550
new feature. So our, recording software is

22
00:00:56.550 --> 00:00:59.510
updated and now it does a very exciting countdown

23
00:00:59.510 --> 00:01:01.980
for us. So that was, that was kind of fun, a way to

24
00:01:02.380 --> 00:01:04.380
launch into the episode, so to speak.

25
00:01:04.940 --> 00:01:07.860
Professor Fred Watson: Yep, we, we lit the candle.

26
00:01:07.860 --> 00:01:09.180
That's the main thing we did.

27
00:01:09.180 --> 00:01:11.740
Heidi Campo: We did. And so let's, let's, let's set this off.

28
00:01:11.900 --> 00:01:14.820
So our destination today for this first

29
00:01:14.820 --> 00:01:17.740
episode is we're going on a mission

30
00:01:18.140 --> 00:01:20.540
to some of the, outer planets

31
00:01:21.500 --> 00:01:24.370
do we call. Well, Titan's not a planet, but, it's a

32
00:01:24.370 --> 00:01:26.810
moon around Saturn. Saturn is a

33
00:01:27.370 --> 00:01:28.250
outer planet.

34
00:01:28.250 --> 00:01:31.210
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. One of the four gas giants in

35
00:01:31.210 --> 00:01:33.850
the solar system. The second one out, for

36
00:01:33.850 --> 00:01:36.820
many, many centuries, it was thought

37
00:01:36.820 --> 00:01:39.820
to be the edge of the sun's family

38
00:01:39.820 --> 00:01:42.700
of planets, even before the sun was known

39
00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:45.540
to be at the center. Because it's the furthest of the

40
00:01:45.540 --> 00:01:48.380
naked eye planets, the ones that you can see with the unaided eye.

41
00:01:48.630 --> 00:01:51.380
M. Uranus just makes it actually

42
00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:54.610
into the, unaided eye category. But you

43
00:01:54.610 --> 00:01:57.570
really need to know what you're looking at and you need good eyesight and

44
00:01:57.570 --> 00:02:00.250
the dark sight. I've never seen Uranus with my

45
00:02:00.250 --> 00:02:03.170
unaided eye. Anyway, Saturn out there, one and

46
00:02:03.170 --> 00:02:05.960
a half billion kilometers from the sun, doing its

47
00:02:05.960 --> 00:02:08.960
thing. And of course from 2004

48
00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:12.360
to 2017, Saturn was the star

49
00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:14.950
of the Cassini show, the Cassini

50
00:02:14.950 --> 00:02:17.830
mission, I think one of the most productive space

51
00:02:17.830 --> 00:02:20.260
missions ever. NASA, with

52
00:02:20.820 --> 00:02:23.260
an association with esa, the European Space

53
00:02:23.260 --> 00:02:26.110
Agency, this fabulous mission. the spacecraft

54
00:02:26.110 --> 00:02:28.430
was in orbit around Saturn for 13 years

55
00:02:28.830 --> 00:02:30.830
doing marvelous things before it eventually

56
00:02:31.470 --> 00:02:34.430
dived into the Saturnian atmosphere. And I think

57
00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:37.350
some of the most exciting stuff, it's actually hard to

58
00:02:37.350 --> 00:02:39.950
pick what was the most exciting stuff to come out of the

59
00:02:40.110 --> 00:02:42.980
Cassini mission? the rings, the moons, the

60
00:02:42.980 --> 00:02:45.970
planet itself. But, for My money, Titan

61
00:02:46.210 --> 00:02:49.030
really stole the show, actually,

62
00:02:49.030 --> 00:02:51.950
I should say with Enceladus as a close second. Enceladus

63
00:02:51.950 --> 00:02:54.790
was where we discovered geysers of ice coming out of

64
00:02:54.790 --> 00:02:57.490
the, out of the, subsurface ocean.

65
00:02:57.570 --> 00:03:00.570
But Titan, such a weird, weird world. And we

66
00:03:00.570 --> 00:03:03.090
knew it was weird before Cassini got there because

67
00:03:03.729 --> 00:03:06.300
there was evidence, from radar

68
00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:09.020
measurements from Earth that there was very smooth

69
00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:11.500
surfaces on Titan. And it was

70
00:03:11.500 --> 00:03:14.380
suspected that Titan would have lakes and

71
00:03:14.380 --> 00:03:17.380
seas, not of liquid water. Because

72
00:03:17.380 --> 00:03:20.080
the temperature out there is about minus 190.

73
00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:22.880
That's the surface temperature. 190 Celsius.

74
00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:25.680
So should specify the unit, shouldn't I?

75
00:03:25.890 --> 00:03:28.600
And indeed it is known to have

76
00:03:28.600 --> 00:03:31.310
lakes and seas, of liquid natural gas,

77
00:03:31.310 --> 00:03:34.110
ethane and methane, which are predominantly in the Northern

78
00:03:34.110 --> 00:03:36.630
hemisphere. One of the other things

79
00:03:37.110 --> 00:03:40.040
that was an early discovery, about Titan

80
00:03:40.040 --> 00:03:43.040
and this kind of links to the story that we've got at the moment,

81
00:03:43.490 --> 00:03:45.550
was that the surface,

82
00:03:46.480 --> 00:03:49.240
of the planet is decoupled from the

83
00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:52.050
interior. by that I mean that

84
00:03:52.050 --> 00:03:54.090
the rocky core of Titan

85
00:03:55.290 --> 00:03:58.090
rotates, in a certain way, but the

86
00:03:58.090 --> 00:04:01.090
surface actually swishes around a bit.

87
00:04:01.660 --> 00:04:04.620
you're kidding me. That's the conclusive

88
00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:07.620
proof that you've got a global ocean underneath

89
00:04:07.620 --> 00:04:10.340
the surface. It's a liquid interface between the

90
00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:12.750
surface and the rock. But if you're on

91
00:04:12.750 --> 00:04:15.230
Titan, your longitude changes

92
00:04:15.550 --> 00:04:18.150
without you moving because the

93
00:04:18.150 --> 00:04:20.910
surface of the ice moon is

94
00:04:20.910 --> 00:04:21.390
moving.

95
00:04:22.110 --> 00:04:24.920
Heidi Campo: So it's basically just a giant, what do they call those,

96
00:04:24.920 --> 00:04:27.680
the little magic balls that you shake up. And it's got the

97
00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:30.120
little globe inside that rotates until

98
00:04:30.520 --> 00:04:32.240
the future. It's just a giant.

99
00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:34.880
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I've seen one of those, but I can't remember what it's called.

100
00:04:34.880 --> 00:04:37.600
Heidi Campo: The little, I think just the magic ball.

101
00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:40.280
Yeah. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. That's such a,

102
00:04:40.520 --> 00:04:43.320
that's such an incredible fact. So it's not

103
00:04:43.320 --> 00:04:44.040
frozen then?

104
00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:47.760
Professor Fred Watson: The ocean's not. No, that's right. The surface is. And we

105
00:04:47.760 --> 00:04:50.600
don't know how thick the ice layer of Titan's surface is.

106
00:04:50.600 --> 00:04:53.570
It's probably many tens of kilometers. but underneath

107
00:04:53.570 --> 00:04:56.489
that, I mean, Titan is a big world. It's bigger than the planet Mercury.

108
00:04:56.489 --> 00:04:58.810
It's the second biggest satellite in the solar system.

109
00:04:59.430 --> 00:05:02.370
and so, a, significant rocky core and this

110
00:05:02.370 --> 00:05:05.280
ocean, which, you know, I don't think we've got any real

111
00:05:05.280 --> 00:05:08.200
estimates of what its depth is, but it's again measured in,

112
00:05:08.610 --> 00:05:11.610
tens or perhaps even. Sorry, yeah, tens

113
00:05:11.610 --> 00:05:14.610
or tens of Kilometers is probably the best, best guess for

114
00:05:14.610 --> 00:05:17.580
something like that. Maybe even hundreds. anyway the,

115
00:05:18.140 --> 00:05:20.700
this, the reason why this links to the present

116
00:05:20.780 --> 00:05:23.420
story is that there's been a new

117
00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:26.020
analysis of of

118
00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:29.540
the spinning of Titan

119
00:05:30.020 --> 00:05:32.970
and its atmosphere. Titan has

120
00:05:32.970 --> 00:05:35.420
a thick atmosphere. It's 50% higher

121
00:05:35.500 --> 00:05:38.460
atmospheric pressure than we have here on Earth. So we

122
00:05:38.460 --> 00:05:41.300
probably feel like we were, I

123
00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:44.220
read yesterday that we'd feel as though we were in a

124
00:05:44.220 --> 00:05:46.980
depth of 5 meters. 5 meters of water,

125
00:05:46.980 --> 00:05:49.740
what's that? 6 meters is 20ft.

126
00:05:49.740 --> 00:05:51.900
Heidi Campo: So you've so an average used in summer.

127
00:05:53.180 --> 00:05:56.180
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, probably. Yes, that's probably right. so

128
00:05:56.180 --> 00:05:59.110
it's got this high pressure atmosphere, mostly nitrogen

129
00:05:59.110 --> 00:06:01.870
and methane, and they have clouds and

130
00:06:01.870 --> 00:06:04.760
rain and of liquid natural gas. It's

131
00:06:04.760 --> 00:06:07.530
a bizarre, a bizarre sort of

132
00:06:07.530 --> 00:06:10.450
parallel with the Earth where water is the Earth's

133
00:06:10.450 --> 00:06:13.370
climatic cycle. We think it's methane and ethane on

134
00:06:13.370 --> 00:06:16.180
Titan. but the atmosphere has

135
00:06:16.180 --> 00:06:19.140
now been shown to circulate

136
00:06:19.380 --> 00:06:22.100
around Titan not

137
00:06:22.260 --> 00:06:24.660
in sync with the surface like our

138
00:06:24.660 --> 00:06:27.660
atmosphere is because we stand on the surface and we

139
00:06:27.660 --> 00:06:30.650
don't feel any wind because the atmosphere is moving with the

140
00:06:30.650 --> 00:06:33.270
rotation of the Earth Titans actually

141
00:06:33.510 --> 00:06:36.270
the atmosphere rotates faster than

142
00:06:36.270 --> 00:06:38.980
Titan does. So it's

143
00:06:38.980 --> 00:06:41.900
decoupled from the ah, you know from the

144
00:06:41.900 --> 00:06:44.900
surface which is a very strange phenomenon

145
00:06:44.900 --> 00:06:47.809
in itself. I might give a quote actually

146
00:06:47.809 --> 00:06:50.800
this, this story is actually the one I've read

147
00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:53.280
is on Space.com. it's an article

148
00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:56.320
written by Victoria Corliss. Very nicely done.

149
00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:00.550
so it's basically data

150
00:07:00.900 --> 00:07:03.740
from the Cassini mission reanalyzing it.

151
00:07:04.070 --> 00:07:07.040
and Lucy Wright who's the lead

152
00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:09.920
author, not the leth order, the lead author

153
00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:12.650
of the new research and is at the School of Earth

154
00:07:12.650 --> 00:07:14.810
Scientists at the University of Bristol in the U.K.

155
00:07:15.450 --> 00:07:18.080
Lucy said the behavior of Titan's atmosphere

156
00:07:18.080 --> 00:07:21.030
tilt is very strange. We

157
00:07:21.030 --> 00:07:23.630
think some event in the past may have knocked the

158
00:07:23.630 --> 00:07:26.190
atmosphere off its spin axis causing it to

159
00:07:26.190 --> 00:07:29.150
wobble. So not only does it not rotate in sync

160
00:07:29.150 --> 00:07:32.120
with the surface but it also wobbles. and

161
00:07:32.620 --> 00:07:35.240
m, basically that's the best guess that it was

162
00:07:37.010 --> 00:07:39.730
some sort of impact or some

163
00:07:39.810 --> 00:07:42.500
you know, event in the in the

164
00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:46.560
atmospheric history of Titan that's caused

165
00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:49.440
not just this out of sync rotation but

166
00:07:49.440 --> 00:07:52.200
also a tilt, a wobble of the

167
00:07:52.430 --> 00:07:53.820
of the atmosphere.

168
00:07:55.950 --> 00:07:58.910
Heidi Campo: that's incredible. If I

169
00:07:58.910 --> 00:08:01.630
was Andrew and I had the soundboard I would insert the

170
00:08:01.630 --> 00:08:04.420
little jingle from the X Files right there.

171
00:08:04.420 --> 00:08:05.380
Do do do do.

172
00:08:05.540 --> 00:08:08.260
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah well, that's right. Well, yes, very strange. He

173
00:08:08.260 --> 00:08:11.260
sometimes does that. We manage to keep him under control, though.

174
00:08:11.260 --> 00:08:13.980
That's all right. But yes, it is. It's

175
00:08:13.980 --> 00:08:16.400
weird. and, you know, it's a extensive

176
00:08:16.720 --> 00:08:18.990
study. Ah, one of the.

177
00:08:19.230 --> 00:08:22.110
Perhaps one of the consequences of this though, is,

178
00:08:22.920 --> 00:08:25.570
if the atmosphere's, not

179
00:08:25.570 --> 00:08:28.330
moving in sync with the surface, then it means

180
00:08:28.330 --> 00:08:31.210
you've got high winds on the surface.

181
00:08:31.210 --> 00:08:34.080
You're going to experience high winds. and that has

182
00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:35.280
not really been,

183
00:08:37.390 --> 00:08:40.110
deduced before. Although there is evidence

184
00:08:40.810 --> 00:08:43.470
of wind ripples on, these lakes and

185
00:08:43.470 --> 00:08:46.030
seas, the radar reflections

186
00:08:46.030 --> 00:08:48.820
sometimes get very bright, which means

187
00:08:48.820 --> 00:08:51.740
you've got radar bouncing off a rough surface. If

188
00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:54.190
you get a very, faint radar

189
00:08:54.190 --> 00:08:57.190
reflection, you're looking at a smooth surface because most of

190
00:08:57.590 --> 00:08:59.980
the, radar has been reflected off in a different direction.

191
00:09:00.380 --> 00:09:03.120
it's like a mirror surface that will give a very dark radar

192
00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:05.600
reflection. So a bright radar reflection

193
00:09:06.050 --> 00:09:08.530
corresponds to a rough surface. And that has been seen

194
00:09:08.850 --> 00:09:11.810
on some of the lakes and seas of Titan. So maybe that itself

195
00:09:11.810 --> 00:09:14.480
was a hint that, the winds are

196
00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:16.360
blowing more quickly than we thought.

197
00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:19.000
But what's really at stake here,

198
00:09:19.410 --> 00:09:22.100
and this brings us back to NASA, the

199
00:09:22.180 --> 00:09:24.300
Dragonfly mission, which is a

200
00:09:24.300 --> 00:09:27.130
quadcopter, that is planned for

201
00:09:28.250 --> 00:09:31.130
exploration of Saturn's moon Titan

202
00:09:31.610 --> 00:09:34.460
sometime in the next decade, sometime in the 2000 and 30s.

203
00:09:35.020 --> 00:09:38.020
That is going to be a bit like ingenuity was

204
00:09:38.020 --> 00:09:40.890
with, perseverance. It's going to be

205
00:09:40.890 --> 00:09:43.410
a fantastic tool for exploring

206
00:09:43.810 --> 00:09:46.210
Titan, for exploring its surface, for

207
00:09:46.210 --> 00:09:48.770
investigating maybe what these seas look like.

208
00:09:49.150 --> 00:09:52.130
I don't know whether Dragonfly will dip its toes in the water, but

209
00:09:52.130 --> 00:09:55.020
it's, going to tell us a lot more than we

210
00:09:55.020 --> 00:09:57.860
know already. But here's the problem. If we've got much

211
00:09:57.860 --> 00:10:00.690
faster winds than we thought we had, and you're launching a

212
00:10:00.690 --> 00:10:03.690
quadcopter into the atmosphere, then that could

213
00:10:03.690 --> 00:10:06.410
give us all kinds of problems for the navigation

214
00:10:06.730 --> 00:10:09.730
of the Dragonfly, drone, which might

215
00:10:09.730 --> 00:10:12.730
lead to difficulties in actually making

216
00:10:12.730 --> 00:10:15.250
the mission, succeed in all its goals.

217
00:10:15.930 --> 00:10:18.780
you could argue the same thing with Mars. We know that we

218
00:10:18.780 --> 00:10:21.540
get high winds on Mars and that's what causes the dust

219
00:10:21.540 --> 00:10:24.100
storms. Ingenuity managed to cope with that. But

220
00:10:24.100 --> 00:10:26.920
remember, the atmosphere on Mars is only,

221
00:10:27.260 --> 00:10:30.110
it's less than 1% of the atmospheric pressure on Earth.

222
00:10:30.190 --> 00:10:33.150
Whereas here we're talking about an atmosphere that's 50%

223
00:10:33.470 --> 00:10:36.470
thicker than the Earth's atmosphere. So there's probably more

224
00:10:36.470 --> 00:10:37.110
at stake, I.

225
00:10:37.110 --> 00:10:40.030
Heidi Campo: Think yeah, it was almost,

226
00:10:40.110 --> 00:10:42.990
you almost need to look at more. You know, I'm

227
00:10:42.990 --> 00:10:45.620
not, I'm not, an engineer rocket scientist by

228
00:10:45.780 --> 00:10:48.700
a long shot. Far from it, but it almost seems

229
00:10:48.700 --> 00:10:51.140
like you would need to look at more amphibious

230
00:10:51.140 --> 00:10:53.940
designs than aerospace designs. And it would

231
00:10:53.940 --> 00:10:56.420
need to be able to navigate in that thick, thick

232
00:10:57.120 --> 00:11:00.080
atmosphere. Almost like a, like a sub, like

233
00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.880
a submarine in the

234
00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:03.200
air.

235
00:11:04.160 --> 00:11:05.600
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right.

236
00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:06.640
Heidi Campo: I'm thinking of a zeppelin.

237
00:11:07.760 --> 00:11:10.680
Professor Fred Watson: Yes. a submersible zeppelin. That's what you need. I mean,

238
00:11:10.680 --> 00:11:13.480
something like a zeppelin will get blown around

239
00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:16.320
even more because they've got such a big surface area.

240
00:11:16.560 --> 00:11:18.880
But your thinking's right, Heidi, because

241
00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:22.280
back in the early 2000s, when we were first

242
00:11:22.280 --> 00:11:24.480
discovering the, this extraordinary

243
00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:26.960
surface landscape on Titan,

244
00:11:27.670 --> 00:11:30.550
with a surface that's made of ice as hard as rock,

245
00:11:30.550 --> 00:11:33.390
but in that rock there are depressions that have these seas and

246
00:11:33.390 --> 00:11:36.310
lakes. when we're first discovering that, people were suggesting

247
00:11:36.470 --> 00:11:38.550
we've got to send a submersible to

248
00:11:39.110 --> 00:11:41.670
Titan, we've got to send a submarine up there to

249
00:11:41.670 --> 00:11:44.590
explore what's underneath the surface of these lakes. Some of them

250
00:11:44.590 --> 00:11:47.510
are quite deep. I think, if I remember rightly, the deepest one

251
00:11:47.510 --> 00:11:50.310
is about 180 meters. That's a really

252
00:11:50.310 --> 00:11:53.250
significant depth. and people

253
00:11:53.250 --> 00:11:56.090
have conjectured that there may be life

254
00:11:56.090 --> 00:11:58.360
forms in them, which use

255
00:11:58.680 --> 00:12:01.640
liquid natural gas, ethane and methane

256
00:12:01.640 --> 00:12:04.440
as its working fluid. Unlike every

257
00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:07.400
life form on Earth, which uses water as its working fluid.

258
00:12:07.400 --> 00:12:10.320
If you've got a world where water's not common

259
00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:13.040
because it's frozen solid. but, you've got other

260
00:12:13.040 --> 00:12:15.920
stuff that's a liquid. Maybe, maybe, just

261
00:12:15.920 --> 00:12:18.790
maybe you've got weird alien species that

262
00:12:18.790 --> 00:12:21.790
use liquid natural gas, to make themselves

263
00:12:21.790 --> 00:12:22.150
work.

264
00:12:23.110 --> 00:12:26.110
Heidi Campo: Yeah. Ah, there's just, there's so much, there's so much to discover out

265
00:12:26.110 --> 00:12:29.080
there. And I think we're, you know, I,

266
00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:31.880
I listened to the show for a long time and I've been helping

267
00:12:31.880 --> 00:12:34.770
out, for a little while now. But it's interesting. It seems like there

268
00:12:34.770 --> 00:12:37.730
is definitely an uptick in the

269
00:12:37.730 --> 00:12:40.330
discovering a potential of life out there. We're really,

270
00:12:40.890 --> 00:12:43.690
we're really learning so much so, so

271
00:12:43.690 --> 00:12:44.570
quickly right now.

272
00:12:44.570 --> 00:12:47.210
Professor Fred Watson: Yep, absolutely. I agree with you. I think that's right.

273
00:12:48.570 --> 00:12:51.490
Heidi Campo: And then, you know, our, our, our next story, you know,

274
00:12:51.490 --> 00:12:54.450
we're talking about the, the teams that

275
00:12:54.450 --> 00:12:57.280
are making these discoveries. It's, you know,

276
00:12:57.280 --> 00:13:00.160
we're not just out there. It's not just

277
00:13:00.160 --> 00:13:03.160
one guy in a room observing these things. It is

278
00:13:03.640 --> 00:13:06.620
teams. And I actually, I, I Wish I could have my, my

279
00:13:06.620 --> 00:13:09.450
book sitting next to me. It's downstairs. I would hold it up for those of

280
00:13:09.450 --> 00:13:12.280
you watching. I just recently purchased a few books

281
00:13:12.280 --> 00:13:15.090
about NASA teams and how they

282
00:13:15.090 --> 00:13:17.730
run their teams, their programs and their

283
00:13:18.250 --> 00:13:21.060
robust personality profiles and the things that they do to

284
00:13:21.060 --> 00:13:21.940
create these teams.

285
00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:24.820
But our next article is about the NASA Artemis

286
00:13:24.820 --> 00:13:27.340
science team and inaugurating their

287
00:13:27.740 --> 00:13:28.520
flight. Control room.

288
00:13:29.080 --> 00:13:31.990
Professor Fred Watson: That's right, yeah. And this is not very far from where you're sitting

289
00:13:31.990 --> 00:13:34.950
now is it? It's at John Johnson Space center

290
00:13:34.950 --> 00:13:37.340
in Houston. it's. That's where

291
00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:40.660
the Artemis flights are going to be

292
00:13:40.660 --> 00:13:43.500
controlled from. when they are ah, when they carry a human

293
00:13:43.820 --> 00:13:45.790
crew. Artemis being,

294
00:13:46.670 --> 00:13:48.990
you know the, the big

295
00:13:48.990 --> 00:13:51.560
initiative by NASA, and other

296
00:13:51.720 --> 00:13:54.200
agencies actually to to take

297
00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:57.174
astronauts back to the moon, in the 20,

298
00:13:57.266 --> 00:14:00.110
20 twenties. We hope, we hope the first landing will

299
00:14:00.110 --> 00:14:03.030
be 2027. It's already been pushed back a few times.

300
00:14:03.510 --> 00:14:06.310
Artemis 2 is the next mission, probably next

301
00:14:06.310 --> 00:14:09.180
year sometime which will be basically a

302
00:14:09.130 --> 00:14:11.850
rerun of Artemis 1 which was a flight around the

303
00:14:11.850 --> 00:14:14.800
moon, but this time it will carry a crew of four

304
00:14:14.800 --> 00:14:17.280
astronauts. So what's happened? Well,

305
00:14:18.170 --> 00:14:20.810
at the Johnson Space center in Houston the

306
00:14:21.800 --> 00:14:24.760
room which will contain the Mission

307
00:14:24.840 --> 00:14:27.810
control for the Artemis 2

308
00:14:27.810 --> 00:14:30.700
miss and subsequent ones has

309
00:14:30.700 --> 00:14:33.660
been inaugurated. It is technically called the

310
00:14:33.660 --> 00:14:36.610
Science Evaluation Room, the ser. and

311
00:14:36.610 --> 00:14:39.610
it's been very cleverly designed

312
00:14:39.770 --> 00:14:42.490
to be much more maybe

313
00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:44.890
m. To allow much more integration between

314
00:14:45.450 --> 00:14:48.370
the members of the team. you and I, Heidi.

315
00:14:48.370 --> 00:14:51.290
Certainly. I have got in my mind what

316
00:14:51.290 --> 00:14:54.250
the old mission control, basically rooms

317
00:14:54.250 --> 00:14:56.610
or studios look like. I've seen some of them actually

318
00:14:57.360 --> 00:14:59.710
at the Kennedy Space center.

319
00:15:00.140 --> 00:15:02.740
and you've got these rows of desks with

320
00:15:02.740 --> 00:15:05.260
screens and the rows of desks are

321
00:15:05.500 --> 00:15:08.400
basically like a classroom with rows of

322
00:15:08.400 --> 00:15:11.290
people all doing their thing and talking as

323
00:15:11.290 --> 00:15:14.240
best they can. This is different. This is set up in

324
00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:16.860
a sort of U shape with the real

325
00:15:16.860 --> 00:15:19.620
nucleus of the people who are key players

326
00:15:20.420 --> 00:15:23.420
in the center and everybody else in this sort of U

327
00:15:23.420 --> 00:15:26.180
shaped ah, array of tables around the edge.

328
00:15:26.900 --> 00:15:29.700
And in order to test it they've actually

329
00:15:29.860 --> 00:15:32.460
undertaken a dummy run. They've basically

330
00:15:32.460 --> 00:15:35.190
simulated the Artemis

331
00:15:35.190 --> 00:15:38.180
2 mission. I don't know whether they did the full 10

332
00:15:38.180 --> 00:15:40.740
days of simulation or just the

333
00:15:41.030 --> 00:15:43.420
key parts. but they've actually simulated

334
00:15:43.820 --> 00:15:46.350
that mission to give them an

335
00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:49.350
idea of how the scientific results will come back

336
00:15:49.350 --> 00:15:52.300
to it, in what they call a real

337
00:15:52.300 --> 00:15:55.290
world scenario. and so, you know, the evidence seems to

338
00:15:55.290 --> 00:15:58.270
be that it's going well. but I thought that was a very

339
00:15:58.270 --> 00:16:01.080
nice story to relate. people ask us what is happening

340
00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:04.040
with Artemis. It's a process that is quite

341
00:16:04.040 --> 00:16:06.270
slow. it's because

342
00:16:06.430 --> 00:16:09.390
NASA is progressing very carefully with this

343
00:16:09.390 --> 00:16:12.220
mission, as you would expect. but there are

344
00:16:12.220 --> 00:16:15.180
news items coming out all the time and this is one of them. And I

345
00:16:15.180 --> 00:16:17.510
think this is a big step forward, in the

346
00:16:17.510 --> 00:16:20.440
Artemis, I won't say Race to the Moon, because it

347
00:16:20.440 --> 00:16:23.080
isn't that, but the Artemis lunar missions.

348
00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:27.120
Heidi Campo: Yeah, the. We're going back. Yeah. You know, and it's so

349
00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:29.880
funny, I'm looking at the picture of the room and it's ah,

350
00:16:29.960 --> 00:16:32.640
I have the. I've been to mission Control. It's so

351
00:16:32.640 --> 00:16:35.080
impressive. I didn't know they were going to be decommissioning

352
00:16:35.400 --> 00:16:38.350
that old room and moving to this new room. you

353
00:16:38.350 --> 00:16:40.980
know, it's just like the films you watch growing up, Apollo 13

354
00:16:41.610 --> 00:16:44.170
and any of them, there's this big impressive control

355
00:16:44.170 --> 00:16:46.570
center. And this one almost looks like,

356
00:16:47.620 --> 00:16:50.060
with everyone sitting around the table with all their

357
00:16:50.060 --> 00:16:53.060
computers. And the other crazy thing,

358
00:16:53.300 --> 00:16:56.300
there's so much more technology in this room, but there's so

359
00:16:56.300 --> 00:16:59.260
much less in the room. I think that's

360
00:16:59.260 --> 00:17:02.180
the most impressive thing to me because you think of these older

361
00:17:03.700 --> 00:17:06.360
control, centers and there's big, robust

362
00:17:06.360 --> 00:17:09.000
machines. So you're thinking, wow, those big

363
00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:11.560
powerful machines must be doing so much. And these

364
00:17:11.560 --> 00:17:14.420
scientists are sitting around with a laptop. So they almost

365
00:17:14.420 --> 00:17:17.220
look like college students in a study,

366
00:17:17.300 --> 00:17:20.250
in a study, study setting. there's some

367
00:17:20.250 --> 00:17:22.810
big flat screen TVs, but it's,

368
00:17:23.130 --> 00:17:25.530
it's a lot more bare bones than the,

369
00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:29.280
classic mission control center. So I think that's the

370
00:17:29.280 --> 00:17:32.160
most impressive thing to me is there's

371
00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:35.040
so much more technology in here and

372
00:17:35.120 --> 00:17:38.080
power in those machines, but it's just a bunch

373
00:17:38.080 --> 00:17:40.740
of scientists with laptops compared to

374
00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:43.540
the huge room of the big machines.

375
00:17:44.580 --> 00:17:47.580
Professor Fred Watson: I think you've hit the nail on the head there, Heidi. Absolutely. So we're

376
00:17:47.580 --> 00:17:49.780
seeing, you know, 21st century technology,

377
00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:51.990
versus 1960s technology.

378
00:17:52.790 --> 00:17:55.570
and that allows you to be much

379
00:17:55.570 --> 00:17:58.450
more focused on the ergonomics

380
00:17:58.450 --> 00:18:00.970
of this interaction. You know, the way the people

381
00:18:00.970 --> 00:18:02.450
interact with one another and

382
00:18:03.910 --> 00:18:06.780
how they communicate. it's probably going to be

383
00:18:06.940 --> 00:18:09.780
in some ways a little bit more informal because you do have folks

384
00:18:09.780 --> 00:18:12.660
sitting around looking at their laptops. Hopefully that'll have good

385
00:18:12.660 --> 00:18:13.740
outcomes for the mission.

386
00:18:15.180 --> 00:18:18.100
Heidi Campo: Yeah. And that's something I don't want to get too off track here. But that

387
00:18:18.100 --> 00:18:20.220
is something that. The psychological,

388
00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:23.490
component to how NASA forms teams and

389
00:18:23.490 --> 00:18:26.370
how any, you know, if you're working in any corporation or

390
00:18:26.530 --> 00:18:29.170
military teams is a very, very

391
00:18:29.250 --> 00:18:32.210
interesting concept that I have. I have been reading a

392
00:18:32.210 --> 00:18:34.690
lot of research on. I actually. I don't know if I mentioned this

393
00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:37.840
on the show. I was a final candidate for

394
00:18:37.840 --> 00:18:40.600
the NASA HERA Analog, which

395
00:18:40.600 --> 00:18:43.200
is. The HERA stands for Human

396
00:18:43.360 --> 00:18:46.350
Exploration Research Analog. so I signed

397
00:18:46.350 --> 00:18:49.080
up to be, a analog astronaut, which is.

398
00:18:49.480 --> 00:18:52.440
You are not a real astronaut. You are a fake

399
00:18:52.440 --> 00:18:55.360
astronaut. You guys can think of it, you're just larping as an astronaut

400
00:18:55.360 --> 00:18:58.290
for a predetermined amount of time. but this was

401
00:18:58.370 --> 00:19:01.330
a NASA, Johnson Space center analog. So it's inside

402
00:19:01.330 --> 00:19:03.930
of Johnson Space center and is run by NASA.

403
00:19:04.090 --> 00:19:07.050
But what they're. They're doing a lot of different tests in there,

404
00:19:07.050 --> 00:19:09.690
but one of them is, is they're looking at crew dynamics.

405
00:19:10.250 --> 00:19:13.130
And some really interesting research has come out of that.

406
00:19:14.170 --> 00:19:17.091
so I'll just. I'll just paint a really quick picture of this so we can move on

407
00:19:17.091 --> 00:19:17.531
to our.

408
00:19:17.611 --> 00:19:20.491
Our last story. But this is so fascinating to me.

409
00:19:20.971 --> 00:19:23.951
So they look at the crew of

410
00:19:23.951 --> 00:19:26.801
four. Four. There's four people in this analog. And they

411
00:19:26.801 --> 00:19:29.601
give them simulated scenarios that

412
00:19:29.601 --> 00:19:32.121
will allow for them to build

413
00:19:32.121 --> 00:19:34.961
relationships a certain way. So they might give

414
00:19:34.961 --> 00:19:37.961
two crew members a problem that's hard

415
00:19:38.041 --> 00:19:40.961
enough to solve. That when they solve it, they feel

416
00:19:40.961 --> 00:19:43.801
really accomplished and they feel more bonded.

417
00:19:43.881 --> 00:19:46.441
But it's just easy enough that they're guaranteed success.

418
00:19:47.321 --> 00:19:50.121
So they'll artificially create a stronger bond

419
00:19:50.121 --> 00:19:52.841
between those two crew members by doing something like that.

420
00:19:53.671 --> 00:19:56.631
And then the other two crew members, they might do this the same

421
00:19:56.631 --> 00:19:59.551
thing. And then they might do other scenarios where it's like,

422
00:19:59.551 --> 00:20:02.511
these crew members, these three are closer. This

423
00:20:02.511 --> 00:20:05.351
third person, there's. This fourth person is kind of cut out.

424
00:20:05.831 --> 00:20:08.720
And, I can. I will give you guys the link so that you guys can

425
00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:11.641
all read this research yourself. Because I just. I. I'm obsessed

426
00:20:11.641 --> 00:20:14.271
with this, this. This study. But

427
00:20:14.271 --> 00:20:17.031
basically what they found is they have the integrated

428
00:20:17.031 --> 00:20:20.011
model where all four crew members are working together. And

429
00:20:20.011 --> 00:20:22.571
they're all in sync. And their mission success was around

430
00:20:22.571 --> 00:20:25.411
100% successful. Then they have

431
00:20:25.411 --> 00:20:28.091
the subgroup models where, okay, these two are

432
00:20:28.091 --> 00:20:30.971
closer, these two are closer. Everyone still works

433
00:20:30.971 --> 00:20:33.691
together, but these two subgroups have formed a

434
00:20:33.691 --> 00:20:36.371
closer bond. Surprisingly,

435
00:20:36.531 --> 00:20:39.331
their mission success would drop to around 80%

436
00:20:39.331 --> 00:20:42.211
successful. And then the

437
00:20:42.291 --> 00:20:45.291
isolated model where these three crew members are working really

438
00:20:45.291 --> 00:20:47.991
closely together. And the third crew member was kind of

439
00:20:47.991 --> 00:20:50.591
isolated. Their mission success dropped to around

440
00:20:50.751 --> 00:20:53.671
50% successful. And

441
00:20:53.671 --> 00:20:56.111
they said that this works across

442
00:20:57.231 --> 00:21:00.071
any scale. So they've done a lot of research with

443
00:21:00.071 --> 00:21:02.671
sports teams. So if your offense and

444
00:21:02.671 --> 00:21:05.431
defense identifies more as offense and defense

445
00:21:05.431 --> 00:21:08.431
rather than the whole team, the team is less

446
00:21:08.431 --> 00:21:11.351
successful. And, you know, and then I think you

447
00:21:11.351 --> 00:21:14.311
guys have figured out by now I'm kind of a cheeseball here on Space

448
00:21:14.311 --> 00:21:17.191
Nuts. I'm the, I'm the space. I'm a nerd. But

449
00:21:17.191 --> 00:21:19.991
it's like, I think about it on a global scale. What if

450
00:21:19.991 --> 00:21:22.831
humanity was thinking that we're all

451
00:21:22.831 --> 00:21:25.751
on the same team instead of I'm

452
00:21:25.751 --> 00:21:28.751
this company or I'm that company, or I'm this this, or I'm that nation. If we

453
00:21:28.751 --> 00:21:31.671
were all, if we were all playing for the same team here and to see

454
00:21:31.671 --> 00:21:34.631
what our mission success would be. But I don't know,

455
00:21:34.631 --> 00:21:37.631
that was, that's just kind of what I get out of that. And so there's, there's a

456
00:21:37.631 --> 00:21:40.591
level of informal that I think sometimes really helpful because it helps

457
00:21:40.591 --> 00:21:41.631
us form those bonds.

458
00:21:42.681 --> 00:21:45.591
Professor Fred Watson: it's key to, I mean, it would be wonderful if the

459
00:21:45.591 --> 00:21:48.351
whole world was on the same team. God knows we need

460
00:21:48.351 --> 00:21:50.671
that, the way things are at the moment.

461
00:21:51.341 --> 00:21:54.161
but, the, idea

462
00:21:54.161 --> 00:21:56.921
of having the right individuals

463
00:21:56.921 --> 00:21:59.801
and the right team structure for, say, a Mars

464
00:21:59.801 --> 00:22:02.701
mission, where you've got people cooped up

465
00:22:02.701 --> 00:22:05.561
in a small, place millions of

466
00:22:05.561 --> 00:22:08.321
kilometers from Earth for six months before

467
00:22:08.321 --> 00:22:11.131
you actually get to Mars, and then

468
00:22:11.131 --> 00:22:13.931
you've got to do all the stuff there that, that's going to be

469
00:22:13.931 --> 00:22:16.371
key to the success of the mission.

470
00:22:16.501 --> 00:22:19.301
it's, you know, notwithstanding all the technical

471
00:22:19.541 --> 00:22:22.341
issues, all the habitat

472
00:22:22.341 --> 00:22:25.211
issues and all the rest of it, just having people

473
00:22:25.211 --> 00:22:27.851
who get on and can get on and work productively

474
00:22:28.251 --> 00:22:31.091
must be the number one priority. So that's

475
00:22:31.091 --> 00:22:33.891
my guess where that study, that sort of study is

476
00:22:33.891 --> 00:22:36.381
heading. And, hopefully it will all be

477
00:22:36.381 --> 00:22:38.021
100% successful.

478
00:22:38.581 --> 00:22:41.551
Heidi Campo: Yeah. And that's what they do a lot in, Chapia and Hera and

479
00:22:41.551 --> 00:22:44.461
a lot of these, extended duration analogs. And

480
00:22:44.461 --> 00:22:47.061
I might still do it. I told them that at the.

481
00:22:47.221 --> 00:22:50.060
I was the one who dropped out. They, they were ready to

482
00:22:50.060 --> 00:22:52.941
actually give me a mission, but I dropped out because it just wasn't good timing

483
00:22:52.941 --> 00:22:55.871
for me. but you know who's really good? You love

484
00:22:55.871 --> 00:22:58.391
my segues. I don't know. This is my thing is, you know,

485
00:22:58.711 --> 00:23:01.561
what species is wonderful

486
00:23:01.561 --> 00:23:02.801
at working on A team.

487
00:23:04.161 --> 00:23:05.201
Professor Fred Watson: Let me guess.

488
00:23:08.561 --> 00:23:11.521
Yeah, isn't that is a lovely segue. And

489
00:23:12.481 --> 00:23:15.281
you know, this is a story that. Yes, we're going to talk about

490
00:23:15.281 --> 00:23:18.281
Wales. Wh. Not. The

491
00:23:18.281 --> 00:23:21.161
country next to England doesn't have the

492
00:23:21.161 --> 00:23:24.111
H. And we could talk about that some other time probably.

493
00:23:24.111 --> 00:23:26.071
Heidi Campo: I'm sure they're wonderful team players as well.

494
00:23:26.071 --> 00:23:28.591
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I think they are, yes. Yeah, they're good singers too.

495
00:23:29.531 --> 00:23:32.491
so this is a study about whale behavior.

496
00:23:33.131 --> 00:23:36.131
And the reason why I thought this would

497
00:23:36.131 --> 00:23:38.931
be a good one to talk about on Spacenauts is that it's

498
00:23:38.931 --> 00:23:41.661
got, sort of overtones of how

499
00:23:41.661 --> 00:23:44.581
we might deal with communication

500
00:23:45.061 --> 00:23:47.981
with extraterrestrial aliens. And you

501
00:23:47.981 --> 00:23:50.621
and I have mentioned already the movie Arrival, which was a

502
00:23:50.621 --> 00:23:53.341
fabulous account of exactly that

503
00:23:53.341 --> 00:23:53.701
problem.

504
00:23:53.941 --> 00:23:55.941
Heidi Campo: Yeah, I love that movie so much.

505
00:23:56.021 --> 00:23:58.791
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, so this is the same sort of

506
00:23:58.791 --> 00:24:01.591
thing, but you're not talking about people who land in

507
00:24:01.591 --> 00:24:04.431
weird looking spaceships, you're talking about whales.

508
00:24:05.231 --> 00:24:08.161
And there is a paper now that has

509
00:24:08.161 --> 00:24:10.991
been. It's actually reported in in Nature magazine, which

510
00:24:10.991 --> 00:24:13.591
is the. One of the two leading journals

511
00:24:13.751 --> 00:24:16.551
in the world for scientific results. But I think,

512
00:24:16.581 --> 00:24:19.411
there's a publication in one of the, one of the

513
00:24:20.941 --> 00:24:23.861
journals related to, you know, to living organisms.

514
00:24:23.861 --> 00:24:26.701
But the bottom line is humpback whales,

515
00:24:27.181 --> 00:24:30.061
we, we've known for quite a long time that

516
00:24:30.061 --> 00:24:32.301
they use what are called bubble rings

517
00:24:32.861 --> 00:24:35.861
as a trap for the prey

518
00:24:35.861 --> 00:24:38.851
that they want to eat, probably krill. I'm not sure

519
00:24:38.851 --> 00:24:41.691
whether humpbacks eat bigger organisms, but

520
00:24:41.691 --> 00:24:44.181
krill is certainly, part of their diet.

521
00:24:44.421 --> 00:24:46.821
And what they do is they blow these bubble rings,

522
00:24:47.231 --> 00:24:49.711
which act as a sort of net and then they

523
00:24:50.031 --> 00:24:52.871
swim inside it and gobble up all the stuff that's been

524
00:24:52.871 --> 00:24:55.791
netted. But it turns out that these

525
00:24:55.791 --> 00:24:58.601
bubble rings actually, come in

526
00:24:58.601 --> 00:25:01.241
different shapes and sizes. Some are

527
00:25:01.640 --> 00:25:04.511
exquisitely circular. there's

528
00:25:04.511 --> 00:25:07.101
actually an image, which is on this nature.

529
00:25:07.261 --> 00:25:10.221
Heidi Campo: It's a perfect circle and it almost

530
00:25:10.461 --> 00:25:13.301
looks like a whirlpool too. Like, I'm like, how is

531
00:25:13.301 --> 00:25:13.821
this real?

532
00:25:14.921 --> 00:25:17.571
Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Which is an

533
00:25:17.571 --> 00:25:20.451
amazing. You know, it's like a foam in a

534
00:25:20.451 --> 00:25:23.131
perfect circle a few feet in diameter.

535
00:25:23.611 --> 00:25:26.171
But they also, sometimes make

536
00:25:26.171 --> 00:25:29.171
multiples of these. So you get a ring of perfect

537
00:25:29.171 --> 00:25:32.091
circles or a spiral shape.

538
00:25:32.651 --> 00:25:35.651
And the focus of

539
00:25:35.651 --> 00:25:38.171
this research is that

540
00:25:38.651 --> 00:25:41.271
it turns out when you look at the

541
00:25:41.271 --> 00:25:43.751
statistics of these bubble ring

542
00:25:44.071 --> 00:25:46.951
appearances, that there are more of them

543
00:25:47.591 --> 00:25:50.471
that occur when humans are

544
00:25:50.471 --> 00:25:53.191
watching than occur

545
00:25:53.511 --> 00:25:56.471
in the natural world when there's nobody

546
00:25:56.471 --> 00:25:59.351
around. And so this is

547
00:25:59.431 --> 00:25:59.951
they might be.

548
00:25:59.951 --> 00:26:01.031
Heidi Campo: Trying to talk to us.

549
00:26:01.111 --> 00:26:03.751
Professor Fred Watson: That's exactly it. This is the thrust of this article.

550
00:26:03.991 --> 00:26:05.591
Are we seeing

551
00:26:07.081 --> 00:26:10.001
ah, a behavior in Wales

552
00:26:10.631 --> 00:26:13.431
that suggests that they are doing

553
00:26:13.431 --> 00:26:15.911
something that is all about

554
00:26:16.951 --> 00:26:18.951
whale to human communication

555
00:26:19.751 --> 00:26:22.591
rather than, you know, rather than just

556
00:26:22.591 --> 00:26:25.561
a random sort of thing. it's actually the

557
00:26:25.561 --> 00:26:28.281
publication is Marine Mammal Science. That's the,

558
00:26:28.761 --> 00:26:31.671
where this, where this paper appeared. But I think it's been commented, I

559
00:26:31.671 --> 00:26:34.151
think this commentary comes from Nature magazine.

560
00:26:34.551 --> 00:26:37.191
and there's yeah some, some

561
00:26:37.271 --> 00:26:39.061
lovely examples of

562
00:26:40.021 --> 00:26:43.021
these. Ring, ring production. There's

563
00:26:43.021 --> 00:26:45.951
one quote here that comes from the researchers who've done this work.

564
00:26:45.951 --> 00:26:48.831
Out of the 12 episodes of Ring production reported

565
00:26:48.991 --> 00:26:51.871
here, 10 episodes were collected near

566
00:26:51.871 --> 00:26:54.631
a boat or human swimmers, while six

567
00:26:54.631 --> 00:26:56.871
had more than one whale present.

568
00:26:57.351 --> 00:26:59.751
Despite these ample opportunities for

569
00:27:00.231 --> 00:27:03.191
intra and interspecies aggression,

570
00:27:03.431 --> 00:27:06.071
there was no evidence of antagonism towards

571
00:27:07.271 --> 00:27:10.151
conspecifics. I think that's ah, a

572
00:27:10.151 --> 00:27:12.791
marine mammal word for like minded

573
00:27:12.951 --> 00:27:15.711
or aggression towards boats or swimmers in any of the ring

574
00:27:15.711 --> 00:27:18.581
episodes. quite the contrary in fact. Far from showing

575
00:27:18.581 --> 00:27:21.531
signs of avoiding humans, eight of the nine of

576
00:27:21.531 --> 00:27:24.211
nine ring blowers approached the boat or swimmers

577
00:27:24.211 --> 00:27:26.771
with exceptions to when they were blowing bubbles while

578
00:27:26.771 --> 00:27:29.411
feeding. So there's more

579
00:27:29.411 --> 00:27:31.691
statistics in the article which I won't go into

580
00:27:32.171 --> 00:27:34.971
but it does look as though there is a predominance of

581
00:27:35.531 --> 00:27:38.411
these ring bubbles of a particular kind. And these

582
00:27:38.411 --> 00:27:41.091
I think are the most symmetrical and kind of

583
00:27:41.091 --> 00:27:43.961
elegant ones in a way, being blown when

584
00:27:43.961 --> 00:27:46.821
there are humans present. make of

585
00:27:46.821 --> 00:27:48.021
that what you will.

586
00:27:49.461 --> 00:27:51.701
And you know I'm guessing that a lot of the other

587
00:27:52.181 --> 00:27:54.741
others that have been observed and I do know that

588
00:27:55.061 --> 00:27:58.021
quite a lot of these ring bubbles that have been seen have been

589
00:27:58.021 --> 00:28:00.311
observed by drones and you know, other

590
00:28:00.791 --> 00:28:03.551
sort of remote sensing equipment so that there

591
00:28:03.551 --> 00:28:05.751
weren't humans present in those instances.

592
00:28:07.031 --> 00:28:09.751
Heidi Campo: Well you know language in and of

593
00:28:09.751 --> 00:28:12.391
itself is such a fascinating topic and

594
00:28:14.301 --> 00:28:17.101
both verbal and written language is so interesting

595
00:28:17.501 --> 00:28:20.381
and that was something to keep it space related. That was something

596
00:28:20.381 --> 00:28:23.181
that was widely discussed with Voyager and

597
00:28:23.341 --> 00:28:25.421
they initially wanted to have

598
00:28:26.061 --> 00:28:29.060
a map of Earth with an arrow pointing to Earth. And

599
00:28:29.060 --> 00:28:32.021
there was a lot of discussion, well what is an arrow?

600
00:28:32.021 --> 00:28:33.821
An arrow is a man made thing.

601
00:28:34.941 --> 00:28:37.901
We can't say if ah, intelligent life

602
00:28:37.901 --> 00:28:40.691
form would understand what an arrow meant. So

603
00:28:40.691 --> 00:28:43.251
that's why they ended up doing more of kind of like a

604
00:28:44.051 --> 00:28:47.011
little bit more of a mathematical model because

605
00:28:47.011 --> 00:28:49.861
math is universal. So that's that was

606
00:28:49.861 --> 00:28:52.621
the logic behind that is math is A universal language.

607
00:28:53.211 --> 00:28:55.891
and same thing with music. And they did also include whale

608
00:28:55.891 --> 00:28:58.891
songs and a number of other beautiful

609
00:28:58.891 --> 00:29:01.761
things. You can actually find a lot of those tapes, on

610
00:29:01.761 --> 00:29:04.681
Spotify. They have people singing from around the world.

611
00:29:07.971 --> 00:29:10.941
Professor Fred Watson: That's, the gold disc that was on,

612
00:29:11.201 --> 00:29:13.681
each of the two voyages. The

613
00:29:13.761 --> 00:29:16.321
Pioneer spacecraft also had. They just had

614
00:29:16.321 --> 00:29:19.121
plaques, but they had sort of mathematical

615
00:29:19.121 --> 00:29:21.881
representation of where the Earth was, which, if I remember

616
00:29:21.881 --> 00:29:24.801
rightly, was in terms of the direction to specific

617
00:29:25.121 --> 00:29:27.881
quasars, which are very,

618
00:29:28.161 --> 00:29:31.081
distant. It might even have been pulsars, I can't remember.

619
00:29:31.481 --> 00:29:33.761
But, the idea was to.

620
00:29:34.571 --> 00:29:37.531
To denote what the source of this spacecraft was,

621
00:29:37.771 --> 00:29:40.371
using things that would be

622
00:29:40.371 --> 00:29:43.291
recognized by an extraterrestrial intelligence because

623
00:29:43.291 --> 00:29:46.251
they would make astronomical observations as well. And so they

624
00:29:46.251 --> 00:29:47.771
were trying to link, you know, the

625
00:29:48.571 --> 00:29:51.291
directors, direct people to where this had come from

626
00:29:51.451 --> 00:29:54.131
by the astronomical information around

627
00:29:54.131 --> 00:29:54.491
us.

628
00:29:55.211 --> 00:29:58.131
Heidi Campo: I, was speaking, with a friend of mine the other day who's a

629
00:29:58.131 --> 00:30:00.971
mathematician, and she said the reason why she

630
00:30:00.971 --> 00:30:03.651
loves music so much is because music

631
00:30:03.731 --> 00:30:05.011
is math in motion.

632
00:30:05.711 --> 00:30:08.191
Professor Fred Watson: It is, absolutely. I'm exactly the same,

633
00:30:08.191 --> 00:30:10.751
Heidi. If I hadn't been an

634
00:30:10.751 --> 00:30:12.431
astronomer, I would have been a musician.

635
00:30:13.471 --> 00:30:16.431
Heidi Campo: Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah. I mean, it really is. And whale

636
00:30:16.431 --> 00:30:18.831
song is something I think everybody connects to. And

637
00:30:19.231 --> 00:30:20.991
it is really incredible to see

638
00:30:22.271 --> 00:30:24.831
the crossover between humans and animals

639
00:30:24.911 --> 00:30:27.551
and intelligence and

640
00:30:27.551 --> 00:30:30.391
math and maybe, who

641
00:30:30.391 --> 00:30:32.671
knows, maybe the whales are going to help us figure out

642
00:30:33.231 --> 00:30:36.191
something. Maybe they have it all figured out and they've been just trying

643
00:30:36.191 --> 00:30:38.251
to tell us. Just need to listen better.

644
00:30:38.891 --> 00:30:41.851
Professor Fred Watson: Just look at these bubble circles, for goodness sake,

645
00:30:41.851 --> 00:30:43.211
and then you'll work it all out.

646
00:30:44.491 --> 00:30:46.591
Heidi Campo: So if any of you guys can figure out the math,

647
00:30:46.971 --> 00:30:49.731
formula that the whales are sending us, please let us know.

648
00:30:49.891 --> 00:30:50.451
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.

649
00:30:51.071 --> 00:30:54.041
Heidi Campo: Fred, this has been lovely. This is. This is a really. This

650
00:30:54.041 --> 00:30:56.941
was a fun episode. A lot of, uplifting and very interesting,

651
00:30:57.361 --> 00:30:58.451
conversations today.

652
00:30:58.771 --> 00:31:01.611
Professor Fred Watson: Thank you, Heidi. I think. I think so, too. It's been

653
00:31:01.611 --> 00:31:04.211
fun talking to you, as always, and we'll speak again

654
00:31:04.681 --> 00:31:05.241
very soon.

655
00:31:06.121 --> 00:31:07.321
Heidi Campo: All right, see you later,

656
00:31:11.721 --> 00:31:12.761
space Nuts.

657
00:31:13.001 --> 00:31:15.441
Welcome back to another episode of Space

658
00:31:15.441 --> 00:31:18.161
Nuts. I'm your host for this summer,

659
00:31:18.161 --> 00:31:20.881
filling in for Andrew Dunkley. My name is

660
00:31:20.881 --> 00:31:23.721
Heidi Campo, and joining us is Professor Fred

661
00:31:23.721 --> 00:31:25.481
Watson, astronomer at large.

662
00:31:27.161 --> 00:31:30.121
Professor Fred Watson: Good, to be here, Heidi, as always. And you're

663
00:31:30.121 --> 00:31:32.801
also our host for this winter here in Australia.

664
00:31:34.721 --> 00:31:37.571
So, yeah, lovely to talk. And, I think we've got some

665
00:31:37.571 --> 00:31:40.131
pretty great questions from our, listeners for this episode.

666
00:31:41.091 --> 00:31:43.491
Heidi Campo: We do. We have some. We have some really fun

667
00:31:44.271 --> 00:31:46.511
not episodes. We have some fun questions.

668
00:31:47.061 --> 00:31:50.021
our first question today is Martins

669
00:31:50.021 --> 00:31:52.821
from Latvia. And here is

670
00:31:53.621 --> 00:31:54.501
his question.

671
00:31:55.221 --> 00:31:58.211
Speaker C: Hello, guys. It's, Martins from Latvia.

672
00:31:58.851 --> 00:32:00.971
I've, been loving your show. Been listening since

673
00:32:00.971 --> 00:32:02.901
2017. And,

674
00:32:03.951 --> 00:32:06.271
so I have a question about dark matter.

675
00:32:06.591 --> 00:32:09.071
Okay, just kidding. I have a question about

676
00:32:09.551 --> 00:32:12.071
speed, of light. So we have two objects.

677
00:32:12.311 --> 00:32:15.151
One object is on Earth, and the other one is traveling

678
00:32:15.151 --> 00:32:18.151
in space at the speed of light. After some

679
00:32:18.151 --> 00:32:21.111
time, it comes back and the object that's on Earth is

680
00:32:21.111 --> 00:32:23.191
older than the other object.

681
00:32:24.231 --> 00:32:27.111
So why is that happening again? Why? They aren't

682
00:32:27.111 --> 00:32:30.071
the same, age. I mean, yeah, there's something to

683
00:32:30.071 --> 00:32:32.831
do probably when you're reaching speed of light that time

684
00:32:33.151 --> 00:32:36.071
slowing down or something. But why it's slowing down? Why isn't

685
00:32:36.071 --> 00:32:38.161
it, like, yeah, just curious.

686
00:32:39.201 --> 00:32:41.801
And, yeah, and I have, some

687
00:32:41.881 --> 00:32:44.571
dad joke for your, arsenal. Andrew.

688
00:32:44.891 --> 00:32:47.701
So, how do you put a space baby to

689
00:32:47.701 --> 00:32:50.631
sleep? Your rocket. So

690
00:32:50.631 --> 00:32:53.551
anyways, guys, cheers, then. Yeah,

691
00:32:53.551 --> 00:32:54.191
have a good one.

692
00:32:55.391 --> 00:32:58.271
Heidi Campo: Well, I think those space babies will be

693
00:32:58.271 --> 00:33:00.871
sleeping well with those jokes. Thank you so much,

694
00:33:00.871 --> 00:33:02.751
Martinez. That was a good one.

695
00:33:04.431 --> 00:33:07.221
Professor Fred Watson: Yep. Space babies, always need to be

696
00:33:07.221 --> 00:33:08.221
rocked. That's right.

697
00:33:09.901 --> 00:33:12.681
So, now that's a great question. I have

698
00:33:12.681 --> 00:33:15.571
visited Latvia, actually. some years ago. We did a tour

699
00:33:15.571 --> 00:33:18.531
there. I do remember, you know, Heidi,

700
00:33:18.531 --> 00:33:21.291
because we've talked about it before. I'm very fond of trains.

701
00:33:21.371 --> 00:33:24.181
We traveled on a little railway, through the

702
00:33:24.181 --> 00:33:27.021
snow and through. Because we always visit these

703
00:33:27.021 --> 00:33:29.881
places in winter, through snow and woodlands. And

704
00:33:29.881 --> 00:33:32.681
it trundled along at something like

705
00:33:33.641 --> 00:33:35.961
nine miles an hour. Maybe

706
00:33:36.441 --> 00:33:38.761
it was a fast walking pace

707
00:33:39.481 --> 00:33:42.201
because it was a very old line, but it was a lot of fun.

708
00:33:42.201 --> 00:33:44.201
Anyway, enough about Latvia.

709
00:33:44.191 --> 00:33:46.791
let's get to the speed of light, which is basically what

710
00:33:46.791 --> 00:33:49.761
Martin's question is about. this is.

711
00:33:50.401 --> 00:33:53.161
It's one of the fundamental aspects

712
00:33:53.161 --> 00:33:56.151
of relativity. Einstein's two theories

713
00:33:56.151 --> 00:33:58.991
of relativity. One was about motion, the other was about

714
00:33:58.991 --> 00:34:01.991
gravity. It's the one about motion that covers this. That's

715
00:34:01.991 --> 00:34:04.541
called the special theory of relativity, dated

716
00:34:04.541 --> 00:34:07.341
1905. And it turns out

717
00:34:07.341 --> 00:34:09.901
that the thinking that Einstein had had,

718
00:34:10.651 --> 00:34:13.211
leading up to this was that

719
00:34:13.451 --> 00:34:16.251
we know that the speed of light is a

720
00:34:16.251 --> 00:34:19.251
bizarre quantity because in

721
00:34:19.251 --> 00:34:22.011
a vacuum, it's always the same. We

722
00:34:22.011 --> 00:34:24.891
know also that it's the maximum speed

723
00:34:24.891 --> 00:34:27.891
that anything can attain. In fact, you can't actually achieve the speed of

724
00:34:27.891 --> 00:34:30.851
light with an object because you would have

725
00:34:30.851 --> 00:34:33.851
to put infinite energy in to get it to the speed of Light. And we

726
00:34:33.851 --> 00:34:36.371
don't have infinite energy. So light and

727
00:34:36.611 --> 00:34:39.571
its other electromagnetic waves. They are

728
00:34:39.571 --> 00:34:41.731
the only things that can travel at the speed of light.

729
00:34:42.691 --> 00:34:45.571
But if you had something that you are accelerating.

730
00:34:45.571 --> 00:34:48.051
Well, let me just go back. The speed of light is,

731
00:34:49.061 --> 00:34:51.941
almost like a magic number. It's not magic because it's

732
00:34:51.941 --> 00:34:54.821
a very round number. It's about 300,000 kilometers per second.

733
00:34:56.611 --> 00:34:59.251
it is, however, the fact that it

734
00:34:59.251 --> 00:35:02.091
doesn't change in a vacuum. And it doesn't matter how

735
00:35:02.091 --> 00:35:05.091
fast the source is moving. You'd expect if you have

736
00:35:05.091 --> 00:35:07.751
a source that's moving. That sends out a beam of light.

737
00:35:08.791 --> 00:35:11.791
The source's speed would add to the speed

738
00:35:11.791 --> 00:35:14.631
of light. And the speed of light would increase. But it doesn't doesn't work

739
00:35:14.631 --> 00:35:17.431
like that. And once you establish that,

740
00:35:17.911 --> 00:35:19.991
then it turns out. And there's

741
00:35:21.111 --> 00:35:23.671
some quite sort of simple ways of

742
00:35:24.471 --> 00:35:27.391
seeing how this might work. Which we don't really have

743
00:35:27.391 --> 00:35:29.831
time to talk about. But some of the books about special

744
00:35:29.911 --> 00:35:32.791
relativity. That talk about people looking at somebody

745
00:35:32.791 --> 00:35:35.471
moving on a train. Show you how the geometry

746
00:35:35.471 --> 00:35:38.461
works. That, Because the speed of light is always the

747
00:35:38.461 --> 00:35:41.341
same. Then what it tells you is

748
00:35:41.341 --> 00:35:44.221
perceptions of time and distance must change.

749
00:35:44.941 --> 00:35:47.581
And so the key thing here. And the

750
00:35:47.581 --> 00:35:49.921
point that, Martins is raising.

751
00:35:50.641 --> 00:35:53.121
Is that if you've got an observer

752
00:35:53.601 --> 00:35:56.601
who is stationary. Compared with somebody

753
00:35:56.601 --> 00:35:59.191
who's moving at a very high speed. Nearly,

754
00:35:59.581 --> 00:36:02.501
the speed of light or yeah. It doesn't

755
00:36:02.501 --> 00:36:05.401
matter whether it's near the speed of light or not. It's the effect

756
00:36:05.401 --> 00:36:08.241
works. But it's when you get nearer the speed of light. That it

757
00:36:08.241 --> 00:36:10.971
becomes noticeable. the time

758
00:36:11.131 --> 00:36:13.691
that you observe that moving

759
00:36:14.171 --> 00:36:14.571
person,

760
00:36:16.521 --> 00:36:19.161
experiencing is slower. So your

761
00:36:19.161 --> 00:36:21.921
time's ticking away as normal. And

762
00:36:21.921 --> 00:36:24.681
the person who's moving past you. Their

763
00:36:24.681 --> 00:36:27.561
time is ticking away as normal. But when the

764
00:36:27.561 --> 00:36:30.241
stationary person. If you could see the clock

765
00:36:30.771 --> 00:36:33.651
on the moving vehicle or whatever it is. Train going

766
00:36:33.651 --> 00:36:36.531
at nearly the speed of light. Just to mix a few metaphors there.

767
00:36:36.851 --> 00:36:39.401
what you would see is their clocks would seem to be going

768
00:36:39.881 --> 00:36:42.841
much more slowly than yours is. And that's

769
00:36:42.841 --> 00:36:45.721
the time dilation effect. And yes, it

770
00:36:45.721 --> 00:36:48.531
means that, if you can then bring these two

771
00:36:48.531 --> 00:36:50.931
back together. The moving person

772
00:36:51.251 --> 00:36:54.091
has experienced less time relative to

773
00:36:54.091 --> 00:36:56.611
you than you have. And that's the

774
00:36:56.771 --> 00:36:59.571
it's sometimes called the twins paradox. Because if you

775
00:36:59.901 --> 00:37:02.741
take two twins. One goes off at the speed of light, comes

776
00:37:02.741 --> 00:37:05.581
back again. Or nearly the speed of light, comes back again.

777
00:37:05.981 --> 00:37:08.701
There they have aged much less than the twin who

778
00:37:08.941 --> 00:37:09.901
stayed put.

779
00:37:12.941 --> 00:37:15.581
So that's the bottom line. And it's,

780
00:37:16.961 --> 00:37:19.761
you know, it's such a counterintuitive concept.

781
00:37:19.761 --> 00:37:22.641
That it is really hard to get your head around. But we know it

782
00:37:22.641 --> 00:37:25.581
works. in fact, the demonstration.

783
00:37:26.221 --> 00:37:29.061
the practical demonstration of this phenomenon happening

784
00:37:29.061 --> 00:37:31.941
in reality, I think it was just before the

785
00:37:31.941 --> 00:37:34.941
Second World War. Might have been round about the same time.

786
00:37:35.181 --> 00:37:38.021
But there are things called cosmic rays. Which are bombarding the

787
00:37:38.021 --> 00:37:40.941
Earth all the time. These are subatomic particles that come from space.

788
00:37:41.631 --> 00:37:44.401
and they are, predominantly a

789
00:37:44.401 --> 00:37:46.801
species of subatomic particle called a muon.

790
00:37:47.361 --> 00:37:49.921
So these muons were observed coming down

791
00:37:50.521 --> 00:37:52.791
through space. At, nearly the speed of light.

792
00:37:53.511 --> 00:37:56.031
And we know how long they take to

793
00:37:56.031 --> 00:37:58.951
decay in the laboratory. But

794
00:37:58.951 --> 00:38:01.831
their decay time was much longer. When

795
00:38:01.831 --> 00:38:04.751
they were observed coming in at the speed of light. Nearly

796
00:38:04.751 --> 00:38:07.471
the speed of light. The time had dilated. So their

797
00:38:07.471 --> 00:38:10.151
decays were much longer. Than what we observe in the

798
00:38:10.151 --> 00:38:12.951
laboratory. When they're not stationary. But they're

799
00:38:13.351 --> 00:38:16.311
going much more slowly. So it is a proven

800
00:38:16.311 --> 00:38:18.781
fact this works. if we could

801
00:38:19.411 --> 00:38:22.411
build a spacecraft that would get us to. I can't remember

802
00:38:22.411 --> 00:38:23.211
what it is. I think it's

803
00:38:23.211 --> 00:38:26.171
99.999998% of the speed

804
00:38:26.171 --> 00:38:29.091
of light. Head off for 500

805
00:38:29.091 --> 00:38:31.861
light years, come back again. you will be 10 years

806
00:38:31.861 --> 00:38:34.801
older. whereas everybody else on Earth will be a thousand

807
00:38:34.801 --> 00:38:37.761
years older. So it's that sort of thing, you

808
00:38:37.761 --> 00:38:40.281
know. Your time has slowed down relative to what they've

809
00:38:40.281 --> 00:38:41.041
experienced.

810
00:38:43.841 --> 00:38:45.801
Heidi Campo: I had a weird nightmare about that the other night.

811
00:38:45.801 --> 00:38:46.481
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, did you?

812
00:38:47.201 --> 00:38:49.041
Heidi Campo: It was the strangest thing. I had a nightma.

813
00:38:50.451 --> 00:38:52.411
somebody put me in, like, some kind of a cryo sleep.

814
00:38:52.411 --> 00:38:55.171
And I woke up and so much time had passed that everyone I knew

815
00:38:55.251 --> 00:38:58.211
had died. And so I had them put me back in cryo sleep

816
00:38:58.371 --> 00:39:01.331
for thousands of more years. Until we discovered the technology

817
00:39:01.331 --> 00:39:04.291
to travel back in time. So I could go back in time and

818
00:39:04.371 --> 00:39:06.211
link back up with everyone I loved.

819
00:39:08.531 --> 00:39:09.611
Professor Fred Watson: That's a pretty good one.

820
00:39:09.611 --> 00:39:12.451
Heidi Campo: Is that I have a very active

821
00:39:13.011 --> 00:39:13.041
dreamscape.

822
00:39:13.041 --> 00:39:13.081
Professor Fred Watson: Ah.

823
00:39:13.811 --> 00:39:15.491
Heidi Campo: At night I wake up exhausted.

824
00:39:16.841 --> 00:39:17.241
Professor Fred Watson: Okay.

825
00:39:18.201 --> 00:39:20.651
Heidi Campo: All right. Well, our next question, has a little bit of

826
00:39:20.651 --> 00:39:23.501
philosophy in it. this. This question is coming from

827
00:39:23.501 --> 00:39:26.501
Art from Rochester, New York. And it's a.

828
00:39:26.501 --> 00:39:29.401
It's quite a long question. So let's, grab a

829
00:39:29.401 --> 00:39:30.281
cup of tea here.

830
00:39:32.281 --> 00:39:35.241
Art says, I was listening to the June 13 program

831
00:39:35.321 --> 00:39:38.241
concerning the Flying Banana. Which prompted me to

832
00:39:38.241 --> 00:39:40.621
submit my first question to Space Nuts.

833
00:39:41.331 --> 00:39:44.331
It is a question I had been pondering for some time. You

834
00:39:44.331 --> 00:39:47.251
will be glad to hear it is not A black hole question, but

835
00:39:47.251 --> 00:39:50.041
rather a, what if question. The great American

836
00:39:50.121 --> 00:39:52.481
philosopher Julius Henry Marx once

837
00:39:52.481 --> 00:39:55.481
postulated, time flies like an arrow, fruit

838
00:39:55.481 --> 00:39:58.361
flies like a banana. Based

839
00:39:58.361 --> 00:40:01.281
on empirical evidence, I can confirm that fruit

840
00:40:01.281 --> 00:40:03.801
flies like a banana. My question

841
00:40:03.801 --> 00:40:06.281
revolves around time flying like an arrow.

842
00:40:07.091 --> 00:40:09.931
To the best of my understanding, when we shoot off

843
00:40:09.931 --> 00:40:12.891
rockets to the moon or Pluto, in order to get

844
00:40:12.891 --> 00:40:15.891
there accurately, the rocket scientists use an

845
00:40:17.331 --> 00:40:19.971
infomeris. You'll have to correct me on the

846
00:40:19.971 --> 00:40:21.971
pronunciations of that or possible

847
00:40:22.210 --> 00:40:24.771
amphimerdes as a sort of a map.

848
00:40:25.171 --> 00:40:28.051
If faster than light space travel were

849
00:40:28.051 --> 00:40:30.931
possible, how could one navigate from point A to

850
00:40:30.931 --> 00:40:33.731
point B? Is it possible to develop an

851
00:40:34.221 --> 00:40:36.941
ephemeris for faster than light

852
00:40:36.941 --> 00:40:39.741
travel? Thank you, Art from Rochester, New

853
00:40:39.741 --> 00:40:40.061
York.

854
00:40:41.661 --> 00:40:44.471
Professor Fred Watson: A great question, Art. And, yeah, your

855
00:40:44.471 --> 00:40:47.271
pronunciation is correct. Ephemeris is what these

856
00:40:47.271 --> 00:40:50.271
things are, and ephemerides is what a lot of

857
00:40:50.271 --> 00:40:52.631
them are. So what's an ephemeris? Well,

858
00:40:53.381 --> 00:40:56.021
the original meaning,

859
00:40:56.301 --> 00:40:59.021
and I guess this really is still the meaning of the word

860
00:40:59.021 --> 00:41:01.451
is, to predict

861
00:41:01.691 --> 00:41:04.441
where, planets are going to be,

862
00:41:05.061 --> 00:41:08.031
in the future, where celestial objects are going to

863
00:41:08.031 --> 00:41:10.241
be. So, going back to my

864
00:41:10.561 --> 00:41:13.131
master's degree, back, you know,

865
00:41:13.131 --> 00:41:16.051
150 years ago, my work was on,

866
00:41:16.551 --> 00:41:19.241
the orbits of asteroids. And

867
00:41:19.481 --> 00:41:22.481
so there were two problems. First problem was how do

868
00:41:22.481 --> 00:41:25.161
you take observations of an asteroid? And remember, all we had

869
00:41:25.401 --> 00:41:28.281
in those days was the direction

870
00:41:28.281 --> 00:41:31.121
that you could see measured with a telescope. How do you

871
00:41:31.121 --> 00:41:33.321
turn that into knowledge of the orbit of

872
00:41:33.881 --> 00:41:36.721
the asteroid in three dimensions? And you

873
00:41:36.721 --> 00:41:39.601
can do it. You need at least three observations to do that. But

874
00:41:39.601 --> 00:41:42.281
you can do it. You can mathematically deduce the

875
00:41:42.281 --> 00:41:44.601
orbit from just three directions in space.

876
00:41:45.081 --> 00:41:48.001
But then once you've got the orbit, what you want to know is

877
00:41:48.001 --> 00:41:50.881
where it's going to be in the future, what's its direction

878
00:41:50.881 --> 00:41:53.881
in space going to be? And that is what an ephemeris

879
00:41:53.881 --> 00:41:56.841
is. It's how the position of an object changes,

880
00:41:57.301 --> 00:42:00.081
in the sky, over time. so it comes

881
00:42:00.081 --> 00:42:02.841
from the word ephemeral, meaning stuff that's

882
00:42:02.841 --> 00:42:05.601
temporary. so an ephemeris, is the.

883
00:42:06.721 --> 00:42:09.701
Basically, it's a table, of where an object will

884
00:42:09.701 --> 00:42:12.701
be over a given amount of time. And of course, it's critically

885
00:42:12.701 --> 00:42:15.501
important these days because we now know that,

886
00:42:16.301 --> 00:42:19.301
which we didn't know when I did my master's degree. We

887
00:42:19.301 --> 00:42:22.101
now know that the Earth's locality is pretty heavily

888
00:42:22.101 --> 00:42:24.771
populated with asteroids. And there's, you know,

889
00:42:25.011 --> 00:42:27.891
we might want to know where they are just in Case,

890
00:42:27.981 --> 00:42:30.861
one's heading our way. So, I, you know, I think the

891
00:42:30.861 --> 00:42:33.831
question, Art's question is a good one in

892
00:42:33.831 --> 00:42:36.551
the sense that, okay, he's saying, yes,

893
00:42:36.551 --> 00:42:39.501
we, we use ephemera, ephemerides to,

894
00:42:39.501 --> 00:42:42.341
to basically navigate

895
00:42:42.421 --> 00:42:45.041
to objects. it's actually

896
00:42:45.121 --> 00:42:47.361
a little bit more than that because we, we

897
00:42:47.951 --> 00:42:50.511
use effectively a three dimensional map of where

898
00:42:50.831 --> 00:42:53.321
these planets are, in order to

899
00:42:53.801 --> 00:42:56.761
dictate where they're going to be when your rocket arrives

900
00:42:56.761 --> 00:42:59.641
there. And that's critically important of course, because you want

901
00:42:59.641 --> 00:43:02.201
the rocket to get to the orbit of for example

902
00:43:02.201 --> 00:43:04.831
Pluto, as Art mentions, when

903
00:43:04.831 --> 00:43:07.511
Pluto is going to be, whereabouts the

904
00:43:07.511 --> 00:43:10.511
rocket is. You don't want to reach the orbit of Pluto and find

905
00:43:10.511 --> 00:43:13.401
Pluto somewhere else. That's why you need an ephemeris.

906
00:43:14.201 --> 00:43:17.091
but if you could travel faster than the speed

907
00:43:17.091 --> 00:43:19.611
of light, and we've already shown that that's

908
00:43:19.611 --> 00:43:22.501
impossible, in this episode because you need infinite

909
00:43:22.501 --> 00:43:25.381
energy to do that, ah, to reach the speed of light.

910
00:43:25.541 --> 00:43:28.151
But if you could, the ephemeris would still

911
00:43:28.871 --> 00:43:31.581
work, you would need to put in

912
00:43:31.901 --> 00:43:33.741
a negative number for the

913
00:43:34.891 --> 00:43:37.451
I think the speed of light

914
00:43:37.771 --> 00:43:40.441
actually goes into ephemeris calculations. I remember it

915
00:43:40.911 --> 00:43:43.851
well, but I think you put in a factor.

916
00:43:43.851 --> 00:43:46.611
It wouldn't be a negative number. It would be a factor that would

917
00:43:46.611 --> 00:43:49.611
allow for the fact that you were traveling at faster than the speed of

918
00:43:49.611 --> 00:43:52.371
light. So you could do it. It's not an

919
00:43:52.371 --> 00:43:54.851
impossible mathematical problem.

920
00:43:56.531 --> 00:43:57.651
For what it's worth.

921
00:43:59.171 --> 00:44:01.881
Heidi Campo: Well, that was fantastic. I just about understood that

922
00:44:01.881 --> 00:44:02.201
too.

923
00:44:04.041 --> 00:44:04.601
Professor Fred Watson: Sorry.

924
00:44:04.971 --> 00:44:07.451
Heidi Campo: no, you always do such a great job of explaining these.

925
00:44:08.181 --> 00:44:10.971
my IQ is going up every time I'm involved on

926
00:44:10.971 --> 00:44:13.321
these, these episodes. And also great

927
00:44:13.321 --> 00:44:16.121
questions. We have some of the smartest,

928
00:44:16.441 --> 00:44:19.241
smartest listeners. I mean these people are, are

929
00:44:19.241 --> 00:44:19.721
brilliant.

930
00:44:20.381 --> 00:44:22.971
our, our next question is another audio question,

931
00:44:23.151 --> 00:44:26.041
from David from Munich. And it's a little bit

932
00:44:26.041 --> 00:44:28.801
of a longer question as well. So we are

933
00:44:28.801 --> 00:44:31.641
going to go ahead and play that for you now.

934
00:44:32.291 --> 00:44:34.531
Speaker D: Hey guys, David from Munich here.

935
00:44:35.011 --> 00:44:37.691
Shout out to Andrew, Fred and

936
00:44:37.691 --> 00:44:40.651
Jonti. And I heard that you're a bit

937
00:44:40.651 --> 00:44:43.331
shorter in question, so I thought that my chance

938
00:44:43.331 --> 00:44:46.251
to submit one. I'm currently

939
00:44:46.251 --> 00:44:49.191
looking at the picture, taken by the James

940
00:44:49.191 --> 00:44:52.191
Webb Telescope. You know the first one, the first deep M space,

941
00:44:52.511 --> 00:44:55.311
which was also presented by President Biden back then.

942
00:44:55.711 --> 00:44:58.271
And I realized that the galaxies

943
00:44:58.511 --> 00:45:01.411
do differ in their color pretty

944
00:45:01.411 --> 00:45:04.291
much. So there are more white ones,

945
00:45:04.301 --> 00:45:06.901
orange ones, and also reddish ones.

946
00:45:07.141 --> 00:45:09.411
And I wonder how Is that,

947
00:45:09.891 --> 00:45:12.821
is it due to the fact that or is this like the

948
00:45:12.821 --> 00:45:14.941
redshift because they're moving away,

949
00:45:16.141 --> 00:45:19.021
which I kind of doubt, but I don't know what,

950
00:45:19.101 --> 00:45:22.101
what is it else? Or is there so much material of

951
00:45:22.101 --> 00:45:24.981
a different, of different kind

952
00:45:24.981 --> 00:45:27.861
in the galaxy that he appears for us more

953
00:45:27.861 --> 00:45:30.781
red or more blue. So

954
00:45:31.241 --> 00:45:33.881
be nice if you could explain that. And

955
00:45:34.031 --> 00:45:36.891
also I wonder a bit. Let's imagine we would

956
00:45:36.891 --> 00:45:39.651
travel to this far distant galaxies.

957
00:45:40.341 --> 00:45:42.381
if you could do it potentially,

958
00:45:44.061 --> 00:45:45.901
would it not be some kind of

959
00:45:47.341 --> 00:45:50.341
travel through, through the time? So

960
00:45:50.341 --> 00:45:53.301
because when we look back there, right, we see them on

961
00:45:53.301 --> 00:45:55.741
their early stages. So till it,

962
00:45:56.121 --> 00:45:58.841
it's a long time until the light

963
00:45:58.841 --> 00:46:01.641
reaches us. And if you would travel to that far

964
00:46:01.641 --> 00:46:04.111
distant, galaxies you would

965
00:46:04.671 --> 00:46:07.231
basically. Or what I imagine is like you would

966
00:46:07.231 --> 00:46:10.231
travel through time, right? So if you did, the moment

967
00:46:10.231 --> 00:46:13.231
you come closer and closer the galaxy, or

968
00:46:13.391 --> 00:46:16.271
maybe let's think of a single planet would then change

969
00:46:16.351 --> 00:46:19.111
its appearance, right? So you would see that it's

970
00:46:19.111 --> 00:46:22.021
alter, it shifts maybe its base or it

971
00:46:22.021 --> 00:46:23.981
merges with another galaxy.

972
00:46:25.331 --> 00:46:28.211
is my thinking correct? Would it like the far,

973
00:46:28.291 --> 00:46:31.291
the closer you come, the more it would change its

974
00:46:31.291 --> 00:46:34.091
shape and I don't know,

975
00:46:34.091 --> 00:46:37.041
colors maybe, and things you would

976
00:46:37.041 --> 00:46:39.961
see. yeah, thanks for taking my questions. like

977
00:46:39.961 --> 00:46:41.641
the show and

978
00:46:42.601 --> 00:46:43.321
till then.

979
00:46:43.641 --> 00:46:46.491
Heidi Campo: Well, thank you so much. that was

980
00:46:46.491 --> 00:46:49.391
David from Munich. Thank you. That was a well

981
00:46:49.391 --> 00:46:51.311
thought out question. Fred, I'm so curious.

982
00:46:51.711 --> 00:46:54.271
Professor Fred Watson: They were great questions, Heidi from

983
00:46:54.271 --> 00:46:57.031
David. And in fact the answer to both his

984
00:46:57.031 --> 00:47:00.021
questions is yes. so David's

985
00:47:00.021 --> 00:47:03.021
asking whether the color changes

986
00:47:03.021 --> 00:47:05.971
that we see in the images, of these deep

987
00:47:05.971 --> 00:47:08.841
fields, as we call them, looking way

988
00:47:08.841 --> 00:47:11.771
back in time, whether those different colors

989
00:47:11.771 --> 00:47:14.331
of galaxies is caused by

990
00:47:14.731 --> 00:47:17.291
the different redshifts of these galaxies.

991
00:47:17.371 --> 00:47:20.331
And that's the bottom line. But there's a few

992
00:47:20.331 --> 00:47:22.811
caveats here. Let me just explain what I mean.

993
00:47:23.501 --> 00:47:26.411
redshift is the phenomenon that as

994
00:47:26.411 --> 00:47:28.731
light travels through an expanding universe,

995
00:47:29.371 --> 00:47:32.241
the universe is expanding, light is making its way

996
00:47:32.241 --> 00:47:34.801
through the universe, but as it goes the universe is getting

997
00:47:34.801 --> 00:47:37.721
bigger and so the light's wavelength is

998
00:47:37.721 --> 00:47:40.621
actually being stretched. and ah, as

999
00:47:40.621 --> 00:47:43.381
you stretch the wavelength of light, it goes redder, it goes to the

1000
00:47:43.381 --> 00:47:46.181
redder end of the spectrum. And so that's what's happening.

1001
00:47:46.341 --> 00:47:48.741
But the caveat that I mentioned is that these

1002
00:47:49.061 --> 00:47:51.861
are actually false colors in the sense that

1003
00:47:52.021 --> 00:47:54.981
the James Webb telescope is an infrared telescope.

1004
00:47:54.981 --> 00:47:57.621
So it is looking at light that our eyes are not

1005
00:47:57.621 --> 00:48:00.501
sensitive to. It's actually redder than red light that it's

1006
00:48:00.501 --> 00:48:02.821
looking at. So what the

1007
00:48:03.061 --> 00:48:05.541
mission scientists do is they,

1008
00:48:06.601 --> 00:48:09.321
they take the shortest wavelengths

1009
00:48:09.561 --> 00:48:12.441
that the web can see, which are

1010
00:48:12.681 --> 00:48:15.601
really beyond our. They're redder than red

1011
00:48:15.601 --> 00:48:18.401
for us, for our eyes, but they're the shortest

1012
00:48:18.401 --> 00:48:21.361
wavelengths that the red can detect, and they make that blue in

1013
00:48:21.361 --> 00:48:24.361
their colors. And then the longest wavelengths that the

1014
00:48:24.361 --> 00:48:27.241
web can detect, they make it red in their colors

1015
00:48:27.241 --> 00:48:30.241
and that. So that mimics what we would

1016
00:48:30.241 --> 00:48:33.211
see with our eyes, with visible, you

1017
00:48:33.211 --> 00:48:35.771
know, visible light, but it mimics it moved into the

1018
00:48:35.771 --> 00:48:38.371
infrared. So it does mean that as

1019
00:48:38.451 --> 00:48:41.001
objects, you know, get redder, in the

1020
00:48:41.001 --> 00:48:44.001
infrared spectrum, we see them redder in the James Webb

1021
00:48:44.001 --> 00:48:46.641
telescope images. And that's exactly the reason

1022
00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:50.161
the most distant objects are so highly

1023
00:48:50.161 --> 00:48:52.761
redshifted that you're seeing them as red

1024
00:48:52.761 --> 00:48:55.561
objects compared with the white objects, which are the

1025
00:48:55.561 --> 00:48:58.321
much nearer ones. So David's right on that front.

1026
00:48:59.051 --> 00:49:01.381
His second question, what would some of these

1027
00:49:01.461 --> 00:49:04.381
galaxies we're looking back, you know, up to? I think

1028
00:49:04.381 --> 00:49:07.221
the record is looking back 13.52 billion years

1029
00:49:07.221 --> 00:49:10.221
at the M moment, which is 280 million

1030
00:49:10.221 --> 00:49:13.141
years after the birth of the universe. It's a big

1031
00:49:13.141 --> 00:49:15.701
puzzle as to how galaxies got

1032
00:49:15.941 --> 00:49:18.741
so big and so rich,

1033
00:49:18.821 --> 00:49:21.191
in that short period of time. But that's

1034
00:49:21.911 --> 00:49:24.711
for the cosmologists, not for us. they'll work it out.

1035
00:49:24.711 --> 00:49:27.681
It'll be okay. the bottom line, though, is that if

1036
00:49:27.681 --> 00:49:30.561
you could forget about the journey because we can't

1037
00:49:30.561 --> 00:49:33.321
travel the sort of speeds that you need. But if you

1038
00:49:33.321 --> 00:49:35.731
imagined yourself, instantly

1039
00:49:35.731 --> 00:49:38.251
transported from our,

1040
00:49:38.221 --> 00:49:41.181
vantage point here on Earth to one of

1041
00:49:41.181 --> 00:49:43.901
These early galaxies, 13.52 billion

1042
00:49:43.901 --> 00:49:46.901
years, billion light years away, what you would

1043
00:49:46.901 --> 00:49:49.701
see would be a galaxy that might look a lot like ours.

1044
00:49:50.021 --> 00:49:52.821
It has evolved because you're seeing it.

1045
00:49:53.071 --> 00:49:55.711
I mean, you've got to imagine we're

1046
00:49:56.351 --> 00:49:59.271
being transported instantaneously so that what we

1047
00:49:59.271 --> 00:50:02.111
see is what's happening now. That galaxy will have had

1048
00:50:02.111 --> 00:50:04.951
13.52 billion years of evolution. It'll be

1049
00:50:04.951 --> 00:50:07.671
quite different. It might actually be quite a boring galaxy

1050
00:50:07.671 --> 00:50:10.391
compared with the very, energetic,

1051
00:50:10.451 --> 00:50:13.361
infant galaxy that we look at with the James Webb

1052
00:50:13.361 --> 00:50:16.281
telescope. Complicated answer to a simple question,

1053
00:50:16.281 --> 00:50:17.931
but David's right on the money.

1054
00:50:19.041 --> 00:50:21.121
Heidi Campo: That is such an interesting way of thinking about that.

1055
00:50:23.421 --> 00:50:26.261
I'm going to be spending a while wrapping my head around that

1056
00:50:26.261 --> 00:50:26.541
one.

1057
00:50:27.651 --> 00:50:29.651
our last question of the evening is from

1058
00:50:30.051 --> 00:50:32.531
Daryl Parker of South Australia.

1059
00:50:33.811 --> 00:50:36.731
Daryl says G' day, space nuts. I'm

1060
00:50:36.731 --> 00:50:39.731
not sure of the best way to ask this question. So I'll

1061
00:50:39.731 --> 00:50:41.731
just ask it the best way I can.

1062
00:50:42.531 --> 00:50:44.551
That's usually the, the, the best way.

1063
00:50:45.671 --> 00:50:48.101
do objects, meteors, asteroids,

1064
00:50:48.101 --> 00:50:50.421
comets, planets, stars,

1065
00:50:50.581 --> 00:50:52.981
solar systems and galaxies

1066
00:50:53.461 --> 00:50:56.421
produce heat as they move through space? Is

1067
00:50:56.421 --> 00:50:59.421
it friction or is friction a thing

1068
00:50:59.421 --> 00:51:02.181
in the vacuum of speed, in the vacuum of space?

1069
00:51:02.661 --> 00:51:05.501
Thank you in advance. And that's Daryl from South

1070
00:51:05.501 --> 00:51:05.861
Australia.

1071
00:51:07.481 --> 00:51:10.061
Professor Fred Watson: another, another great question. so

1072
00:51:10.301 --> 00:51:13.031
if this, if space was a complete vacuum,

1073
00:51:13.901 --> 00:51:16.901
and as I'll explain in a minute, it's not quite, but if it

1074
00:51:16.901 --> 00:51:19.581
was a perfect vacuum with nothing in there,

1075
00:51:20.141 --> 00:51:22.531
then, there would be no friction,

1076
00:51:22.781 --> 00:51:25.581
as, Daryl's calling, would

1077
00:51:25.581 --> 00:51:28.431
be, you know, there'd be

1078
00:51:28.511 --> 00:51:31.401
nothing to, limit the speed of motion,

1079
00:51:31.751 --> 00:51:34.611
of an object moving through it. And it wouldn't get hot. There would be

1080
00:51:34.611 --> 00:51:37.241
no friction to heat it. and I think the way

1081
00:51:37.241 --> 00:51:40.021
Daryl's thinking here, and he's quite right to, when a spacecra

1082
00:51:40.331 --> 00:51:43.001
enters the Earth's atmosphere, it's the friction between

1083
00:51:43.001 --> 00:51:45.601
the spacecraft itself moving against the air

1084
00:51:45.601 --> 00:51:48.201
molecules that causes it to be heated and gives us this

1085
00:51:48.361 --> 00:51:51.161
heat of reentry. There are a few subtleties to that, but that's

1086
00:51:51.161 --> 00:51:53.841
basically the way it works. So things moving through an

1087
00:51:53.841 --> 00:51:55.871
atmosphere get hot. now,

1088
00:51:57.691 --> 00:51:59.611
space beyond the Earth's,

1089
00:52:00.461 --> 00:52:02.841
atmosphere is not a vacuum.

1090
00:52:03.241 --> 00:52:06.041
It's very nearly a vacuum. And that's why you can put a

1091
00:52:06.041 --> 00:52:08.601
satellite up and it'll stay up for 200 years or

1092
00:52:08.601 --> 00:52:11.341
whatever. And it's why the Moon doesn't come

1093
00:52:11.341 --> 00:52:14.141
crashing down to Earth. In fact, the Moon's going the other way. It's moving away

1094
00:52:14.141 --> 00:52:16.641
from the Earth, very slowly. but,

1095
00:52:17.571 --> 00:52:19.891
it's nearly a vacuum, but it's not quite

1096
00:52:20.531 --> 00:52:22.291
so There is

1097
00:52:23.091 --> 00:52:25.611
basically a very, very

1098
00:52:25.611 --> 00:52:28.201
slight breaking effect, which

1099
00:52:28.441 --> 00:52:31.401
in the Earth's vicinity. The Earth's atmosphere doesn't just stop.

1100
00:52:31.641 --> 00:52:34.611
It sort of fades away. So even, you know,

1101
00:52:34.611 --> 00:52:37.251
even 10,000 kilometers away, there's still a little bit of

1102
00:52:37.251 --> 00:52:40.131
residual atmosphere, which would have a slowing effect on a

1103
00:52:40.131 --> 00:52:41.771
spacecraft. When you get into

1104
00:52:42.491 --> 00:52:45.411
interplanetary space, there's a lot

1105
00:52:45.411 --> 00:52:48.411
of dust and there's also subatomic

1106
00:52:48.411 --> 00:52:51.291
particles there. When you get to interstellar space, the space

1107
00:52:51.291 --> 00:52:54.011
between the stars, there is something that we call the

1108
00:52:54.011 --> 00:52:56.861
interstellar medium, which is basically

1109
00:52:57.981 --> 00:53:00.301
the radiation and particle environment

1110
00:53:00.701 --> 00:53:03.341
of interstellar space. There are subatomic particles

1111
00:53:03.801 --> 00:53:06.801
all through space. Now there, it's still so much

1112
00:53:06.801 --> 00:53:09.241
of a vacuum that there's nothing really to heat

1113
00:53:09.561 --> 00:53:12.241
a spacecraft. So Voyager, as it ventures

1114
00:53:12.241 --> 00:53:14.881
through interstellar space, is on the brink of

1115
00:53:14.881 --> 00:53:17.741
interstellar space. Now, that won't get hot because

1116
00:53:17.741 --> 00:53:20.721
of that, because the friction is far too

1117
00:53:20.721 --> 00:53:23.321
small. But when you do see its effects,

1118
00:53:23.761 --> 00:53:26.691
they are on very big scales. And we do

1119
00:53:26.691 --> 00:53:29.691
see, when we look at some objects

1120
00:53:29.691 --> 00:53:32.131
deep in space, for example, in a gas cloud, a

1121
00:53:32.131 --> 00:53:34.931
nebula where, maybe there are stars

1122
00:53:34.931 --> 00:53:37.851
forming, sometimes you see objects which are moving through that gas

1123
00:53:37.851 --> 00:53:40.691
cloud and what you can see is a shock wave,

1124
00:53:41.151 --> 00:53:43.871
being generated. And sometimes that

1125
00:53:43.871 --> 00:53:46.711
causes star formation, that shockwave of the gas

1126
00:53:46.711 --> 00:53:49.611
cloud. now, yes, that's Jordi agreeing with

1127
00:53:49.611 --> 00:53:52.531
me there. he's just come back from his walk, so

1128
00:53:52.531 --> 00:53:55.321
he's very enthusiastic about this idea. he's

1129
00:53:55.321 --> 00:53:58.261
probably seen the shockwave. So, and a shockwave

1130
00:53:58.261 --> 00:54:01.221
is what you get when something moves rapidly through the atmosphere. You

1131
00:54:01.221 --> 00:54:03.901
know, that's what causes the sonic boom of a supersonic

1132
00:54:03.901 --> 00:54:06.821
jet. so with very big

1133
00:54:06.821 --> 00:54:09.501
objects in gas clouds in space,

1134
00:54:09.581 --> 00:54:12.141
then you do get that sort of effect. The

1135
00:54:12.141 --> 00:54:14.621
interaction between the moving object and its

1136
00:54:14.621 --> 00:54:17.381
surroundings generates a shockwave and would generate

1137
00:54:17.381 --> 00:54:20.341
heat as well. So under certain circumstances the answer is

1138
00:54:20.341 --> 00:54:23.111
yes, Darrell. But, but probably for most things it's

1139
00:54:23.111 --> 00:54:23.431
no.

1140
00:54:25.351 --> 00:54:28.311
Heidi Campo: So, Fred, I don't know if you'd have time for a follow up question

1141
00:54:29.751 --> 00:54:30.471
of my own.

1142
00:54:32.641 --> 00:54:35.331
so I guess I never really thought of, the

1143
00:54:35.411 --> 00:54:38.091
gravity atmosphere around planets

1144
00:54:38.091 --> 00:54:40.971
having different layers. It's like, I knew there was layers, but it's like

1145
00:54:40.971 --> 00:54:43.851
to really think, okay, it gets thinner and thinner and

1146
00:54:43.851 --> 00:54:46.731
thinner, but there's still particles being pulled into that atmosphere.

1147
00:54:46.731 --> 00:54:49.631
But it just, it spreads out quite a ways

1148
00:54:49.791 --> 00:54:52.511
well beyond our atmosphere. Are there points of

1149
00:54:52.511 --> 00:54:55.511
space, and you may have already mentioned this, but are there points of space where

1150
00:54:55.511 --> 00:54:58.511
there's particles floating around that are not being affected by

1151
00:54:58.511 --> 00:55:01.151
any gravity at all? Or is every

1152
00:55:01.791 --> 00:55:04.391
part of space affected by something's

1153
00:55:04.391 --> 00:55:04.911
gravity?

1154
00:55:05.911 --> 00:55:08.751
Professor Fred Watson: yeah, pretty well. the thing about gravity is it,

1155
00:55:08.751 --> 00:55:11.711
it goes on for infinity. it's

1156
00:55:11.661 --> 00:55:14.051
it's a bit like actually light is the same.

1157
00:55:14.051 --> 00:55:17.011
Electromagnetic radiation will not stop. It just keeps going

1158
00:55:17.791 --> 00:55:20.791
until it gets too weak to be detected. And you're talking

1159
00:55:20.791 --> 00:55:23.791
about a dribble of hardly any photons.

1160
00:55:23.951 --> 00:55:26.911
Gravity is the same. We don't know whether gravity

1161
00:55:26.911 --> 00:55:29.831
has a subatomic particle equivalent. We think it might have,

1162
00:55:29.831 --> 00:55:32.271
and we call them gravitons, but they haven't been discovered yet.

1163
00:55:32.591 --> 00:55:35.301
But yes, that's actually, you know,

1164
00:55:35.301 --> 00:55:37.731
it's why, an object like

1165
00:55:37.731 --> 00:55:40.691
Pluto, way out there in the depths of the solar system,

1166
00:55:40.771 --> 00:55:43.741
is still in orbit around the sun. Even though

1167
00:55:43.901 --> 00:55:46.301
it's all these, what is it, five, six billion

1168
00:55:46.621 --> 00:55:49.351
kilometers away, the gravity of the sun

1169
00:55:49.511 --> 00:55:51.991
is still a force because

1170
00:55:52.471 --> 00:55:55.331
gravity goes on forever. but, of course,

1171
00:55:55.331 --> 00:55:58.211
when you get way out into interstellar

1172
00:55:58.211 --> 00:56:01.051
space, then you might feel the sun's gravity, but you'd also

1173
00:56:01.051 --> 00:56:03.781
feel the gravity of other stars. and

1174
00:56:03.781 --> 00:56:06.781
so I think you're right that there is always going to be a sort of

1175
00:56:06.781 --> 00:56:09.771
gravity background ground, because of the objects

1176
00:56:09.771 --> 00:56:12.411
which are in the, in the universe. Maybe it's

1177
00:56:12.411 --> 00:56:14.651
pretty near zero in the space between

1178
00:56:14.651 --> 00:56:17.611
galaxies, which is pretty empty. Although there are

1179
00:56:17.611 --> 00:56:20.181
subatomic particles there too. but,

1180
00:56:20.341 --> 00:56:23.151
yeah, but no, it's a, it's a very, a, very

1181
00:56:23.151 --> 00:56:25.911
compelling force is gravity, which is just as well

1182
00:56:25.911 --> 00:56:28.231
because otherwise we wouldn't exist.

1183
00:56:28.871 --> 00:56:31.831
Heidi Campo: There's always something pulling. It's just going to

1184
00:56:31.831 --> 00:56:34.471
be stronger or weaker. No matter if it's.

1185
00:56:34.871 --> 00:56:37.031
No matter if it's the biggest gap in

1186
00:56:37.701 --> 00:56:40.341
the known cosmos,

1187
00:56:40.501 --> 00:56:43.221
there's still a little thread pulling us together.

1188
00:56:43.381 --> 00:56:46.181
Oh, that's so beautiful. That's kind of cool. We're all connected

1189
00:56:46.261 --> 00:56:46.821
somehow.

1190
00:56:47.301 --> 00:56:49.301
Professor Fred Watson: That's a connection. That's right. Yeah.

1191
00:56:49.961 --> 00:56:52.441
Heidi Campo: Fred, well, this has been a

1192
00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:55.801
very enlightening Q and A episode

1193
00:56:55.801 --> 00:56:58.441
of Space Nuts. Thank you so much for

1194
00:56:59.081 --> 00:57:01.881
sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.

1195
00:57:02.071 --> 00:57:05.021
while you're. Rooster. I'm sorry? Your dog sings

1196
00:57:05.021 --> 00:57:06.341
his song in the background.

1197
00:57:07.701 --> 00:57:10.611
Professor Fred Watson: That's what he sounds like. I know. It's, His voice hasn't broken

1198
00:57:10.611 --> 00:57:10.891
yet.

1199
00:57:12.091 --> 00:57:14.901
Heidi Campo: It's, it's kind of cute. It's endearing. thank you so

1200
00:57:14.901 --> 00:57:17.731
much. This has been, this has been fantastic. And, we

1201
00:57:17.731 --> 00:57:20.531
will, we will, I guess, catch you guys next

1202
00:57:20.531 --> 00:57:23.051
time. Please keep sending in your amazing

1203
00:57:23.051 --> 00:57:25.851
questions. And, real quick before we go,

1204
00:57:25.951 --> 00:57:27.681
we are going to play a, another,

1205
00:57:29.461 --> 00:57:32.461
another update for you. So this is your little treat for

1206
00:57:32.461 --> 00:57:35.461
listening to the whole thing. We've got an update from Andrew,

1207
00:57:35.461 --> 00:57:38.381
your beloved regular host. I know you

1208
00:57:38.381 --> 00:57:40.981
guys probably miss him because your questions are still

1209
00:57:41.221 --> 00:57:44.150
addressed to him, but, he's on his trip around

1210
00:57:44.150 --> 00:57:47.101
the world, so we're gonna let that, that, that playback now.

1211
00:57:47.901 --> 00:57:50.901
Andrew Dunkley: Hi, Fred. Hi, Heidi. And hello, Huw

1212
00:57:50.901 --> 00:57:51.581
in the studio.

1213
00:57:51.581 --> 00:57:54.331
Andrew, back again, reporting from the Crown

1214
00:57:54.331 --> 00:57:57.141
Princess on our world tour. since I spoke to you

1215
00:57:57.141 --> 00:58:00.101
last, our cruise has made news all over

1216
00:58:00.101 --> 00:58:03.061
Australia. You might have seen some of the reports or heard some of

1217
00:58:03.061 --> 00:58:05.981
the news about some of the, the conditions we've had to

1218
00:58:05.981 --> 00:58:08.941
deal with. When I last spoke to you, I was explaining

1219
00:58:08.941 --> 00:58:11.821
how we were heading into rough weather. We got off to a pretty

1220
00:58:11.821 --> 00:58:14.821
rocky start. Well, it got much,

1221
00:58:14.821 --> 00:58:17.621
much worse. We were having lunch in

1222
00:58:17.941 --> 00:58:20.511
one of the restaurants at the back of the ship ship and

1223
00:58:20.911 --> 00:58:23.831
we got hit by a weather front. It felt like we'd

1224
00:58:23.831 --> 00:58:26.831
been rammed and the, the ship tilted

1225
00:58:26.831 --> 00:58:29.831
over 7 degrees and it stayed there for the

1226
00:58:29.831 --> 00:58:32.511
rest of the day. It just hit us out of

1227
00:58:32.511 --> 00:58:35.471
nowhere. The captain had to do some heavy maneuvering

1228
00:58:35.471 --> 00:58:37.721
to get us into a, you know, better position

1229
00:58:38.441 --> 00:58:41.111
and they had to move the ballast to

1230
00:58:41.411 --> 00:58:44.221
keep the ship balanced and upright. Fight as much

1231
00:58:44.221 --> 00:58:46.811
as they could. yeah, it was pretty harrowing.

1232
00:58:47.051 --> 00:58:49.211
And the weather never got better

1233
00:58:50.091 --> 00:58:52.711
until we got into Adelaide and were in protected

1234
00:58:52.711 --> 00:58:55.641
waters. But the Adelaide was fantastic. Went to

1235
00:58:55.801 --> 00:58:58.531
Handorf as I mentioned, that little German village where

1236
00:58:58.531 --> 00:59:01.531
the, the German people came in all those years ago. They

1237
00:59:01.531 --> 00:59:03.991
were they were basically escaping

1238
00:59:04.291 --> 00:59:07.181
Prussian oppression when they came out here in the 1800s.

1239
00:59:07.181 --> 00:59:10.101
And yeah, made it, made a German town town which is fantastic.

1240
00:59:10.551 --> 00:59:13.411
had a good look around Adelaide although the weather was terrible. We went to

1241
00:59:13.411 --> 00:59:16.371
Mount Lofty which is one of the best views in Australia. And all

1242
00:59:16.371 --> 00:59:19.171
we saw was cloud and very strong

1243
00:59:19.171 --> 00:59:21.801
winds. It was it was quite nasty.

1244
00:59:22.121 --> 00:59:25.061
Got back on board. We had to stay the night in Adelaide because

1245
00:59:25.061 --> 00:59:27.941
of the conditions, hoping they'd settle down. And we, we did have

1246
00:59:27.941 --> 00:59:30.461
some good sailing until we got to the

1247
00:59:30.701 --> 00:59:33.511
West Australian border and then another weather front

1248
00:59:33.511 --> 00:59:36.151
hit us and it got rough again

1249
00:59:37.031 --> 00:59:39.871
and yeah, gosh. And just to top it all

1250
00:59:39.871 --> 00:59:42.791
off, we had a galley fire in the middle of the night at one

1251
00:59:42.791 --> 00:59:45.791
point which they dealt with very, very quickly. So it's been a

1252
00:59:45.791 --> 00:59:48.751
bit of a dog's breakfast of a cruise in

1253
00:59:48.751 --> 00:59:51.551
some respects. But we're still having a fantastic time.

1254
00:59:51.551 --> 00:59:54.481
We stopped at Fremantle again, because of the

1255
00:59:54.481 --> 00:59:57.441
weather. We were very late and so we stayed the night. We have

1256
00:59:57.441 --> 01:00:00.431
friends in Fremantle so we spent the evening with them. It was

1257
01:00:00.431 --> 01:00:03.271
fantastic. And we set sail again

1258
01:00:03.271 --> 01:00:06.031
yesterday, headed west. We leave Australia

1259
01:00:06.111 --> 01:00:08.791
now, headed for Mauritius. That'll be a seven day

1260
01:00:08.791 --> 01:00:10.911
crossing of the Indian Ocean.

1261
01:00:11.551 --> 01:00:14.501
So that's where things are at with our current tour.

1262
01:00:15.431 --> 01:00:18.271
we're really enjoying ourselves, I must confess.

1263
01:00:18.271 --> 01:00:20.551
The crew here is fantastic

1264
01:00:20.951 --> 01:00:23.791
and you know, with over 2,000 Aussies on on board,

1265
01:00:23.791 --> 01:00:26.351
we outnumber everybody about 10 to 1 which is,

1266
01:00:26.911 --> 01:00:29.911
which is good. But so many nationalities. Hope

1267
01:00:29.911 --> 01:00:32.551
all is well back home and in Houston of course.

1268
01:00:32.551 --> 01:00:35.461
Heidi, look forward to talking to you next time. no,

1269
01:00:35.461 --> 01:00:38.421
Aurora Australis missed out completely. Couldn't see that.

1270
01:00:38.581 --> 01:00:41.521
So hopefully when we get up north, we'll see the other end

1271
01:00:41.521 --> 01:00:44.241
of the, country and see if there's any

1272
01:00:44.241 --> 01:00:46.921
lights up north. So until next time,

1273
01:00:46.921 --> 01:00:48.291
Andrew Dunkley signing off. Off.

1274
01:00:49.491 --> 01:00:52.291
Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to the Space Nuts. Podcast,

1275
01:00:53.891 --> 01:00:56.691
available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

1276
01:00:56.851 --> 01:00:59.611
iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast

1277
01:00:59.611 --> 01:01:01.331
player. You can also stream on

1278
01:01:01.331 --> 01:01:04.330
demand at bitesz.com. This has been another

1279
01:01:04.330 --> 01:01:07.181
quality podcast production from bitesz.com

1280
01:01:08.231 --> 01:01:09.271
Heidi Campo: see you later, Fred.

1281
01:01:09.911 --> 01:01:10.711
Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great.