Celebrating 25 Years of the ISS, Moon Crater Mining & Cutting-Edge Rocket Tech

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Andrew Dunkley: Hi there. Thanks for joining us. This is

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Space Nuts, where we talk astronomy, space

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science and whatever else turns up. Sometimes

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we talk about dogs and cats. Uh,

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uh, coming up on the programme today we

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are going to look at the upcoming

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anniversary of the International Space

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Station and other uh, space

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stations that are in low Earth orbit.

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Because, um, come November,

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25 years of continuous occupation

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of space by human humans. That

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is rather wonderful in terms

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of an achievement. We'll uh, also talk about

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the future of the ISS because it's not going

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to be around for that much longer. Um,

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we're also going to look at the moon because

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it might have valuable craters that

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could be worth mining. I don't know how

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Fred Watson feels about digging around on the

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moon, but we will ask him. And

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3D printed rocket motors,

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yes, they are a thing or things. Uh,

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we'll talk about all of that on this episode

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of space nuts. 15 seconds.

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Guidance is internal.

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Professor Fred Watson: 10, 9. Ignition

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sequence start. Uh, space Nuts.

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Space dust.

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Andrew Dunkley: Astronauts report it feels good.

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And we once again welcome his royal self,

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Professor Fred Watson Watson, Astronomer at

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large. Hello, friend.

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Professor Fred Watson: Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. Um,

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um. Uh. I was at an event in rural

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Victoria last week and somebody uh, the

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organiser described me as astronomy

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royalty. So I thought well I'll take that.

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Andrew Dunkley: That's nice. Yes, I didn't know that.

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Professor Fred Watson: It's not true.

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Andrew Dunkley: But there's more than one person that thinks

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that. Fred Watson.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, well, that's nice too. Anyway,

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it was um. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I'm not his

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Royal Highness though I'm basically. And uh,

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that's how I'll stay probably for the.

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Andrew Dunkley: Didn't they make a movie called King

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Fred Watson or something like that? Yeah,

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yeah, Some time m ago.

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Professor Fred Watson: Fred's a good name. It's um, uh, in

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high energy physics which kind of impacts

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on astronomy. It's an acronym uh, for

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fast rise exponential decay.

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Fast rise exponentially K. It's um.

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I'm not sure whether that describes me or

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not, but it's an acronym.

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Andrew Dunkley: It sounds more like Live fast, die young.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's a booty.

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Andrew Dunkley: Not you.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Live slow. Last

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a long time. That's the idea.

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Andrew Dunkley: Now you mentioned uh, before we started that

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there was a uh, conference

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in Is it city at the moment.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. What's that about? Yes, that's. This is

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not the one I was at last week. The one I was

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at last week was uh, an astronomy education

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conference in Melbourne. And followed up by,

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and a shout out to them, the Sea Lake Astro

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Fest. It's the Royal, uh, the uh,

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uh, Astronomical Society of Victoria's annual

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dark sky event. And Sea Lake is a rural

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town, a small rural town, northern Victoria,

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two hours drive south of Mildura. And I spent

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a glorious weekend there uh, with a lot of

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uh, like minded people talking about

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astronomy in space. What's on this week

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though I haven't been invited to

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so I can't be that much astronomer. Astronomy

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royalty. Um, it's the International

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Astronautical Congress and this um,

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is a major international meeting. I think

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there are 11,000 delegates,

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um, and it's on at the convention uh, centre

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here in Sydney. And uh, a lot of really

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fascinating stuff uh, being discussed and

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described. Some extraordinary technology

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turning up in there. Um, um, it's a

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showcase for the world of astronautics.

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Um, uh, but you know it's very much space

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orientated. But it was that in mind that I

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chose the three topics that we're going to

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talk about today because I thought they all,

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all relate to astronautics and space flight.

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Andrew Dunkley: 11,000 delegates did you say?

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah.

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Andrew Dunkley: That's a lot of, it's a lot of plastic

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chairs.

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Professor Fred Watson: It is, yeah.

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Andrew Dunkley: IKEA must be thrilled.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, probably, yeah.

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Sorry, go on.

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Andrew Dunkley: I was going to say you got to wonder about

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organising something like that. I mean a

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logistics on a loan.

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Professor Fred Watson: Now I used to, when I was a sort of, you

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know, proper productive astronomer doing real

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work, uh, rather than just talking to you,

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um, I used to go to conferences

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uh, organised by an organisation called

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spie which was originally, what was

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it, the Society of Photo Optical

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Instrumentation Engineers I think. But they

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in the end just called themselves spie.

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Uh, so I used to build um, astronomical

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instruments mostly involving fibre optics and

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things of that sort back in the day which

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eventually turned out to be quite productive.

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And we did some great surveys with some of

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them. But uh, the annual conferences

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for instrumentation people were these SBIE

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conferences. And uh, I think the last one I

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went to, which was probably 20 years ago,

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already had more than 4,000 delegates and it

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felt like you didn't really know anybody.

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The early ones you kind of knew most of the

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people there, but with 4,000 you didn't

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know anybody. And the other thing about big

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conferences that always I struggle with is

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the parallel sessions. So you've often got

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three streams of sessions running and if you

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want to catch the papers and presentations

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you've got to be ducking in and out of doors

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and standing in the back of rooms and things

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like that. And I'm sure the IAC will uh, be

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like that this week as well. Uh, it's not my

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Idea of a party.

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Andrew Dunkley: I can imagine.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.

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Andrew Dunkley: Anyway, I'm sure it will go well.

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Uh, speaking of space and

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things in space, uh, we are looking at

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in November 25 years of continuous

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occupation of space by humans.

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And we're talking about the ISS amongst other

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things. But there's more than one space

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station up there now, so um, it

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will continue even when the ISS is

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decommissioned in a few years time. That's an

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extraordinary achievement.

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Professor Fred Watson: Isn't it just? Yeah. 25 years

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of constant, of continuous occupation in

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space. It tells you that um, we are

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a world or a species that's able to

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face the challenge of getting off the Earth

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and getting off our home planet and into

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space. Even though. Yes, for those 25 years,

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uh, what's the ISS done? It's gone around in

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circles, but the fact that it's up there,

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um, uh, it's about a height of 400

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kilometres. It's still within the Earth's

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uh, protective shield magnetically so that

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we're within the radiation belts. Um,

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but m. You know, it's still the vacuum of

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space. It's a very

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challenging environment and yeah, we've made

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it work. Uh, and it's once again I think um,

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one of the, perhaps the best things about uh,

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the iss, particularly in this day and age, is

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just a model of international cooperation.

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Yeah. Still, you know those major players

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of uh, European Space Agency,

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NASA, Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency

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and jaxa. Ah, the Japanese Space Agency, the

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Canadian Space Agency, they're the main

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players in the ISS and they're working

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together and um, you know, in the environment

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that we're in now. That's a shining example

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that um, I hope continues beyond the end

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of the iss. Yes.

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Andrew Dunkley: And uh, Australia has been involved as well.

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Um, we've had uh, ah, a

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couple of people up there I think. Um, and

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um, just as I was thinking of their names, it

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all drops out.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yes they do. Um, so Andy Thomas was

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one of Australian astronauts. Uh, I think he

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flew on the space station. He's best known

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for his missions to the Mia,

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uh space station which was a kind of

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precursor. And uh, Paul

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Scully Power, um, another um,

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uh, uh, Australian grown

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but NASA employed astronaut. Uh,

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Paul's a character and a half. I've um, met

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him a few times, hung out with him once. I'm

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sure he led me up to some bar, uh,

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somewhere that I never thought we'd get away

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from. Uh, he's a great guy. Um, but

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um, of course we now have Catherine, uh,

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Bennell Pegg, who is um, uh Also

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selected for the astronaut corps. She

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is an Australian astronaut with a. We uh,

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all hope she'll fly uh, quite soon.

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She's very enthusiastic, a ah, fantastic

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mentor for young uh, kids, especially

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young girls, you know, doing great work

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in, in stem. So uh, yes, we've, we've played

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a part. But you're right, the um,

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it's, it's not the only thing up there of

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course, the Tianwen, ah, it's

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Tiangong isn't it? I should get the name

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right. Space uh, station. The um,

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the Chinese one space station, uh, which has

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uh, been in orbit actually for probably three

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or four years now I think.

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And uh, that's

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uh,

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a growing enterprise in China.

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It is Tiangong. Uh, there's

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Tianwen's uh, spacecraft that's actually

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going to rendezvous with a near Earth

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asteroid not very far down the track. So I've

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got all these names in my head, pick the

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wrong ones. Uh, um, it's about

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the same height, uh, 400 kilometres above the

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Earth's surface. Crew of three

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compared with the crew of the International

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Space Station which is normally um, six

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people but uh, there was one stage this year

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when it was up to 11, ah, with people kind

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of camping around different bits of the

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different bits of the space station, finding

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somewhere to sleep. Uh, but it's big enough

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that you can do that and still have a bit of

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privacy about it. Yes. So um, yeah,

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so uh, it's been a, you know, it has been a

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fantastic resource. Uh, a lot of people

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in the early days complain, you know, what's

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it doing? It's just going around in circles.

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It's conducted more than 4,000 experiments.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, and for more than 4,000,

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4,400 research publications uh,

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which have come about, uh, many of which are

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ah, about quite earthy things, you know, how,

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uh, medical issues, uh, things that we might

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learn from, uh, our occupation of space that

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will help to improve um, our

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life down on Earth. Um,

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yeah, uh, it's been terrific. So

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the end of the road will come uh, in five

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years time, uh, not sure what time of year

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but 2030, uh, the plan is to deorbit

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it uh, and to send it down

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into that um, sort of graveyard region

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in the Pacific Ocean. It's that point that's

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the furthest away from land of any part of

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the ocean, uh, on the whole of the planet.

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And there's a lot of space hardware on the

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floor of the ocean there and it's going to

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include the International Space Station.

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Yeah.

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Andrew Dunkley: Okay. So they probably won't recover

264
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it uh, fairly deep there I

265
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imagine, but uh, uh, they're

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bringing it back down. But that won't end the

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presence of humans in orbit because the

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Chinese will be there and NASA is working

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with private companies to put

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more hardware in low earth orbit.

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Professor Fred Watson: That's correct, yes. So um,

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commercial partners is the

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watchword as we've seen from ferrying

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astronauts up and down to the space station.

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The way we've got um, both uh, Blue

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Origin and SpaceX as major players in the

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Artemis programme. So all of that

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uh, is in place. Um, I think

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uh, there's something, yeah something called

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the Phase two partnership, um

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uh, which is proposals for commercial

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space stations and that NASA uh

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apparently issued um, their draught

284
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announcement of this phase two partnership

285
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this month, uh September 2025.

286
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So uh, that will allow

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um, companies to

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uh, get funding to

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do critical design reviews,

290
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uh, maybe demonstrators. Uh, one

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of the demonstrators that we're hearing about

292
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is the idea of a four person space

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station, uh, with a lifetime of at

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least 30 days. Um, you know, so it

295
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is um, it's an ongoing business and

296
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I think you and I are going to have a great

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time in the next five years because we'll

298
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start to see what is coming up uh,

299
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as being the replacement for the

300
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International Space Station. It could even be

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an inflatable module.

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Andrew Dunkley: Uh, I know they were experimenting with that.

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Professor Fred Watson: They were.

304
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Andrew Dunkley: That was m. Yeah.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, sounds pretty good. Yeah,

306
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well it sounds ridiculous to me but

307
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apparently uh, inflatable space stations are

308
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actually more uh, resistant or

309
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more resilient to space debris than

310
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solid ones because you can make the, you can

311
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make the fabric of which you make uh, which

312
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you can construct it. Um, you can make

313
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it out of many different layers including you

314
00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:19.360
know, the bulletproof material and things of

315
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that sort. And in some ways it becomes self

316
00:13:21.680 --> 00:13:23.880
healing. You put, put a hole in it and, and

317
00:13:23.880 --> 00:13:26.120
it just goes oh right. And covers comes up

318
00:13:26.120 --> 00:13:26.600
the whole.

319
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Andrew Dunkley: Like that stuff you used to put in a car

320
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tire.

321
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Professor Fred Watson: What was it called?

322
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Andrew Dunkley: Fini Leak or something? Yeah, you got it, you

323
00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:33.280
got a flat and you just pumped it back up and

324
00:13:33.280 --> 00:13:33.960
it was fixed.

325
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Professor Fred Watson: Yes, I've heard from people that that didn't

326
00:13:37.450 --> 00:13:38.850
always work terribly well.

327
00:13:40.530 --> 00:13:43.250
M. Um. When we discovered that

328
00:13:43.250 --> 00:13:46.090
Marnie's uh, Suzuki doesn't have a

329
00:13:46.090 --> 00:13:48.610
spare wheel a ah couple of weeks ago because

330
00:13:48.610 --> 00:13:51.250
she had a Hampshire. Anyway,

331
00:13:51.570 --> 00:13:54.090
that was a different story but um. Uh, it

332
00:13:54.090 --> 00:13:55.930
was, was it Bigelow? I think that's the name

333
00:13:55.930 --> 00:13:58.770
of the company. They back 20 years ago

334
00:13:58.930 --> 00:14:01.170
were um. In fact they launched two

335
00:14:01.700 --> 00:14:03.940
spacecraft whose names I can't remember now,

336
00:14:04.270 --> 00:14:07.060
uh, which were um, basically aimed at

337
00:14:07.300 --> 00:14:10.180
the space tourism industry. Um, to have

338
00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:13.010
an orbiting hotel which was um,

339
00:14:13.300 --> 00:14:16.260
basically constructed of fabric rather than

340
00:14:16.260 --> 00:14:19.020
solid metal. And I think the two of them are

341
00:14:19.020 --> 00:14:21.060
still up there. Uh, actually I think they're

342
00:14:21.060 --> 00:14:21.620
still in orbit.

343
00:14:21.620 --> 00:14:24.020
Yeah, no people on them. One of them was

344
00:14:24.020 --> 00:14:25.820
filled up with bits of paper with people's

345
00:14:25.820 --> 00:14:28.300
photographs on and their names, uh, uh,

346
00:14:28.820 --> 00:14:31.340
so you could see a photograph. There was a

347
00:14:31.340 --> 00:14:33.220
camera that showed all these things floating

348
00:14:33.220 --> 00:14:34.340
around in zero g.

349
00:14:34.580 --> 00:14:37.220
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah, look, the space hotel.

350
00:14:37.300 --> 00:14:39.300
That's going to be a thing for sure one day,

351
00:14:39.540 --> 00:14:42.040
no doubt about it. But uh,

352
00:14:42.260 --> 00:14:45.140
25 years of continuous human occupation of

353
00:14:45.140 --> 00:14:47.920
space and uh, counting, it's um,

354
00:14:48.100 --> 00:14:50.940
going to. And the other point is, um, uh, in

355
00:14:50.940 --> 00:14:53.780
those 25 years there has never been a time

356
00:14:53.780 --> 00:14:56.150
where there was not an American in space.

357
00:14:56.150 --> 00:14:58.070
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's true. That's, that's true.

358
00:14:58.070 --> 00:15:00.830
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, that too is impressive. Yes. All

359
00:15:00.830 --> 00:15:03.190
right, uh, you can read all about it in a

360
00:15:03.190 --> 00:15:05.830
great article on the conversation.com.

361
00:15:05.990 --> 00:15:08.310
this is space Nuts Andrew Dunkley here with

362
00:15:08.310 --> 00:15:09.830
Professor Fred Watson Watson.

363
00:15:11.990 --> 00:15:14.950
Space Nuts. Let's move a little further out

364
00:15:14.950 --> 00:15:17.470
from low Earth orbit to uh, our uh, one and

365
00:15:17.470 --> 00:15:20.430
only natural satellite, the Moon. And it's

366
00:15:20.430 --> 00:15:23.080
being looked at the, with very, very um,

367
00:15:23.400 --> 00:15:25.780
um, what's the word I'm looking for?

368
00:15:26.340 --> 00:15:29.300
Uh, enticing attitudes. They

369
00:15:29.300 --> 00:15:32.230
want to uh, look into the craters because uh,

370
00:15:32.260 --> 00:15:35.260
they think that those craters

371
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may contain some rich deposits of

372
00:15:38.100 --> 00:15:40.610
precious metals, uh, that um,

373
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we could probably use.

374
00:15:44.660 --> 00:15:47.540
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. I love the logic of this research,

375
00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:51.210
uh, Andrew. Um, it's kind

376
00:15:51.210 --> 00:15:53.890
of flawless really. But it's something that

377
00:15:53.890 --> 00:15:56.810
we haven't thought of before and that is that

378
00:15:57.690 --> 00:15:59.800
people um, uh,

379
00:16:00.810 --> 00:16:03.450
have thought, been thinking perhaps for the

380
00:16:03.450 --> 00:16:06.250
last 15 years about the metal and

381
00:16:06.250 --> 00:16:08.810
mineral reserves that we know exist on

382
00:16:08.810 --> 00:16:11.810
asteroids. Uh, and 15

383
00:16:11.810 --> 00:16:14.010
years ago I'm sure you and I talked about it

384
00:16:14.010 --> 00:16:16.700
probably when you were on ABC Western

385
00:16:16.700 --> 00:16:18.940
Plains then rather than the podcast.

386
00:16:19.380 --> 00:16:21.740
Uh, there were companies set up. One was

387
00:16:21.740 --> 00:16:24.540
Planetary Resources Deep, uh, Space

388
00:16:24.540 --> 00:16:26.900
Industries was another. Uh, I think they've

389
00:16:26.900 --> 00:16:29.020
all been taken over by blockchain companies

390
00:16:29.020 --> 00:16:30.980
now. They're not really active anymore. But

391
00:16:30.980 --> 00:16:33.940
the idea was to set up a

392
00:16:33.940 --> 00:16:36.780
space, a kind of off planet economy where

393
00:16:36.780 --> 00:16:39.260
you go and mine these asteroids for

394
00:16:39.820 --> 00:16:41.860
uh, resources. Um,

395
00:16:43.070 --> 00:16:45.830
but there are all kinds of pitfalls

396
00:16:45.830 --> 00:16:48.230
with even these near Earth asteroids. It's

397
00:16:48.230 --> 00:16:51.030
actually for a start, uh, you know,

398
00:16:51.030 --> 00:16:54.030
they've got so little gravity that um, any

399
00:16:54.190 --> 00:16:56.830
mining apparatus that you put on it

400
00:16:57.150 --> 00:17:00.030
risks just floating away, uh, as

401
00:17:00.030 --> 00:17:02.110
it tries to dig up stuff.

402
00:17:02.640 --> 00:17:05.070
Um, they're quite

403
00:17:05.070 --> 00:17:07.870
complicated um, to

404
00:17:07.870 --> 00:17:10.370
reach as well, even though the nearest Earth,

405
00:17:10.370 --> 00:17:12.520
uh, asteroids of course, ah, come near the

406
00:17:12.520 --> 00:17:15.240
Earth. Uh, but that um, places

407
00:17:15.560 --> 00:17:18.360
some demands on the astrodynamics

408
00:17:18.360 --> 00:17:20.000
needed to get there. Um,

409
00:17:21.640 --> 00:17:23.960
here's the other thing and this probably,

410
00:17:24.570 --> 00:17:26.600
uh, is one of the things that makes it

411
00:17:26.600 --> 00:17:29.160
difficult. They tumble in space.

412
00:17:30.120 --> 00:17:32.840
You know, they're rotating, they're all

413
00:17:32.840 --> 00:17:35.800
rotating sometimes in uh, you know, if

414
00:17:35.800 --> 00:17:37.920
you've got a small one, they'll rotate once

415
00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:40.880
in not just a few hours but um, you

416
00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:43.840
know, a few minutes really. Uh, and if you've

417
00:17:43.840 --> 00:17:45.960
got something I'm um, trying to stick onto it

418
00:17:45.960 --> 00:17:48.120
and dig holes in it, that's quite a

419
00:17:48.120 --> 00:17:50.880
challenge. So here's the logic though.

420
00:17:51.110 --> 00:17:53.150
Um, if uh,

421
00:17:54.090 --> 00:17:56.400
uh, we think that there are

422
00:17:56.800 --> 00:17:59.400
valuable minerals uh,

423
00:18:00.320 --> 00:18:03.040
in asteroids, why don't we

424
00:18:03.720 --> 00:18:06.200
go and find the debris

425
00:18:06.600 --> 00:18:09.360
that was left by asteroids when they hit the

426
00:18:09.360 --> 00:18:12.200
moon? Uh, and that is the

427
00:18:12.760 --> 00:18:15.160
material that uh, is

428
00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:17.800
in and around lunar craters.

429
00:18:18.310 --> 00:18:20.520
Uh, so this is research that's been done by

430
00:18:20.590 --> 00:18:23.360
uh, I think it's a team, there are

431
00:18:23.360 --> 00:18:24.800
universities involved, but I think it's an

432
00:18:24.800 --> 00:18:27.180
independent astronomer who's led it. Um,

433
00:18:28.360 --> 00:18:31.210
if you uh, think about the

434
00:18:31.210 --> 00:18:33.630
craters of the moon, uh,

435
00:18:34.530 --> 00:18:37.450
you can actually analyse a lot of

436
00:18:37.450 --> 00:18:39.890
what their geology is like from above just by

437
00:18:39.890 --> 00:18:42.290
looking at the spectrum colours of the rocks.

438
00:18:42.290 --> 00:18:44.290
You're basically doing something called

439
00:18:44.290 --> 00:18:46.210
spectrophotometry where you're breaking up

440
00:18:46.370 --> 00:18:49.090
basically using filters, uh, to find

441
00:18:49.090 --> 00:18:51.650
them. And they suggest, these researchers

442
00:18:51.810 --> 00:18:54.210
suggest that there are up to

443
00:18:55.010 --> 00:18:57.890
6,500 impact craters that

444
00:18:57.890 --> 00:19:00.480
might contain the platinum group metals

445
00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:03.360
like rhodium, palladium and platinum itself.

446
00:19:03.760 --> 00:19:06.640
And they also suspect about half that number

447
00:19:07.360 --> 00:19:10.200
might be water bearing, that they've

448
00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:12.880
got hydrated minerals in it and it's a

449
00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:15.680
molecule that basically you can extract water

450
00:19:15.760 --> 00:19:18.240
from. Um, and so

451
00:19:18.320 --> 00:19:21.120
um, in fact what the team writes, and I'm

452
00:19:21.360 --> 00:19:23.460
reading here partly from Michelle, uh,

453
00:19:23.880 --> 00:19:26.120
Starr's article, uh, on Science Alert.

454
00:19:26.120 --> 00:19:28.760
Michelle Starr, one of our um, heroines, I

455
00:19:28.760 --> 00:19:31.740
think in terms of uh, science journalism, uh,

456
00:19:31.740 --> 00:19:33.380
she's written a very nice article on this,

457
00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:36.260
but she quotes uh, one of the

458
00:19:36.260 --> 00:19:38.780
team members, these numbers, the

459
00:19:38.780 --> 00:19:41.700
6500 and about 3400 impact

460
00:19:41.700 --> 00:19:44.660
craters with water. These values are one to

461
00:19:44.660 --> 00:19:46.820
two orders of magnitude larger than the

462
00:19:46.820 --> 00:19:49.420
number of ore bearing near Earth asteroids,

463
00:19:49.860 --> 00:19:52.740
um, uh, that we could, you know, we

464
00:19:52.740 --> 00:19:55.580
could effectively mine. Uh, that implies

465
00:19:55.580 --> 00:19:57.740
that it may be more advantageous and hence

466
00:19:57.740 --> 00:20:00.260
more profitable to mine asteroids that have

467
00:20:00.260 --> 00:20:03.070
impacted the Moon rather than the ones that

468
00:20:03.070 --> 00:20:06.010
are important than it, that are in orbit. Uh,

469
00:20:06.010 --> 00:20:08.910
and so yeah, that's um, a really

470
00:20:08.910 --> 00:20:11.600
Interesting idea. It is. Um,

471
00:20:11.990 --> 00:20:14.270
and as you say, as you said in your intro,

472
00:20:14.270 --> 00:20:17.230
there are ethical considerations with this as

473
00:20:17.230 --> 00:20:20.070
well. Um, I'm interested in your view of

474
00:20:20.070 --> 00:20:20.710
that, Andrew.

475
00:20:21.270 --> 00:20:22.550
Andrew Dunkley: What? Mining the moon?

476
00:20:22.710 --> 00:20:23.190
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.

477
00:20:23.590 --> 00:20:26.380
Andrew Dunkley: Well, it takes it away from Earth, um,

478
00:20:26.710 --> 00:20:29.520
and then it's, it's got limited resources

479
00:20:29.520 --> 00:20:32.200
and um, there's a lot of controversy about

480
00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:35.120
mining the m. Moon. Uh, mining the Earth

481
00:20:35.120 --> 00:20:37.440
because of the environmental impact, because

482
00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:40.120
so many creatures, including humans,

483
00:20:40.120 --> 00:20:43.120
rely on a decent environment. Um,

484
00:20:43.840 --> 00:20:46.700
mining the moon, not the same problem. Um,

485
00:20:47.520 --> 00:20:50.520
I'm, I'm m. Not that much against it,

486
00:20:50.520 --> 00:20:52.680
to be honest. I think, uh, if there's stuff

487
00:20:52.680 --> 00:20:54.560
there that we need and we can use.

488
00:20:56.490 --> 00:20:58.330
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I think, Kami, we should have a crack.

489
00:20:59.450 --> 00:21:02.010
I think I agree with that. I still

490
00:21:02.410 --> 00:21:05.050
think, um, the Moon needs to be

491
00:21:05.050 --> 00:21:07.970
handled with great care in the sense

492
00:21:07.970 --> 00:21:10.769
that. Yeah. Uh, except we're not mining

493
00:21:10.769 --> 00:21:12.810
Antarctica because I was about to mine.

494
00:21:12.810 --> 00:21:13.290
Andrew Dunkley: Not yet.

495
00:21:13.530 --> 00:21:15.570
Professor Fred Watson: No. Well, not yet. That's right. Um,

496
00:21:16.250 --> 00:21:19.050
so do you want to, uh, pass

497
00:21:19.050 --> 00:21:21.250
legislation that says the Moon is used for

498
00:21:21.250 --> 00:21:24.170
purely scientific purposes, or do you want to

499
00:21:24.810 --> 00:21:27.650
open up the possibility of maybe just

500
00:21:27.650 --> 00:21:30.170
limited mining in certain areas? Um,

501
00:21:31.370 --> 00:21:33.730
uh, it's something I'd be ambivalent about as

502
00:21:33.730 --> 00:21:36.330
well, I think, um. I don't think I'd rule it

503
00:21:36.330 --> 00:21:38.250
out completely, but I think it would have to

504
00:21:38.650 --> 00:21:41.450
be done within an ethical framework. And that

505
00:21:41.450 --> 00:21:43.850
to me means international collaboration,

506
00:21:43.850 --> 00:21:46.170
which we don't have at the moment. What we've

507
00:21:46.170 --> 00:21:48.410
got is a race to the Moon, uh, effectively.

508
00:21:48.730 --> 00:21:51.570
And perhaps this is one of the, um,

509
00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:54.480
you know, this is one of the carrots that is,

510
00:21:54.530 --> 00:21:57.080
uh, dragging that race to the Moon along or

511
00:21:57.080 --> 00:21:58.720
accelerating that race to the Moon.

512
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:02.000
Andrew Dunkley: Well, there are already things on the Moon

513
00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:04.760
that um, we see as

514
00:22:04.760 --> 00:22:07.359
valuable that don't exist or are

515
00:22:07.359 --> 00:22:09.040
easily accessible on Earth.

516
00:22:10.320 --> 00:22:12.360
So that's another thing that's probably got

517
00:22:12.360 --> 00:22:13.200
them rushing.

518
00:22:13.280 --> 00:22:15.560
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, you're probably thinking of, um, helium

519
00:22:15.560 --> 00:22:18.450
3, the rare isotope of helium that would.

520
00:22:19.250 --> 00:22:21.820
Has the promise of cheap, uh,

521
00:22:22.050 --> 00:22:24.890
fusion reactors, cheap and safe

522
00:22:24.890 --> 00:22:27.370
fusion reactors because of the low levels of

523
00:22:27.370 --> 00:22:29.930
radiation that they emit. M. Um, that's still

524
00:22:29.930 --> 00:22:31.650
an unproven technology. I don't think we've

525
00:22:31.650 --> 00:22:34.370
got Enough helium, helium 3 on the Earth to

526
00:22:34.370 --> 00:22:36.690
build a reactor. It's very rare on our

527
00:22:36.690 --> 00:22:39.170
planet, but, um, it's thought to be fairly

528
00:22:39.170 --> 00:22:41.770
prolific on the Moon because it's formed from

529
00:22:41.770 --> 00:22:44.650
the solar radiation. So you know that.

530
00:22:44.650 --> 00:22:47.250
Yeah, that's another issue. So, yes, I think,

531
00:22:47.280 --> 00:22:50.150
um, I'd be certainly open to the

532
00:22:50.150 --> 00:22:51.950
debate, but I would like it to be in an

533
00:22:51.950 --> 00:22:54.670
international forum and maybe the forum

534
00:22:54.750 --> 00:22:56.990
would be the one I was involved with a couple

535
00:22:56.990 --> 00:22:58.990
of years ago, kopos, the Committee on the

536
00:22:58.990 --> 00:23:01.870
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Uh, which is a

537
00:23:02.030 --> 00:23:04.990
subset of unusa, the UN Office of Outer Space

538
00:23:04.990 --> 00:23:07.990
Affairs. Um, one would hope that they will

539
00:23:07.990 --> 00:23:09.950
be deeply involved with something like this.

540
00:23:10.080 --> 00:23:12.510
Um, and um, that some sort of

541
00:23:12.510 --> 00:23:14.460
contestants might emerge from it.

542
00:23:15.980 --> 00:23:18.900
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, I hope so. Um, of course if they do

543
00:23:18.900 --> 00:23:20.820
end up going up there and digging around and

544
00:23:20.820 --> 00:23:23.060
going ah, this is just junk. It's just, you

545
00:23:23.060 --> 00:23:25.740
know, um, maybe the dairy industry will find

546
00:23:25.740 --> 00:23:27.020
something easy. So.

547
00:23:29.579 --> 00:23:32.550
Professor Fred Watson: I think that's, that is quite a leap of uh.

548
00:23:33.580 --> 00:23:35.500
Andrew Dunkley: I don't know. When I was a kid, when I.

549
00:23:35.500 --> 00:23:38.220
Professor Fred Watson: Was a kid I thought the cow jumped over the

550
00:23:38.220 --> 00:23:39.820
moon. It didn't actually land on it.

551
00:23:40.220 --> 00:23:42.340
Andrew Dunkley: I was told that the moon was made of cheese.

552
00:23:42.340 --> 00:23:45.080
Professor Fred Watson: Cheese, yeah. Anyway, uh,

553
00:23:45.100 --> 00:23:46.140
yeah, there you go.

554
00:23:46.300 --> 00:23:49.140
Andrew Dunkley: There are all sorts of possibilities, but the

555
00:23:49.140 --> 00:23:50.060
possibility of water.

556
00:23:50.750 --> 00:23:51.780
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yeah, that's right.

557
00:23:51.780 --> 00:23:53.100
Andrew Dunkley: In some of these craters too.

558
00:23:53.660 --> 00:23:56.420
Professor Fred Watson: And I think you know, Artemis, um, well,

559
00:23:56.420 --> 00:23:57.980
Artemis 2 is going to be a flyby.

560
00:23:57.980 --> 00:23:59.940
Artemis 3, the first landing on the mission.

561
00:23:59.940 --> 00:24:02.780
We hope in about two years time if

562
00:24:02.780 --> 00:24:05.420
Blue Origin and um, SpaceX get their act

563
00:24:05.420 --> 00:24:07.380
together with their respective lunar landers,

564
00:24:07.380 --> 00:24:09.780
which are still uh, quite a long way from

565
00:24:09.780 --> 00:24:12.680
being ready, that uh, that could start to

566
00:24:12.680 --> 00:24:15.680
tell us, uh, because we'll naturally there'll

567
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.360
be samples coming back which will be uh,

568
00:24:18.360 --> 00:24:20.800
checked for all these hydrated molecules and

569
00:24:20.800 --> 00:24:23.520
perhaps um, just for ice itself because

570
00:24:23.600 --> 00:24:25.200
uh, you're going to be near some of the

571
00:24:25.520 --> 00:24:28.240
craters that have never seen sunlight,

572
00:24:28.860 --> 00:24:31.760
uh, on the moon's south pole. Yeah, so we're

573
00:24:31.760 --> 00:24:33.900
in a really interesting time, Andrew. And uh,

574
00:24:33.900 --> 00:24:36.440
so much ahead that M may or may not

575
00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:37.450
contrafete fruition.

576
00:24:38.170 --> 00:24:40.370
Andrew Dunkley: We will wait and see. Uh, you can read all

577
00:24:40.370 --> 00:24:43.210
about it in the paper that's been

578
00:24:43.210 --> 00:24:45.650
published in Planetary and Space Science or

579
00:24:45.650 --> 00:24:46.650
you can read the

580
00:24:46.650 --> 00:24:49.050
article@sciencealert.com

581
00:24:49.450 --> 00:24:51.530
this is space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and

582
00:24:51.530 --> 00:24:54.090
Fred Watson Watson. Three, two,

583
00:24:54.730 --> 00:24:56.890
one. Space Nuts.

584
00:24:57.290 --> 00:25:00.170
Our final story on this episode, Fred Watson,

585
00:25:00.310 --> 00:25:02.790
uh, is about uh,

586
00:25:02.900 --> 00:25:05.700
creating a, a, uh, new rocket

587
00:25:05.700 --> 00:25:08.620
motor. But uh, this one's a bit

588
00:25:08.620 --> 00:25:11.620
different. They're going to 3D print them and

589
00:25:11.620 --> 00:25:13.460
it is an Australian project.

590
00:25:14.580 --> 00:25:17.380
Professor Fred Watson: That's right, 3D printed

591
00:25:17.380 --> 00:25:19.910
rocket motors are not new. Um,

592
00:25:20.260 --> 00:25:23.220
there's I think rocket lab in

593
00:25:23.220 --> 00:25:25.860
New Zealand might. Oh yeah, and

594
00:25:26.500 --> 00:25:28.660
possibly Gilmour as well here in Australia.

595
00:25:29.490 --> 00:25:31.500
Uh, but this is uh,

596
00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:35.360
different and it's uh, a first of a different

597
00:25:35.360 --> 00:25:38.120
kind because it's uh. This

598
00:25:38.120 --> 00:25:40.760
blows my mind I have to say. It's a

599
00:25:40.760 --> 00:25:42.880
3D printed rocket motor

600
00:25:43.520 --> 00:25:46.520
made out of two different metals. And

601
00:25:46.520 --> 00:25:49.360
as I understand it as in the 3D

602
00:25:49.360 --> 00:25:52.200
printing process you can lay

603
00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:55.150
these metals down independently and ah,

604
00:25:55.280 --> 00:25:57.750
maybe even m mix them. But you can, I think

605
00:25:57.750 --> 00:25:59.390
you can structure the thing so that the

606
00:25:59.390 --> 00:26:01.150
different bits of it uh, have the metals

607
00:26:01.150 --> 00:26:03.830
where you want them to be. Um, which is an

608
00:26:03.830 --> 00:26:05.790
extraordinary thing. There's a lot of things

609
00:26:05.790 --> 00:26:08.130
that surprise me about um,

610
00:26:09.870 --> 00:26:12.270
this story Andrew, which is actually on Space

611
00:26:12.270 --> 00:26:14.590
Connect, uh, which is an Australian

612
00:26:14.990 --> 00:26:17.890
homegrown space uh

613
00:26:18.190 --> 00:26:21.070
website. Um, the first is that

614
00:26:22.750 --> 00:26:25.320
this work has been done by

615
00:26:25.850 --> 00:26:26.600
uh, using

616
00:26:29.800 --> 00:26:32.120
an off the shelf 3D printer and it's

617
00:26:32.120 --> 00:26:34.760
apparently called a Nikon SLM Solutions

618
00:26:34.840 --> 00:26:37.760
SLM2082MA M metal

619
00:26:37.760 --> 00:26:40.120
printer. The fact that you can buy something

620
00:26:40.199 --> 00:26:43.040
like that uh, is just you know,

621
00:26:43.040 --> 00:26:44.910
a reflection of the era that we live in. And

622
00:26:44.910 --> 00:26:47.400
um, it may well be that some of our SpaceNots

623
00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:49.760
listeners are in the 3D printing industry and

624
00:26:49.760 --> 00:26:51.680
they might say oh this is old stuff, this is

625
00:26:51.680 --> 00:26:54.190
completely old hat. And I have to say uh,

626
00:26:54.190 --> 00:26:57.140
back in 2000 um, when we were building

627
00:26:57.300 --> 00:26:59.620
the 60F instrument for the UK Schmidt

628
00:26:59.620 --> 00:27:01.020
telescope, remember I used to build

629
00:27:01.020 --> 00:27:03.940
instruments, we actually did 3D print some of

630
00:27:03.940 --> 00:27:06.140
the components for that but they were made of

631
00:27:06.140 --> 00:27:08.340
plastic effectively. But it was a really good

632
00:27:08.340 --> 00:27:10.020
way of doing it. And it was one of our

633
00:27:10.260 --> 00:27:12.620
scientists, Will Saunders, Dr. Will Saunders,

634
00:27:12.620 --> 00:27:15.500
he suggested the 3D printing process and it

635
00:27:15.500 --> 00:27:18.300
turned out very successfully. So 3D printing

636
00:27:18.300 --> 00:27:21.180
is not a new technology. But um, you

637
00:27:21.180 --> 00:27:22.460
know the fact that you could go and buy

638
00:27:22.460 --> 00:27:24.040
something that will print with two different

639
00:27:24.040 --> 00:27:26.160
metals to me blows my mind.

640
00:27:26.930 --> 00:27:29.800
Um, so uh, Space Machines company

641
00:27:29.800 --> 00:27:32.560
is smc, uh and they are the

642
00:27:32.870 --> 00:27:35.600
uh, delivery agency for this

643
00:27:36.030 --> 00:27:38.840
uh, uh new facility and it's in

644
00:27:38.840 --> 00:27:40.960
partnership with our national science agency,

645
00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:43.520
the csiro, uh

646
00:27:43.520 --> 00:27:45.520
Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research

647
00:27:45.520 --> 00:27:48.190
Organisation, um with uh,

648
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:50.430
some number of colleagues from there. I was

649
00:27:50.430 --> 00:27:53.070
at, with last week at the uh, conference. So

650
00:27:53.070 --> 00:27:55.910
CSRO and SMC Space Machines

651
00:27:55.910 --> 00:27:58.630
company have uh, built this thruster

652
00:27:59.080 --> 00:28:01.830
uh for something called the Optimus

653
00:28:01.830 --> 00:28:04.270
Viper spacecraft which is an Australian built

654
00:28:04.270 --> 00:28:06.870
platform designed for on orbit

655
00:28:06.870 --> 00:28:09.550
inspection, servicing and logistics. As we

656
00:28:09.550 --> 00:28:10.470
read in their blur.

657
00:28:10.470 --> 00:28:12.150
Andrew Dunkley: It sounds like a cool spacecraft.

658
00:28:12.310 --> 00:28:12.950
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah it does.

659
00:28:13.190 --> 00:28:13.670
Andrew Dunkley: Viper.

660
00:28:13.910 --> 00:28:15.110
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah I like that too.

661
00:28:16.950 --> 00:28:18.670
So um, it's uh,

662
00:28:19.910 --> 00:28:22.910
really um. I think part of this is, and

663
00:28:22.910 --> 00:28:24.670
we hear this a lot these days, it's our

664
00:28:24.670 --> 00:28:27.230
sovereign capability, uh we're

665
00:28:27.230 --> 00:28:29.990
striving uh to build a sovereign space

666
00:28:29.990 --> 00:28:32.389
capabilities um by

667
00:28:32.390 --> 00:28:34.790
developing manufacturing and operating

668
00:28:35.030 --> 00:28:36.790
space technology right here in Australia.

669
00:28:36.790 --> 00:28:39.590
That comes from uh, Darren Lovett who is

670
00:28:41.430 --> 00:28:43.110
the executive director of something called

671
00:28:43.110 --> 00:28:45.770
Ilaunch. Ilaunch is a.

672
00:28:46.010 --> 00:28:49.010
Is, uh, basically a collaboration. I'm very

673
00:28:49.010 --> 00:28:50.690
glad to see that one of the universities I

674
00:28:50.690 --> 00:28:52.730
have an adjunct

675
00:28:53.050 --> 00:28:55.450
professorship with, uh, is part and parcel of

676
00:28:55.450 --> 00:28:57.890
it. The University of Southern Queensland and

677
00:28:57.890 --> 00:28:59.570
the Australian National University are

678
00:28:59.570 --> 00:29:01.010
involved as well, along with the University

679
00:29:01.010 --> 00:29:03.850
of South Australia. So a big partnership that

680
00:29:03.850 --> 00:29:06.810
is, um, sort of masterminding, if

681
00:29:06.810 --> 00:29:09.010
you like, some of these, um, new

682
00:29:09.010 --> 00:29:11.740
technologies. But uh, yes, to see

683
00:29:11.740 --> 00:29:13.820
this little thruster. And actually on the

684
00:29:13.820 --> 00:29:16.700
Space Connect article that I

685
00:29:16.700 --> 00:29:19.210
just referred to, there's a very nice. A, uh,

686
00:29:19.300 --> 00:29:21.660
very nice photograph of it. A little chunk of

687
00:29:21.660 --> 00:29:24.540
metal, quite complicated shape, uh, very,

688
00:29:24.810 --> 00:29:27.620
uh, interestingly presented and no

689
00:29:27.620 --> 00:29:30.620
doubt will do its stuff admirably when it

690
00:29:30.620 --> 00:29:31.580
is in space.

691
00:29:31.900 --> 00:29:34.380
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Combining two metals in a single build,

692
00:29:34.730 --> 00:29:37.100
um, brazing of copper and steel

693
00:29:37.100 --> 00:29:39.670
components. So, uh, it's. It's, you know,

694
00:29:39.670 --> 00:29:41.670
that's. That's. That's tough stuff.

695
00:29:41.990 --> 00:29:44.790
Professor Fred Watson: It is. It's steel for strength and

696
00:29:44.790 --> 00:29:47.350
copper for, uh, thermal conductivity, as I

697
00:29:47.350 --> 00:29:47.950
understand it.

698
00:29:47.950 --> 00:29:50.550
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah, uh, that's a

699
00:29:50.550 --> 00:29:52.590
great story with a, ah, great Australian

700
00:29:52.590 --> 00:29:55.590
connection and, uh, no doubt, um, another

701
00:29:55.590 --> 00:29:58.510
giant leap forward for humankind in the

702
00:29:58.510 --> 00:30:00.470
space race. And you can read about it, as

703
00:30:00.550 --> 00:30:02.870
Fred Watson mentioned at Space Connect

704
00:30:03.430 --> 00:30:06.400
online. And uh, that's

705
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:07.920
about all we've got time for. Fred Watson,

706
00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:08.720
thank you very much.

707
00:30:09.280 --> 00:30:10.720
Professor Fred Watson: So, thank you. We'll take our

708
00:30:11.760 --> 00:30:14.200
bimetallic thrusters and zoom off into the

709
00:30:14.200 --> 00:30:15.960
wide blue yonder. Good to talk to.

710
00:30:15.960 --> 00:30:18.440
Andrew Dunkley: Sure will indeed. Good to talk to you too.

711
00:30:18.440 --> 00:30:21.240
And uh, we often get suggestions from people

712
00:30:21.240 --> 00:30:23.720
asking about stories or things that they'd

713
00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:26.160
like us to talk about. So if you do have

714
00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:28.120
something in mind that, uh, you think we

715
00:30:28.120 --> 00:30:30.840
should cover, uh, or if you spot something in

716
00:30:30.840 --> 00:30:33.120
the media that we don't, that you think is,

717
00:30:33.190 --> 00:30:35.990
uh, worth a mention, uh, we. We'd

718
00:30:35.990 --> 00:30:37.990
encourage you to jump on our website and send

719
00:30:37.990 --> 00:30:39.950
us, uh, the details and we'll see if we can

720
00:30:39.950 --> 00:30:42.630
chase it up. More than happy to do so. Saves

721
00:30:42.630 --> 00:30:44.770
us a lot of work. And, um.

722
00:30:45.870 --> 00:30:48.630
Oh, sorry, Fred Watson. Go

723
00:30:48.630 --> 00:30:48.910
on.

724
00:30:48.990 --> 00:30:50.990
Professor Fred Watson: No, yes, you're quite right. It saves us a

725
00:30:50.990 --> 00:30:51.390
lot of work.

726
00:30:53.070 --> 00:30:54.390
Andrew Dunkley: Well, if we're talking about what the

727
00:30:54.390 --> 00:30:56.310
audience wants us to talk about, that's all

728
00:30:56.310 --> 00:30:58.790
the setup. All right, thanks, Fred Watson.

729
00:30:58.790 --> 00:30:59.470
We'll see you soon.

730
00:31:00.030 --> 00:31:01.150
Professor Fred Watson: Sounds good. Thanks, Andrew.

731
00:31:01.780 --> 00:31:03.300
Andrew Dunkley: Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at large. And

732
00:31:03.300 --> 00:31:05.540
thanks to Huw in the studio who didn't turn

733
00:31:05.540 --> 00:31:08.500
up again today because, uh, well,

734
00:31:09.300 --> 00:31:12.300
he got arrested by a copper. And from

735
00:31:12.300 --> 00:31:15.060
me, Andrew Dunkley. Think about it.

736
00:31:15.220 --> 00:31:16.860
Next to your company, we'll see you on the

737
00:31:16.860 --> 00:31:19.380
very next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.

738
00:31:19.860 --> 00:31:20.380
Professor Fred Watson: Hi there.

739
00:31:20.380 --> 00:31:22.900
Andrew Dunkley: Welcome to a Q and A edition of Space

740
00:31:22.900 --> 00:31:25.420
Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host.

741
00:31:25.420 --> 00:31:27.420
Good to have your company again. Uh,

742
00:31:27.690 --> 00:31:30.410
questions coming today from Pete. Uh, he's

743
00:31:30.410 --> 00:31:32.810
looking at the collapse of the universe.

744
00:31:33.210 --> 00:31:35.330
Wants to know where he needs to be when it

745
00:31:35.330 --> 00:31:37.770
happens, so he gets a good view. Actually, I

746
00:31:37.770 --> 00:31:39.450
think it's about something else. Uh, we've

747
00:31:39.450 --> 00:31:42.410
also got a question from Tad, who's brought

748
00:31:42.410 --> 00:31:44.290
up a really interesting point about falling

749
00:31:44.290 --> 00:31:46.570
into a black hole. From an observer's

750
00:31:46.890 --> 00:31:49.170
perspective, if we were to watch someone or

751
00:31:49.170 --> 00:31:51.610
something do, uh, really is

752
00:31:53.270 --> 00:31:55.970
a great piece of science to talk about. Uh,

753
00:31:55.970 --> 00:31:58.870
Mark is bringing up something from an

754
00:31:58.870 --> 00:32:01.090
episode four years ago, I think, uh,

755
00:32:01.350 --> 00:32:03.990
antimatter stars. And Dave

756
00:32:04.550 --> 00:32:06.270
wants um, to know about the best time and

757
00:32:06.270 --> 00:32:09.110
place to aim a camera for, uh, low light

758
00:32:09.190 --> 00:32:12.070
astrophotography. Uh, that

759
00:32:12.310 --> 00:32:14.750
is a great question. Uh, I've had so much

760
00:32:14.750 --> 00:32:16.470
trouble with that myself. We'll get stuck

761
00:32:16.470 --> 00:32:19.070
into it right now on this edition of space

762
00:32:19.070 --> 00:32:21.510
nuts. 15 seconds. Guidance is

763
00:32:21.510 --> 00:32:22.230
internal.

764
00:32:22.660 --> 00:32:24.020
Professor Fred Watson: 10, 9.

765
00:32:24.500 --> 00:32:26.180
Andrew Dunkley: Ignition sequence start.

766
00:32:26.340 --> 00:32:29.205
Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts. 5, 4, 3, 2. 1. 2,

767
00:32:29.277 --> 00:32:32.100
3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

768
00:32:33.380 --> 00:32:34.860
Andrew Dunkley: Astronauts reported bill.

769
00:32:34.860 --> 00:32:35.220
Professor Fred Watson: Good.

770
00:32:35.940 --> 00:32:37.660
Andrew Dunkley: And here he is again, Professor Fred Watson

771
00:32:37.660 --> 00:32:39.460
Watson, Astronomer at large. Hello,

772
00:32:39.460 --> 00:32:39.940
Fred Watson.

773
00:32:40.340 --> 00:32:42.900
Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. Fancy seeing you here.

774
00:32:42.900 --> 00:32:43.980
Yes, yes.

775
00:32:43.980 --> 00:32:46.140
Andrew Dunkley: And we're in similar coloured shirts today.

776
00:32:46.140 --> 00:32:48.260
Professor Fred Watson: That's right. I think we're very chic green.

777
00:32:48.260 --> 00:32:50.420
Andrew Dunkley: Judy reckons green's my colour, but I've

778
00:32:50.420 --> 00:32:52.300
never really liked green. But

779
00:32:53.250 --> 00:32:55.610
anyway, she's more of a

780
00:32:55.610 --> 00:32:57.850
fashionista than I am, so I'll take her word

781
00:32:57.850 --> 00:33:00.130
for it. Uh, how you been?

782
00:33:00.610 --> 00:33:03.370
Professor Fred Watson: Very well, thank you. Yes, all seems to be

783
00:33:03.370 --> 00:33:04.450
going well so far.

784
00:33:05.250 --> 00:33:07.450
Andrew Dunkley: You look and sound as well as the last time I

785
00:33:07.450 --> 00:33:07.890
saw you.

786
00:33:08.290 --> 00:33:10.980
Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's right, you know, uh,

787
00:33:11.730 --> 00:33:14.650
uh, it seems like only a few

788
00:33:14.650 --> 00:33:16.130
minutes ago. It does, doesn't it?

789
00:33:16.850 --> 00:33:18.690
Andrew Dunkley: Funny that um, that's because of a black

790
00:33:18.690 --> 00:33:19.090
hole.

791
00:33:19.700 --> 00:33:21.300
Professor Fred Watson: It could be a black bill for nothing.

792
00:33:23.060 --> 00:33:25.420
Andrew Dunkley: Although we must point out that this will be

793
00:33:25.420 --> 00:33:28.340
your last show for a short while. You're

794
00:33:28.340 --> 00:33:30.530
taking uh, a bit of a trip which will take

795
00:33:30.530 --> 00:33:32.460
um, you into time zones that are just not

796
00:33:32.460 --> 00:33:34.660
compatible with life on Earth in Australia.

797
00:33:34.820 --> 00:33:37.140
So, um, uh, we will be

798
00:33:37.700 --> 00:33:40.460
bringing our, uh, stand in Johnty Horner in

799
00:33:40.460 --> 00:33:42.220
to look after things while you're away for

800
00:33:42.220 --> 00:33:45.070
about 7ish weeks, something like that.

801
00:33:46.500 --> 00:33:48.820
We knew this was going to happen this year

802
00:33:48.820 --> 00:33:51.100
with me away for three months and you away

803
00:33:51.100 --> 00:33:53.620
for uh, a couple of months. So we knew this

804
00:33:53.620 --> 00:33:56.060
was going to happen and we planned ahead so

805
00:33:56.060 --> 00:33:58.480
that the show could go on. So, um,

806
00:33:58.740 --> 00:34:01.500
anyway, um, we'll look forward to chatting

807
00:34:01.500 --> 00:34:03.740
with Jonty and, uh, wish you well on your

808
00:34:03.740 --> 00:34:05.780
trip. Um, where are you going?

809
00:34:06.760 --> 00:34:09.700
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, we've got about two and a half weeks in

810
00:34:09.700 --> 00:34:12.510
Japan. Uh, then we're back in

811
00:34:12.510 --> 00:34:14.510
Australia very briefly and then we're off up

812
00:34:14.510 --> 00:34:17.070
to Ireland for a Dark sky conference

813
00:34:17.150 --> 00:34:19.550
and, uh, skipping over to the UK to

814
00:34:19.950 --> 00:34:21.950
hang out with my family for a little bit in

815
00:34:21.950 --> 00:34:24.950
the UK and uh, that'll take us to the end

816
00:34:24.950 --> 00:34:25.550
of November.

817
00:34:25.630 --> 00:34:27.390
Andrew Dunkley: Why wouldn't you? It's just a short hop,

818
00:34:27.390 --> 00:34:28.030
isn't it, really?

819
00:34:28.030 --> 00:34:29.750
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's stupid going

820
00:34:29.750 --> 00:34:32.270
to Ireland or going to the uk. That's right.

821
00:34:33.070 --> 00:34:34.950
So we'll do a few, uh, things. We're going

822
00:34:34.950 --> 00:34:37.510
to, uh. Marnie's got a nice itinerary for us.

823
00:34:37.510 --> 00:34:39.110
We're going to go to places that I have

824
00:34:39.110 --> 00:34:41.510
wanted to go ever since I was a child and

825
00:34:41.510 --> 00:34:44.489
never made it in the uk. So that's fantastic.

826
00:34:44.489 --> 00:34:46.249
We'll tell you about it when we get back.

827
00:34:46.649 --> 00:34:49.369
Andrew Dunkley: Love to hear about it. Um, we better get

828
00:34:49.369 --> 00:34:50.729
into the, uh, questions.

829
00:34:51.289 --> 00:34:51.929
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, yes.

830
00:34:51.929 --> 00:34:53.449
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Yeah.

831
00:34:53.769 --> 00:34:56.460
Our first question's an audio question, uh,

832
00:34:56.460 --> 00:34:57.289
coming from Pete.

833
00:34:57.929 --> 00:35:00.369
Professor Fred Watson: Hi, Fred Watson and Andrew. Pete from Long

834
00:35:00.369 --> 00:35:03.209
Point got a question. I know that

835
00:35:03.849 --> 00:35:06.649
it's. There's contested as to

836
00:35:06.649 --> 00:35:08.769
what's going to happen in the future with the

837
00:35:08.769 --> 00:35:10.249
universe they're going to,

838
00:35:11.600 --> 00:35:14.280
or however it's pronounced or expansion or

839
00:35:14.280 --> 00:35:16.760
the big grip or whatever. The question if, if

840
00:35:16.760 --> 00:35:19.640
the universe is going to collapse

841
00:35:19.640 --> 00:35:22.320
back in itself. I get the concept of

842
00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:25.600
the gravity bringing

843
00:35:25.600 --> 00:35:27.840
sort of physical matter back together and I

844
00:35:27.840 --> 00:35:30.400
know that's only what, 5% of the universe,

845
00:35:30.640 --> 00:35:33.600
but I don't understand how that would work

846
00:35:34.320 --> 00:35:37.280
with the basically pulling

847
00:35:37.490 --> 00:35:40.490
of light backwards. So you have light

848
00:35:40.490 --> 00:35:42.930
is expanding ever

849
00:35:42.930 --> 00:35:44.930
increasingly obviously at the speed of light.

850
00:35:45.580 --> 00:35:48.450
Um, basically what happens with that

851
00:35:48.930 --> 00:35:51.410
in the event there is a collapse back to

852
00:35:51.410 --> 00:35:53.910
another singularity? Um,

853
00:35:54.370 --> 00:35:56.690
yeah, I'm confused. Thanks guys.

854
00:35:57.810 --> 00:36:00.090
Andrew Dunkley: I think a lot of people are, uh. Um, yeah, he

855
00:36:00.090 --> 00:36:02.890
was referring to the gnab gib, which is the

856
00:36:02.890 --> 00:36:05.540
reverse idig bang. Yeah. Uh, but

857
00:36:05.620 --> 00:36:07.980
it's an interesting question because if it

858
00:36:07.980 --> 00:36:10.200
does happen, rather than a big rip, uh,

859
00:36:10.660 --> 00:36:13.100
the universe stops expanding and then

860
00:36:13.100 --> 00:36:15.540
starts receding back in on itself,

861
00:36:16.020 --> 00:36:18.860
what does happen to the light and the

862
00:36:18.860 --> 00:36:21.740
dark matter and all that other stuff that we

863
00:36:21.740 --> 00:36:22.260
don't understand.

864
00:36:23.620 --> 00:36:26.610
Professor Fred Watson: So, um, uh,

865
00:36:27.220 --> 00:36:29.700
this. No, thanks very much, Pete.

866
00:36:30.340 --> 00:36:33.140
Great question, uh, which has arisen because,

867
00:36:34.050 --> 00:36:36.420
um, I think it might be while you were away,

868
00:36:36.420 --> 00:36:38.980
Andrew, we covered the new

869
00:36:38.980 --> 00:36:41.940
observations that have come from the dark

870
00:36:41.940 --> 00:36:44.430
energy, uh, instrument, um,

871
00:36:45.380 --> 00:36:48.220
which is, uh, on

872
00:36:48.220 --> 00:36:50.340
the mail telescopes, a telescope very similar

873
00:36:50.340 --> 00:36:52.710
to our Anglo Australian telescope, uh,

874
00:36:53.410 --> 00:36:55.620
uh, which has been surveying the universe as

875
00:36:55.620 --> 00:36:58.430
you do such instruments, um, getting

876
00:36:58.430 --> 00:37:00.710
the redshifts, which means the distances of

877
00:37:00.710 --> 00:37:03.070
all the galaxies and building up a map. And

878
00:37:03.070 --> 00:37:05.830
that map, um, has just the first hint

879
00:37:06.390 --> 00:37:09.190
that the acceleration of the

880
00:37:09.190 --> 00:37:11.590
universe, which we attribute to this dark

881
00:37:11.590 --> 00:37:14.390
energy, whatever it is, the acceleration of

882
00:37:14.390 --> 00:37:16.190
the universe is actually slowing down. It's

883
00:37:16.190 --> 00:37:18.390
still only a hint, it's not confirmed yet.

884
00:37:18.790 --> 00:37:21.030
But if the acceleration is slowing down,

885
00:37:21.510 --> 00:37:24.450
then it does raised once again

886
00:37:24.450 --> 00:37:26.810
the possibility that we talked about a lot in

887
00:37:26.810 --> 00:37:29.730
the 1970s and 80s, uh, the idea

888
00:37:29.730 --> 00:37:32.170
of an eventual collapse, a reversal of the

889
00:37:32.170 --> 00:37:34.650
expansion of the universe to a collapse.

890
00:37:34.980 --> 00:37:37.770
Uh, and the end product of that is often

891
00:37:37.930 --> 00:37:40.570
called the Big Crunch. But we like the Gnab

892
00:37:40.570 --> 00:37:42.770
gib. That was the name that Brian Schmidt

893
00:37:42.770 --> 00:37:45.130
gave to it. It's a great name. So what

894
00:37:45.130 --> 00:37:47.440
happens in the Gnab gib? Well, um,

895
00:37:48.730 --> 00:37:51.340
it is interesting. You've got gravity taking

896
00:37:51.340 --> 00:37:54.140
over and it doesn't just

897
00:37:54.620 --> 00:37:57.180
sort of bring together the,

898
00:37:58.220 --> 00:38:00.780
the objects in space, it doesn't just

899
00:38:00.780 --> 00:38:03.260
collapse all the galaxies towards one place,

900
00:38:03.260 --> 00:38:05.500
it actually collapses space time with it,

901
00:38:06.300 --> 00:38:09.180
um, because the, you know, the

902
00:38:09.660 --> 00:38:12.420
matter bends space. We know. And that bending

903
00:38:12.420 --> 00:38:14.780
is effectively what you, what you would call

904
00:38:14.780 --> 00:38:17.760
the collapse, uh, in the run up to

905
00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:20.120
the, or the run down to the Gnab gib.

906
00:38:20.600 --> 00:38:23.400
And so in a sense, uh, the light,

907
00:38:24.100 --> 00:38:26.600
uh, so what I'm saying is that,

908
00:38:27.020 --> 00:38:29.480
um, the distances that

909
00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:32.239
the distances that we measure between

910
00:38:32.239 --> 00:38:34.760
galaxies becomes less, but

911
00:38:35.080 --> 00:38:37.560
it's because the space time has shrunk

912
00:38:37.640 --> 00:38:40.640
basically. Uh, and so not just that

913
00:38:40.640 --> 00:38:43.500
the galaxies have got closer together. Um,

914
00:38:43.500 --> 00:38:45.560
and that means, uh, that yes, light will

915
00:38:45.560 --> 00:38:48.100
still continue to travel through spacetime at

916
00:38:48.420 --> 00:38:51.420
300,000 kilometres per second, but that space

917
00:38:51.420 --> 00:38:54.180
time has got less space in it. Um,

918
00:38:54.180 --> 00:38:56.820
and so the light just shrinks with the

919
00:38:56.820 --> 00:38:59.820
universe. It doesn't kind of escape or

920
00:38:59.820 --> 00:39:02.740
anything that many gazillions

921
00:39:02.740 --> 00:39:05.020
of photons that are currently traversing the

922
00:39:05.020 --> 00:39:07.420
universe and will continue to do that, uh, as

923
00:39:07.420 --> 00:39:08.900
long as things are shining and there's energy

924
00:39:08.900 --> 00:39:11.860
to provide that they will have shorter

925
00:39:11.860 --> 00:39:14.580
distances to go. Uh, and we will find

926
00:39:14.580 --> 00:39:17.280
that the universe just gets smaller. As it

927
00:39:17.280 --> 00:39:19.640
gets smaller, the light goes with it and we

928
00:39:19.640 --> 00:39:22.360
end up with a bundle of stuff, uh, subatomic

929
00:39:22.360 --> 00:39:25.280
particles, including photons, particles of

930
00:39:25.280 --> 00:39:26.960
light, a whole lot of stuff that is going to

931
00:39:26.960 --> 00:39:29.440
hit, um, an almighty singularity,

932
00:39:29.990 --> 00:39:32.840
uh, uh, which we might call the Gnab

933
00:39:32.840 --> 00:39:34.400
gib. Yeah. Wow.

934
00:39:34.750 --> 00:39:37.720
Andrew Dunkley: Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't

935
00:39:37.720 --> 00:39:40.320
we talk in the past. About a time where the

936
00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:43.140
universe will become dark and

937
00:39:43.140 --> 00:39:46.060
cold and there won't be

938
00:39:46.060 --> 00:39:46.660
any light.

939
00:39:47.380 --> 00:39:50.100
Professor Fred Watson: Well, um, that's right. If the universe

940
00:39:50.100 --> 00:39:52.740
continues expanding, then eventually

941
00:39:53.060 --> 00:39:54.780
there will be light there, but it won't be

942
00:39:54.780 --> 00:39:56.420
able to reach you because it'll be beyond

943
00:39:57.220 --> 00:39:59.890
your horizon. Uh, uh,

944
00:39:59.940 --> 00:40:01.820
so the light will still be going through the

945
00:40:01.820 --> 00:40:04.740
universe, but that light source will be

946
00:40:04.740 --> 00:40:07.630
receding from us, um, too

947
00:40:07.630 --> 00:40:10.430
fast for the light ever to get to us. So,

948
00:40:10.430 --> 00:40:12.670
yes, it becomes dark and dreary. Uh, but,

949
00:40:12.750 --> 00:40:14.190
yeah, light is still there.

950
00:40:14.590 --> 00:40:17.310
Andrew Dunkley: All right, there you go, Pete. Um, it will

951
00:40:17.310 --> 00:40:19.690
all be cataclysmic and horrible, and we'll,

952
00:40:19.690 --> 00:40:20.990
uh, all be a lot shorter.

953
00:40:23.550 --> 00:40:24.670
Professor Fred Watson: Every dimension.

954
00:40:25.070 --> 00:40:27.590
Andrew Dunkley: Indeed, yes. Although I'm starting to like

955
00:40:27.590 --> 00:40:29.630
the idea of a big rip. Because a big rip

956
00:40:29.630 --> 00:40:31.670
might open us to another universe and we

957
00:40:31.670 --> 00:40:32.430
could all escape.

958
00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:36.320
Professor Fred Watson: Well, yeah, maybe. Well, of course, with the

959
00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:38.240
big. The gnab gib, you could get the big

960
00:40:38.240 --> 00:40:40.880
bounce. Uh, you know, it could just bounce

961
00:40:40.880 --> 00:40:42.360
back. So you've suddenly got an expanding

962
00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:43.640
universe immediately.

963
00:40:44.920 --> 00:40:47.040
Andrew Dunkley: It's hard to get your head around. And I

964
00:40:47.040 --> 00:40:49.480
understand why Pete feels confused, because

965
00:40:49.480 --> 00:40:52.480
it really is beyond our imagination in many

966
00:40:52.480 --> 00:40:53.040
ways, isn't it?

967
00:40:53.040 --> 00:40:54.560
Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Indeed it is.

968
00:40:54.560 --> 00:40:56.240
Andrew Dunkley: Thanks, Pete. Great question. Hope you're

969
00:40:56.240 --> 00:40:56.520
well.

970
00:40:56.590 --> 00:40:59.400
Uh, let's go to a question from Tad.

971
00:40:59.630 --> 00:41:01.840
Uh, this one's really interesting. Uh, we

972
00:41:01.840 --> 00:41:04.200
understand that due to extreme gravitational

973
00:41:04.740 --> 00:41:07.140
dilation, from the perspective of an outside

974
00:41:07.220 --> 00:41:10.020
observer, anyone falling into a black hole

975
00:41:10.020 --> 00:41:12.820
takes an infinite amount of time to cross the

976
00:41:12.820 --> 00:41:15.660
event horizon, even if, from that person's

977
00:41:15.660 --> 00:41:18.020
perspective, they actually do in real time.

978
00:41:18.560 --> 00:41:21.220
Uh, if this is true, how do black holes

979
00:41:21.300 --> 00:41:23.780
and their event horizons even form in the

980
00:41:23.780 --> 00:41:26.380
first place? From an outsider's perspective?

981
00:41:26.380 --> 00:41:29.020
And does this mean that technically nothing

982
00:41:29.020 --> 00:41:31.220
has ever fallen into a black hole from our

983
00:41:31.220 --> 00:41:33.860
perspective here on Earth? I love this

984
00:41:33.860 --> 00:41:35.790
question. Thank you, Tad. Uh,

985
00:41:36.940 --> 00:41:38.740
he's bringing up the point where if you're

986
00:41:38.740 --> 00:41:40.940
watching someone fall into the. Into a black

987
00:41:40.940 --> 00:41:43.820
hole because of the

988
00:41:43.820 --> 00:41:45.980
effect, the gravitational effect on time

989
00:41:46.220 --> 00:41:49.099
space, it never happens, but

990
00:41:49.260 --> 00:41:52.180
that person experiences it in

991
00:41:52.180 --> 00:41:54.540
real time until they get spaghettified.

992
00:41:55.740 --> 00:41:58.620
So, um, yeah, how come we see

993
00:41:58.620 --> 00:42:01.440
black holes when this effect

994
00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:04.760
should suggest we should never see

995
00:42:04.760 --> 00:42:07.600
it happen? Is that what he's

996
00:42:07.600 --> 00:42:07.840
saying?

997
00:42:09.120 --> 00:42:11.720
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. How do black holes form in the first

998
00:42:11.720 --> 00:42:13.780
place? Uh,

999
00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:18.080
so, yes, so in that regard,

1000
00:42:18.800 --> 00:42:21.760
that time dilation is a kind of optical

1001
00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:23.640
illusion because the thing has crossed the

1002
00:42:23.640 --> 00:42:26.290
event horizon, whatever it is has

1003
00:42:26.290 --> 00:42:28.330
contributed to the mass of the black hole.

1004
00:42:29.130 --> 00:42:31.930
So, uh, the reality is. Yes,

1005
00:42:31.930 --> 00:42:33.970
you're. You know, if it's you, you get

1006
00:42:33.970 --> 00:42:36.010
spaghettified and then you get absorbed by

1007
00:42:36.010 --> 00:42:37.930
the black hole itself a gazillionth of a

1008
00:42:37.930 --> 00:42:40.810
second later. Um, it's from the outside

1009
00:42:40.890 --> 00:42:43.570
perspective. Uh, I've always struggled with

1010
00:42:43.570 --> 00:42:45.210
this actually in trying to envisage it

1011
00:42:45.210 --> 00:42:47.850
because, yeah, you imagine some poor person

1012
00:42:47.850 --> 00:42:50.420
who's fallen into a black hole. Um,

1013
00:42:50.650 --> 00:42:52.890
it's be like the, um, you know those chalk,

1014
00:42:53.550 --> 00:42:55.430
uh, chalk things on the road where

1015
00:42:56.310 --> 00:42:59.230
somebody's got hit by a car. There'd

1016
00:42:59.230 --> 00:43:01.750
be this chalk mark of somebody, uh, on the

1017
00:43:01.750 --> 00:43:04.480
surface of the event horizon. Um,

1018
00:43:05.210 --> 00:43:08.140
uh, but they'd also, uh,

1019
00:43:08.150 --> 00:43:09.830
along with that person, there'd be everything

1020
00:43:09.830 --> 00:43:12.030
else that's gone into it. And black holes are

1021
00:43:12.030 --> 00:43:14.350
notorious for accreting material. So all the

1022
00:43:14.350 --> 00:43:16.550
stuff that's spiralling into it from an

1023
00:43:16.550 --> 00:43:18.470
outsider's perspective just ends up looking

1024
00:43:18.470 --> 00:43:20.270
as though it's stuck on the top surface of

1025
00:43:20.270 --> 00:43:22.310
the event horizon, even though it's actually

1026
00:43:22.310 --> 00:43:25.190
been absorbed by the, by the black hole.

1027
00:43:25.350 --> 00:43:27.510
So it is a kind of optical illusion. Yes,

1028
00:43:27.510 --> 00:43:30.070
it's very weird. Uh, it just means that from,

1029
00:43:30.390 --> 00:43:33.170
you know, what it highlights is, uh,

1030
00:43:33.270 --> 00:43:36.270
it's all about your reference frame. Uh, our

1031
00:43:36.270 --> 00:43:38.630
reference frame is an um, observer looking

1032
00:43:38.630 --> 00:43:40.630
out, looking in from the outside.

1033
00:43:41.910 --> 00:43:43.350
If you've got the reference frame of the

1034
00:43:43.350 --> 00:43:44.910
person who's falling into the black hole,

1035
00:43:44.910 --> 00:43:47.680
things are a lot different. Uh, we can watch,

1036
00:43:47.830 --> 00:43:50.760
um, from the sidelines and cheer people on

1037
00:43:50.760 --> 00:43:52.200
as they fall through the black hole event

1038
00:43:52.200 --> 00:43:54.880
horizon. All, uh, we see is them

1039
00:43:54.880 --> 00:43:57.600
frozen on the event horizon,

1040
00:43:57.830 --> 00:43:59.920
uh, which must be a very messy place with all

1041
00:43:59.920 --> 00:44:01.360
the stuff that's falling into it.

1042
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:01.920
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.

1043
00:44:02.080 --> 00:44:04.960
Professor Fred Watson: So, um, yeah,

1044
00:44:06.160 --> 00:44:08.760
to me that transforms what the event horizon

1045
00:44:08.760 --> 00:44:10.600
might look like. It's probably not that nice

1046
00:44:10.600 --> 00:44:12.680
sphere of darkness that we imagine, but it's

1047
00:44:12.680 --> 00:44:15.040
got, become splattered with lots of stuff.

1048
00:44:15.040 --> 00:44:17.840
And in fact, we know that the magnetism of a

1049
00:44:17.840 --> 00:44:20.000
black hole actually plays a huge role

1050
00:44:20.480 --> 00:44:23.440
in, um, directing material

1051
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:25.160
so that some of the stuff is actually

1052
00:44:25.160 --> 00:44:27.440
accelerated perpendicular to the accretion

1053
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:30.080
disc, uh, upwards and

1054
00:44:30.080 --> 00:44:32.880
downwards. And that in itself is a process

1055
00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:35.000
that it's very hard to get your head around

1056
00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:36.920
how stuff that's swirling in towards the

1057
00:44:36.920 --> 00:44:39.730
black hole suddenly gets dragged up, up, uh,

1058
00:44:39.850 --> 00:44:42.850
and shot out the, the poles of the

1059
00:44:42.850 --> 00:44:45.770
black hole, top and bottom. Um, So a

1060
00:44:45.770 --> 00:44:48.570
lot of hard work to conjecture. I hope that

1061
00:44:48.570 --> 00:44:51.050
helps Tad, to envisage what's going on.

1062
00:44:51.510 --> 00:44:54.010
Uh, but, um. Because it's all about your

1063
00:44:54.010 --> 00:44:55.130
perspective, basically.

1064
00:44:55.370 --> 00:44:58.250
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah. Ah, so the, the black hole,

1065
00:44:58.490 --> 00:44:59.930
uh, has happened.

1066
00:45:02.970 --> 00:45:05.540
My brain had an idea and it just fell into a

1067
00:45:05.540 --> 00:45:08.090
black hole and then I can't remember. But,

1068
00:45:08.090 --> 00:45:10.740
uh, we see the black hole

1069
00:45:12.180 --> 00:45:14.420
because it's already happened. Is that.

1070
00:45:15.060 --> 00:45:17.460
Professor Fred Watson: Well, yeah, the black hole's been created.

1071
00:45:18.020 --> 00:45:19.700
I mean, typically in the collapse of

1072
00:45:20.900 --> 00:45:23.290
a star at the end of its life. Uh,

1073
00:45:24.340 --> 00:45:26.380
so that's a straightforward gravitational

1074
00:45:26.380 --> 00:45:28.660
collapse. The material of the star basically

1075
00:45:29.140 --> 00:45:31.910
collapses down so that nothing will hold

1076
00:45:31.910 --> 00:45:34.510
it out and it becomes this singularity, a

1077
00:45:34.510 --> 00:45:36.390
point of infinite density, which is how we

1078
00:45:36.390 --> 00:45:39.390
define it. Um, and that's. It's during

1079
00:45:39.390 --> 00:45:41.550
that collapse that the event horizon forms.

1080
00:45:41.710 --> 00:45:44.390
And you've got that. As I said, it's an

1081
00:45:44.390 --> 00:45:46.910
optical illusion. That's the main point to

1082
00:45:46.910 --> 00:45:48.950
recognise. It's an optical illusion as seen

1083
00:45:48.950 --> 00:45:51.480
from the outside, um,

1084
00:45:51.710 --> 00:45:53.550
that nothing reaches the black hole.

1085
00:45:54.160 --> 00:45:56.270
Andrew Dunkley: M I'm sure we'll get some more questions on

1086
00:45:56.270 --> 00:45:58.790
this one, but, uh, you've probably opened a

1087
00:45:58.790 --> 00:46:00.740
can of spaghetti there. Yeah.

1088
00:46:00.740 --> 00:46:02.700
Professor Fred Watson: Which is great, because Jonty can deal with

1089
00:46:02.700 --> 00:46:03.220
all that.

1090
00:46:04.820 --> 00:46:06.740
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Yes, that's for sure.

1091
00:46:07.860 --> 00:46:09.540
All right, Tad, thank you for the question.

1092
00:46:09.540 --> 00:46:11.780
This is Space Nuts, a Q and A edition with

1093
00:46:11.780 --> 00:46:13.660
Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson

1094
00:46:13.660 --> 00:46:14.340
Watson.

1095
00:46:14.820 --> 00:46:15.860
Professor Fred Watson: Space Nuts.

1096
00:46:16.340 --> 00:46:18.540
Andrew Dunkley: Now, uh, our next question's an audio

1097
00:46:18.540 --> 00:46:21.060
question. It comes from Mark.

1098
00:46:21.700 --> 00:46:24.260
Professor Fred Watson: Hi, it's Mark in London and Canada.

1099
00:46:24.900 --> 00:46:27.380
I just listened to an episode from

1100
00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:30.880
March 2021 and Fred Watson mentioned the

1101
00:46:31.120 --> 00:46:33.760
possible existence of an antimatter

1102
00:46:33.920 --> 00:46:36.720
star and how. Obviously we wouldn't want to

1103
00:46:36.720 --> 00:46:38.560
get, uh, anywhere near it,

1104
00:46:39.440 --> 00:46:42.440
but I was wondering, is it possible? Does it

1105
00:46:42.440 --> 00:46:44.760
exist? Uh, and how could we tell if we're

1106
00:46:44.760 --> 00:46:47.600
looking at a star from Earth? Can we tell

1107
00:46:47.600 --> 00:46:50.080
if it's regular matter or antimatter

1108
00:46:50.400 --> 00:46:53.280
or what if the entire Andromeda Galaxy was

1109
00:46:53.720 --> 00:46:55.640
antimatter, would we have a way of

1110
00:46:56.360 --> 00:46:58.840
figuring that out? Thanks. Bye.

1111
00:46:59.590 --> 00:47:02.240
Andrew Dunkley: M. Uh, I would ask my Auntie

1112
00:47:02.240 --> 00:47:04.340
Shirley, but she wouldn't know either. Um,

1113
00:47:05.160 --> 00:47:07.720
thank you, Mark. Antimatter stars. We did. I

1114
00:47:07.720 --> 00:47:09.960
remember us talking about them. Uh, we do

1115
00:47:09.960 --> 00:47:12.800
know there is antimatter. There's just

1116
00:47:12.800 --> 00:47:15.400
a hell of a lot less of it than actual

1117
00:47:15.400 --> 00:47:17.960
matter, if I recall correctly. But if you've

1118
00:47:17.960 --> 00:47:20.800
got, um, a molecule of matter and a molecule

1119
00:47:20.800 --> 00:47:23.560
of antimatter and they collide, they just

1120
00:47:23.560 --> 00:47:25.560
cease to exist. Is that how it goes?

1121
00:47:26.840 --> 00:47:29.240
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right, yeah. Um, what you get,

1122
00:47:29.630 --> 00:47:32.200
um, is. So if you. The

1123
00:47:32.440 --> 00:47:34.960
difference between a normal matter

1124
00:47:34.960 --> 00:47:37.840
particle, uh, like an electron

1125
00:47:37.840 --> 00:47:40.760
and its antimatter equivalent

1126
00:47:40.760 --> 00:47:43.240
is the electrical charge is the opposite.

1127
00:47:43.800 --> 00:47:46.080
So the antimatter equivalent of an electron

1128
00:47:46.080 --> 00:47:48.970
is a positron. Um, it's got positive

1129
00:47:48.970 --> 00:47:51.450
electrical charge. Uh, and

1130
00:47:52.570 --> 00:47:54.650
when two

1131
00:47:55.610 --> 00:47:57.850
particles like that meet, they

1132
00:47:57.850 --> 00:48:00.610
annihilate. And what you get is a

1133
00:48:00.610 --> 00:48:03.130
gamma ray. You get a photon of Gamma ray

1134
00:48:03.130 --> 00:48:05.380
energy which has ah,

1135
00:48:07.530 --> 00:48:10.210
a uh, characteristic um, frequency

1136
00:48:10.210 --> 00:48:12.370
distribution. We actually, in gamma rays we

1137
00:48:12.370 --> 00:48:14.410
call it energy. Uh, in light we think of it

1138
00:48:14.410 --> 00:48:16.490
as wavelength, in radio waves we think it as

1139
00:48:16.970 --> 00:48:19.810
frequency. But it's the same thing basically

1140
00:48:20.280 --> 00:48:23.080
uh, at different levels of energy. So you get

1141
00:48:23.080 --> 00:48:25.840
these gamma rays which will be emitted with a

1142
00:48:25.840 --> 00:48:28.680
specific and characteristic frequency. And

1143
00:48:28.680 --> 00:48:31.480
that's the way that you might be able to

1144
00:48:31.720 --> 00:48:34.680
detect an antimatter star.

1145
00:48:37.560 --> 00:48:39.840
I think this story actually goes back, it

1146
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:42.000
does go back to 2021. I've just found the

1147
00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:44.440
article that we referred to. Stars made of

1148
00:48:44.440 --> 00:48:46.160
antimatter might be lurking in the universe.

1149
00:48:46.160 --> 00:48:47.590
It's from scientists, Scientific American, a

1150
00:48:47.590 --> 00:48:50.560
very authoritative source. Um,

1151
00:48:51.030 --> 00:48:53.710
but what they were starting the story

1152
00:48:53.710 --> 00:48:56.390
with was something that happened in 2018

1153
00:48:56.870 --> 00:48:59.710
when uh, one of the

1154
00:48:59.710 --> 00:49:01.150
experiments on the outside of the

1155
00:49:01.150 --> 00:49:02.670
International Space Station which we talked

1156
00:49:02.670 --> 00:49:05.070
about in the last episode with great warmth

1157
00:49:05.070 --> 00:49:07.600
and uh, admiration, um,

1158
00:49:08.070 --> 00:49:10.710
one of those experiments may have detected

1159
00:49:11.710 --> 00:49:14.330
uh, two uh, basically

1160
00:49:14.330 --> 00:49:17.330
nuclei of anti helium, um, these

1161
00:49:17.330 --> 00:49:20.210
are anti helium particles. And

1162
00:49:20.210 --> 00:49:23.090
so you mix that with normal helium and you

1163
00:49:23.090 --> 00:49:24.960
get gamma rays. Um

1164
00:49:25.770 --> 00:49:28.170
and so the question is

1165
00:49:30.090 --> 00:49:32.890
where does that come from? And

1166
00:49:32.890 --> 00:49:35.850
that was um, the outcome of this,

1167
00:49:36.090 --> 00:49:38.930
the suggestion that the easiest way to

1168
00:49:38.930 --> 00:49:41.450
produce anti helium is inside anti

1169
00:49:41.450 --> 00:49:44.050
stars, um, which

1170
00:49:44.290 --> 00:49:46.890
we still don't know whether they exist or

1171
00:49:46.890 --> 00:49:49.730
not. Uh, but really the point of

1172
00:49:49.730 --> 00:49:52.530
Marx's question is a good one. I um, don't

1173
00:49:52.530 --> 00:49:54.480
think we know much more about this uh,

1174
00:49:56.129 --> 00:49:58.690
since that you know that speculation.

1175
00:49:59.490 --> 00:50:01.730
Um, but what they're

1176
00:50:01.890 --> 00:50:04.530
suggesting I might actually

1177
00:50:04.530 --> 00:50:07.490
read uh, from that Scientific American

1178
00:50:07.570 --> 00:50:10.370
article and acknowledge the source there.

1179
00:50:11.010 --> 00:50:13.110
It was written by ah, ah,

1180
00:50:13.490 --> 00:50:16.370
Leto Supuna, who's the author

1181
00:50:16.370 --> 00:50:19.330
of that. Um, and I think it

1182
00:50:19.570 --> 00:50:22.290
sort of puts it a lot better than I can.

1183
00:50:22.530 --> 00:50:25.370
Antistars would shine much as normal ones

1184
00:50:25.370 --> 00:50:27.730
do, producing light of the same wavelengths,

1185
00:50:27.730 --> 00:50:30.330
but they would exist in a matter dominated

1186
00:50:30.330 --> 00:50:33.010
universe. And so as particles and

1187
00:50:33.010 --> 00:50:35.860
gases made of regular matter fell into

1188
00:50:35.860 --> 00:50:38.300
an antistar's gravitational pull and made

1189
00:50:38.300 --> 00:50:40.620
contact with its antimatter, the resulting

1190
00:50:40.620 --> 00:50:42.740
annihilations would produce a flash of high

1191
00:50:42.740 --> 00:50:44.380
energy light. That's the gamma rays I

1192
00:50:44.380 --> 00:50:47.300
mentioned. We can see this light as. There

1193
00:50:47.300 --> 00:50:49.180
you go. We can see this light as a specific

1194
00:50:49.180 --> 00:50:52.140
colour of gamma rays. Um, and

1195
00:50:52.140 --> 00:50:53.780
so one of the teams that they're Talking

1196
00:50:53.780 --> 00:50:56.310
about took 10 years of data, uh,

1197
00:50:56.780 --> 00:50:59.260
which amounted to roughly 6,000 light

1198
00:50:59.260 --> 00:51:00.980
emitting objects. They paired the list down

1199
00:51:00.980 --> 00:51:03.140
to sources that shone with the right gamma

1200
00:51:03.140 --> 00:51:05.180
ray frequency and that were not ascribed to

1201
00:51:05.180 --> 00:51:07.210
previously catalogued astronomical object.

1202
00:51:07.990 --> 00:51:10.810
Um, so this left us with

1203
00:51:10.810 --> 00:51:13.690
14 candidates. This is one of the Authors,

1204
00:51:13.830 --> 00:51:15.970
uh, talking which in my opinion and my co

1205
00:51:15.970 --> 00:51:17.810
author's opinion too, are, um, not anti

1206
00:51:17.810 --> 00:51:20.770
stars. Um, yeah,

1207
00:51:20.770 --> 00:51:23.290
so. But they say if all those sources were

1208
00:51:23.290 --> 00:51:25.890
such stars, that means one antistar would

1209
00:51:25.890 --> 00:51:28.290
exist for every 400,000 ordinary ones in our

1210
00:51:28.290 --> 00:51:30.410
stellar neck of the woods. So

1211
00:51:31.370 --> 00:51:33.290
we're still struggling to get our heads

1212
00:51:33.290 --> 00:51:35.850
around this. And I'm not sure whether any

1213
00:51:35.850 --> 00:51:38.610
more of, uh, these characteristic

1214
00:51:38.610 --> 00:51:41.010
gamma ray flashes, uh, have

1215
00:51:41.570 --> 00:51:44.290
been observed or what the latest is on this

1216
00:51:44.290 --> 00:51:46.770
topic. But it is a very interesting one, I

1217
00:51:46.770 --> 00:51:48.890
think. Thank Mark for raising it again

1218
00:51:48.890 --> 00:51:50.530
because it's one we should perhaps look at in

1219
00:51:50.530 --> 00:51:53.130
a bit more detail. Like try and, um, dig out

1220
00:51:53.130 --> 00:51:55.730
some stories for when I return to space,

1221
00:51:55.730 --> 00:51:58.370
nuts on, um, antistars and see

1222
00:51:58.530 --> 00:51:59.950
what we've got in that.

1223
00:52:00.590 --> 00:52:02.430
Andrew Dunkley: Do you think they could exist, Frank?

1224
00:52:02.830 --> 00:52:05.190
Professor Fred Watson: I do think they could exist, yeah. Um, I

1225
00:52:05.190 --> 00:52:06.870
mean, you know, it's one of the big puzzles

1226
00:52:06.870 --> 00:52:09.430
of the universe as to why there's so much

1227
00:52:09.430 --> 00:52:12.350
matter and so little antimatter. When our

1228
00:52:12.350 --> 00:52:14.190
best theories of the origin of the universe

1229
00:52:14.190 --> 00:52:16.670
suggest that antimatter and matter were

1230
00:52:16.670 --> 00:52:19.070
created in equal, you know, in equal

1231
00:52:19.070 --> 00:52:21.990
proportions. So, uh, it's

1232
00:52:21.990 --> 00:52:24.270
one of these. It is, it's one of these issues

1233
00:52:24.270 --> 00:52:27.140
that, um, is. Keeps on bubbling up and, uh,

1234
00:52:27.710 --> 00:52:29.970
uh, you know, challenging our understanding.

1235
00:52:30.130 --> 00:52:33.130
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, uh, I'm m. Probably dredging up

1236
00:52:33.130 --> 00:52:34.730
the same joke I used four and a half years

1237
00:52:34.730 --> 00:52:36.610
ago, but there's a lot of. There's a lot of

1238
00:52:36.770 --> 00:52:39.170
doesn't matter in astronomy as well.

1239
00:52:41.170 --> 00:52:43.170
See, I can hear you got a.

1240
00:52:43.170 --> 00:52:44.690
Professor Fred Watson: No, not a majority there. Yeah.

1241
00:52:46.450 --> 00:52:49.450
Andrew Dunkley: Um, but, yeah, antimatter stars are

1242
00:52:49.450 --> 00:52:51.960
right up there with white holes. Uh, we've

1243
00:52:51.960 --> 00:52:54.480
never seen one. But there's, you know,

1244
00:52:54.480 --> 00:52:57.400
there's certain elements of

1245
00:52:57.400 --> 00:53:00.220
science that think these things exist. Uh,

1246
00:53:01.200 --> 00:53:04.120
but we've just never found the direct

1247
00:53:04.120 --> 00:53:05.520
evidence or proof, have we?

1248
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:08.160
Professor Fred Watson: No, that's. Excuse me. That's correct.

1249
00:53:08.370 --> 00:53:11.190
Um, just along those lines, there's, uh,

1250
00:53:11.600 --> 00:53:14.560
something that cropped, um, up about a week

1251
00:53:14.560 --> 00:53:16.840
ago or two weeks ago. Um, it's a

1252
00:53:16.840 --> 00:53:19.560
gravitational wave event which I think

1253
00:53:19.560 --> 00:53:22.280
dates back to 2019. And you know,

1254
00:53:22.360 --> 00:53:25.340
gravitational waves measured by LIGO and uh,

1255
00:53:25.720 --> 00:53:28.440
Kagra and Virgo, the three big gravitational

1256
00:53:28.440 --> 00:53:31.350
wave detectors in the world. Ah, they, um,

1257
00:53:32.460 --> 00:53:34.440
uh, this particular and most, most

1258
00:53:34.440 --> 00:53:36.280
gravitational waves come from either neutron

1259
00:53:36.280 --> 00:53:38.280
stars colliding or neutron stars colliding

1260
00:53:38.280 --> 00:53:40.120
with black holes or black holes colliding.

1261
00:53:40.280 --> 00:53:41.920
And they always have a characteristic

1262
00:53:41.920 --> 00:53:44.360
signature. They spiral together and then when

1263
00:53:44.360 --> 00:53:46.040
they come together at the end, they produce

1264
00:53:46.040 --> 00:53:48.840
this characteristic chirp, um,

1265
00:53:49.360 --> 00:53:51.550
which is when they merge. Um,

1266
00:53:52.480 --> 00:53:55.360
and that usually lasts a few Seconds that,

1267
00:53:55.600 --> 00:53:58.160
um, run up to the chirp. Uh, but this

1268
00:53:58.320 --> 00:54:01.240
one in 2019 only lasted, I think it was a

1269
00:54:01.240 --> 00:54:03.680
tenth of a second. Uh, and

1270
00:54:05.360 --> 00:54:08.240
one interpretation of that is that,

1271
00:54:08.730 --> 00:54:11.550
uh, it was two very massive

1272
00:54:11.550 --> 00:54:13.190
black holes. I think that's the way around.

1273
00:54:13.190 --> 00:54:14.990
It goes. Could be the other way around.

1274
00:54:15.550 --> 00:54:18.430
Anyway, um, a, uh, recent paper

1275
00:54:18.430 --> 00:54:20.910
from China, and I think this was two weeks

1276
00:54:20.910 --> 00:54:23.630
ago, proposed that you could get nearly

1277
00:54:23.710 --> 00:54:26.350
the same modelling, which, because they model

1278
00:54:26.350 --> 00:54:28.830
these gravitational wave phenomena, if,

1279
00:54:29.370 --> 00:54:31.590
uh, it turned out that what you were looking

1280
00:54:31.590 --> 00:54:34.270
at was not colliding black holes but a

1281
00:54:34.270 --> 00:54:37.000
collapsing wormhole. Um, and

1282
00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:39.080
that's the first evidence that I think

1283
00:54:39.080 --> 00:54:41.720
anybody has put forward for the existence of

1284
00:54:41.720 --> 00:54:44.200
wormholes. But it's still very

1285
00:54:44.200 --> 00:54:47.200
conjectural because the, um, likelihood, you

1286
00:54:47.200 --> 00:54:49.360
know, the model of just two black holes

1287
00:54:49.360 --> 00:54:51.400
colliding actually fits the data slightly

1288
00:54:51.400 --> 00:54:53.480
better than the model of the collapsing

1289
00:54:53.480 --> 00:54:55.600
wormhole. But people are still looking at

1290
00:54:55.600 --> 00:54:57.880
these things as they are for white holes and,

1291
00:54:58.210 --> 00:55:00.520
um, I hope also for antimatter stars.

1292
00:55:00.840 --> 00:55:03.700
Andrew Dunkley: Yes. Yeah, well, um, I

1293
00:55:03.700 --> 00:55:06.660
suppose there's so much to consider in the

1294
00:55:06.660 --> 00:55:09.540
universe that some things just don't get the

1295
00:55:09.540 --> 00:55:11.660
amount of time and attention they probably

1296
00:55:11.660 --> 00:55:14.660
deserve. But the workforce

1297
00:55:14.660 --> 00:55:16.860
is spread so thin in astronomy and space

1298
00:55:16.860 --> 00:55:19.740
science, I would imagine so, um,

1299
00:55:21.220 --> 00:55:22.420
it's hard to deal with everything.

1300
00:55:22.660 --> 00:55:24.460
Professor Fred Watson: With everything. That's right. There's

1301
00:55:24.460 --> 00:55:26.580
certainly enough questions to keep us busy

1302
00:55:26.580 --> 00:55:28.660
for a long time in the world of astronomy.

1303
00:55:28.820 --> 00:55:29.540
Absolutely.

1304
00:55:29.790 --> 00:55:32.710
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. All right, Mark, thank you. Hope all

1305
00:55:32.710 --> 00:55:34.030
is well in Canada.

1306
00:55:34.190 --> 00:55:37.150
Our final question comes from Dave. And, uh,

1307
00:55:37.150 --> 00:55:40.150
Dave is from Inverel in, uh, northern New

1308
00:55:40.150 --> 00:55:42.670
South Wales, Australia. As someone who is

1309
00:55:42.670 --> 00:55:44.710
lucky enough to enjoy fairly low light

1310
00:55:44.710 --> 00:55:47.390
pollution where I live, I like to

1311
00:55:47.470 --> 00:55:49.950
attempt some nighttime photography now and

1312
00:55:49.950 --> 00:55:52.710
then. Lately I've been using the nightcap

1313
00:55:52.710 --> 00:55:55.070
app on my phone. I've got that one as well.

1314
00:55:55.590 --> 00:55:58.310
Uh, with, uh, the meteor setting, he says

1315
00:55:58.310 --> 00:56:00.790
to try and capture some meteor photos.

1316
00:56:01.350 --> 00:56:03.270
Uh, I find the best time to see a great

1317
00:56:03.270 --> 00:56:05.870
falling star is just as I'm getting the phone

1318
00:56:05.870 --> 00:56:07.830
set up, ready to start shooting.

1319
00:56:09.160 --> 00:56:11.710
Uh, just wondering if you have any advice for

1320
00:56:11.710 --> 00:56:14.310
when to try and capture a meteor on camera.

1321
00:56:15.430 --> 00:56:17.870
Example, uh, time of night, direction, etc.

1322
00:56:17.870 --> 00:56:20.350
Or should I just, uh, wait until a good

1323
00:56:20.350 --> 00:56:23.080
meteor shower turns up? Uh, and how many

1324
00:56:23.080 --> 00:56:26.000
meteors would we expect to see collide in

1325
00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:28.560
our atmos, uh, collide with our atmosphere on

1326
00:56:28.560 --> 00:56:31.400
any given night? Um, also

1327
00:56:31.720 --> 00:56:33.280
great, uh, to hear you back, Andrew, and

1328
00:56:33.280 --> 00:56:36.100
hearing. Enjoy, uh, hearing your travels, uh,

1329
00:56:36.120 --> 00:56:39.080
when you talk of Iceland, it makes me very

1330
00:56:39.080 --> 00:56:39.800
keen to return.

1331
00:56:39.800 --> 00:56:42.480
Can I ask which company you cruised with,

1332
00:56:42.480 --> 00:56:44.760
Dave? From Inverel. Yes you can.

1333
00:56:46.400 --> 00:56:49.330
Uh, the uh, the answer is uh, Princess.

1334
00:56:49.330 --> 00:56:52.330
It was Princess Cruises. Uh, we made the

1335
00:56:52.330 --> 00:56:55.130
news early in the cruise when we got smashed

1336
00:56:55.290 --> 00:56:58.250
just southwest, um, corner of Australia by a

1337
00:56:58.250 --> 00:57:00.050
squall that knocked the ship over, not

1338
00:57:00.050 --> 00:57:02.970
completely seven degree list, uh, which

1339
00:57:02.970 --> 00:57:05.370
we took three hours to straighten up. I had

1340
00:57:05.370 --> 00:57:07.050
to go up to the bridge and help the captain

1341
00:57:07.210 --> 00:57:09.970
by, you know, using my weight to stand at

1342
00:57:09.970 --> 00:57:12.450
the. No, I didn't. Uh, but uh, it was um,

1343
00:57:12.650 --> 00:57:14.960
yeah, pretty uh, hair raising for a while

1344
00:57:14.960 --> 00:57:16.520
there. Uh, we made the news all over

1345
00:57:16.520 --> 00:57:18.520
Australia apparently. But um, yeah, it was

1346
00:57:18.520 --> 00:57:21.440
the Princess Cruise Line. Uh, and we've been

1347
00:57:21.440 --> 00:57:23.440
with them many times on other cruises and

1348
00:57:23.440 --> 00:57:25.600
they're uh, I, I really enjoy them.

1349
00:57:26.160 --> 00:57:28.760
Uh, they probably uh, it's

1350
00:57:28.760 --> 00:57:30.880
debatable but I think food wise they're

1351
00:57:30.880 --> 00:57:33.660
probably the best. But yes, um,

1352
00:57:34.160 --> 00:57:37.040
now, and you mentioned the. Sorry, go on.

1353
00:57:37.120 --> 00:57:38.960
Professor Fred Watson: I was just going to say if you want to avoid

1354
00:57:39.040 --> 00:57:41.340
uh, the rigours of sea travel, you could come

1355
00:57:41.340 --> 00:57:43.700
with Dark Sky Traveller. We go up to Iceland

1356
00:57:43.700 --> 00:57:45.580
pretty regularly too. Yes. Well there's a

1357
00:57:45.580 --> 00:57:46.420
thought. Yeah.

1358
00:57:46.600 --> 00:57:49.460
Andrew Dunkley: Um, yeah. So the downside of cruising is it's

1359
00:57:49.460 --> 00:57:52.060
slow. Yeah, I mean it's very relaxing. But if

1360
00:57:52.060 --> 00:57:54.660
you do want to get somewhere in a hurry, it's

1361
00:57:54.660 --> 00:57:57.010
um, probably not the way to do it. Um,

1362
00:57:58.100 --> 00:58:00.780
and uh, Dave also mentioned the nightcap

1363
00:58:00.780 --> 00:58:03.380
app. Uh, I do have that one on my phone. I

1364
00:58:03.380 --> 00:58:05.420
haven't had an opportunity to really use it

1365
00:58:05.420 --> 00:58:08.180
because it uh, there's too much

1366
00:58:08.180 --> 00:58:09.540
light around here.

1367
00:58:10.500 --> 00:58:12.700
Professor Fred Watson: What does it do, Andrew? What's the, what's

1368
00:58:12.700 --> 00:58:14.100
the purpose of the nightcap?

1369
00:58:14.420 --> 00:58:16.860
Andrew Dunkley: I haven't got my phone with me. But uh, you

1370
00:58:16.860 --> 00:58:18.260
can preset it to

1371
00:58:19.300 --> 00:58:20.900
photograph in low light

1372
00:58:22.340 --> 00:58:25.180
and you can either put it in manual

1373
00:58:25.180 --> 00:58:27.540
mode or you can have this series of presets

1374
00:58:27.540 --> 00:58:29.900
where you can, if you know what you want to

1375
00:58:29.900 --> 00:58:32.340
photograph, it will set up the phone

1376
00:58:32.980 --> 00:58:35.420
to create the exact situation you need to

1377
00:58:35.420 --> 00:58:37.980
take that particular photograph. It's really,

1378
00:58:37.980 --> 00:58:40.540
it's really good software. Um, but I

1379
00:58:40.940 --> 00:58:43.220
haven't really had a chance to use it

1380
00:58:43.220 --> 00:58:45.620
properly. But uh, it can do time lapse and

1381
00:58:45.620 --> 00:58:46.340
all sorts of things.

1382
00:58:46.340 --> 00:58:46.780
Professor Fred Watson: It's.

1383
00:58:47.020 --> 00:58:49.900
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it's really good gear. Uh, so

1384
00:58:49.900 --> 00:58:52.460
yeah, when and where and

1385
00:58:52.860 --> 00:58:54.940
how to take low light

1386
00:58:55.420 --> 00:58:56.460
photographs, Fred Watson.

1387
00:58:56.540 --> 00:58:59.420
Professor Fred Watson: Of meteors. That was a crucial

1388
00:58:59.420 --> 00:59:01.940
thing. Yeah, from, from Dave's question. And

1389
00:59:01.940 --> 00:59:04.690
yeah, so Dave up in Verralle will have

1390
00:59:04.830 --> 00:59:07.560
um, pretty easy access to dark skies.

1391
00:59:07.810 --> 00:59:09.560
Andrew Dunkley: Uh, yeah, that's, you know why? You know why?

1392
00:59:09.560 --> 00:59:11.800
Because they're not putting the electricity

1393
00:59:11.800 --> 00:59:13.800
on up there for another 10 years.

1394
00:59:14.600 --> 00:59:15.280
Professor Fred Watson: Okay.

1395
00:59:15.280 --> 00:59:17.400
Andrew Dunkley: Sorry. Everyone asks,

1396
00:59:18.040 --> 00:59:20.080
in the 30 odd years I've lived here, people

1397
00:59:20.080 --> 00:59:21.680
have often asked, do you have electricity

1398
00:59:21.680 --> 00:59:24.680
where you are? Um, so I couldn't help that

1399
00:59:24.680 --> 00:59:25.160
joke.

1400
00:59:25.240 --> 00:59:27.480
Professor Fred Watson: No. Well, you do. Uh, we did include a

1401
00:59:27.480 --> 00:59:28.920
bourbon as well, but we were at the end of

1402
00:59:28.920 --> 00:59:31.160
the line and uh, so if ever there was a

1403
00:59:31.160 --> 00:59:32.640
thunderstorm, we usually left our

1404
00:59:32.640 --> 00:59:33.120
electricity.

1405
00:59:33.120 --> 00:59:35.120
Andrew Dunkley: You were gone. Yeah, we had that problem the

1406
00:59:35.120 --> 00:59:37.240
first 15 years we lived here.

1407
00:59:37.240 --> 00:59:39.920
Professor Fred Watson: All right, yeah. Um, but they do have

1408
00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:42.320
electricity in Varel and they also have dark

1409
00:59:42.320 --> 00:59:44.920
skies, relatively easily accessible by just

1410
00:59:44.920 --> 00:59:47.840
driving up a few kilometres further up

1411
00:59:47.840 --> 00:59:49.240
the highway one way or the other.

1412
00:59:49.830 --> 00:59:52.550
Um, so meteors. Um,

1413
00:59:52.760 --> 00:59:54.640
yeah, Dave's question, how many meteors are

1414
00:59:54.640 --> 00:59:57.640
coming in? Uh, quite a large number. We think

1415
00:59:57.640 --> 01:00:00.420
it's something like 100 tonnes, 50 to 100

1416
01:00:00.420 --> 01:00:03.340
tonnes a day meteoritic material hits the

1417
01:00:03.340 --> 01:00:05.940
atmosphere that's worldwide. Uh, but that

1418
01:00:05.940 --> 01:00:08.140
means there are billions of meteors streaking

1419
01:00:08.140 --> 01:00:09.460
through the atmosphere because most of them

1420
01:00:09.460 --> 01:00:12.340
are specks of dust. Um, and they

1421
01:00:12.340 --> 01:00:14.740
can, yeah, sporadic meteors as they're

1422
01:00:14.740 --> 01:00:16.540
called. They can whiz through the earth's

1423
01:00:16.540 --> 01:00:18.780
atmosphere at any time. People talking about

1424
01:00:18.860 --> 01:00:21.620
this stargazing I was doing at uh, Sea

1425
01:00:21.620 --> 01:00:24.300
Lake, uh, in rural Victoria last week,

1426
01:00:24.450 --> 01:00:26.920
um, quite a few people were spotting meteors

1427
01:00:26.920 --> 01:00:28.600
as they flashed through the sky. I was

1428
01:00:28.600 --> 01:00:30.880
looking at screens so I missed most of them.

1429
01:00:31.410 --> 01:00:33.680
Um, but, uh, probably

1430
01:00:34.400 --> 01:00:35.680
the time to

1431
01:00:37.050 --> 01:00:39.490
uh, really concentrate on,

1432
01:00:39.490 --> 01:00:41.960
um, uh, a few serious. And I think you kind

1433
01:00:41.960 --> 01:00:44.480
of need an all sky lens effectively for good

1434
01:00:44.480 --> 01:00:46.930
meteor photography. Um, um,

1435
01:00:47.690 --> 01:00:49.840
uh, the new generation of

1436
01:00:50.400 --> 01:00:53.280
phones do have very wide angle lenses,

1437
01:00:53.920 --> 01:00:55.880
but they're not fisheye in the sense that you

1438
01:00:55.880 --> 01:00:58.880
can see the sky. Um, but they're wide enough

1439
01:00:59.040 --> 01:01:01.760
probably to use. The snag

1440
01:01:01.760 --> 01:01:03.680
with them is that they've got a low,

1441
01:01:05.010 --> 01:01:07.680
uh, aperture. So a high

1442
01:01:07.680 --> 01:01:10.440
focal ratio, uh, the

1443
01:01:10.440 --> 01:01:13.160
ratio of the focal length to aperture and

1444
01:01:13.160 --> 01:01:15.160
what you need is a low focal ratio to give

1445
01:01:15.160 --> 01:01:17.280
you fast imaging. It's what we call a fast

1446
01:01:17.280 --> 01:01:19.720
lens. Whereas these wide angle ones tend not

1447
01:01:19.720 --> 01:01:22.630
to have that. Uh, and so you're tossing up,

1448
01:01:22.860 --> 01:01:25.820
you know, the relative merits of a very wide

1449
01:01:25.820 --> 01:01:28.700
angle view or likely

1450
01:01:28.700 --> 01:01:31.300
to capture more meteors or a narrow angle of

1451
01:01:31.300 --> 01:01:33.340
view but greater sensitivity, so you'll see

1452
01:01:33.340 --> 01:01:36.220
fainter meteors. So, um, that's,

1453
01:01:36.220 --> 01:01:38.140
you know, taking all that into consideration.

1454
01:01:38.330 --> 01:01:40.580
Um, I haven't tried meteor photography with

1455
01:01:40.580 --> 01:01:42.860
my phone. I've done a lot of aurora borealis

1456
01:01:42.860 --> 01:01:44.380
photography with it and that works really

1457
01:01:44.380 --> 01:01:46.900
well because they're sensitive. But it will

1458
01:01:46.900 --> 01:01:49.420
be an interesting thing to try. Uh, it's the

1459
01:01:49.420 --> 01:01:50.860
fact that you need A long. You need the

1460
01:01:50.860 --> 01:01:52.420
shutter open for a long time. But I guess

1461
01:01:52.420 --> 01:01:54.470
what you can do is just keep on taking

1462
01:01:55.270 --> 01:01:58.230
short snapshots. Um, point I

1463
01:01:58.230 --> 01:02:00.590
was going to get to is when you think about

1464
01:02:00.590 --> 01:02:03.390
the Earth, uh, uh, in its orbit around the

1465
01:02:03.390 --> 01:02:06.150
sun. Uh, the forward facing

1466
01:02:06.150 --> 01:02:08.470
side of the orbit is where you are after

1467
01:02:08.470 --> 01:02:11.350
midnight. So after midnight

1468
01:02:11.750 --> 01:02:14.110
means that you're on the leading edge of the

1469
01:02:14.110 --> 01:02:16.430
Earth and that's where you're going to get

1470
01:02:16.430 --> 01:02:19.390
the most meteors, basically. Uh, as

1471
01:02:19.390 --> 01:02:21.800
the Earth ploughs through the various clouds

1472
01:02:21.800 --> 01:02:23.760
of dust, you've got meteor showers which come

1473
01:02:23.760 --> 01:02:26.080
from big clouds of dust that the Earth goes

1474
01:02:26.080 --> 01:02:28.760
through. Uh, but these things are always best

1475
01:02:28.840 --> 01:02:31.760
seen in the early morning, um, when you're

1476
01:02:31.760 --> 01:02:34.320
on the side after midnight. So that's the

1477
01:02:34.320 --> 01:02:36.160
best advice I can give. I'd be interested to

1478
01:02:36.160 --> 01:02:37.840
hear how you get home, Dave, and uh, what

1479
01:02:37.840 --> 01:02:40.480
sort of results you might get. Yeah, yeah.

1480
01:02:40.480 --> 01:02:42.320
Andrew Dunkley: And if you do get a couple of good ones, send

1481
01:02:42.320 --> 01:02:44.680
them in and we'll um, we'll post them on our

1482
01:02:44.680 --> 01:02:46.640
Facebook page or you can post them yourself

1483
01:02:46.640 --> 01:02:48.780
on the Facebook group, whatever you like. Um,

1484
01:02:49.030 --> 01:02:50.710
love to see what you come up with. We do get,

1485
01:02:50.890 --> 01:02:53.670
um, some great astrophotography

1486
01:02:53.670 --> 01:02:55.990
from uh, Space Arts listeners on the Facebook

1487
01:02:56.070 --> 01:02:58.430
group sometimes. So, yeah, um, more than

1488
01:02:58.430 --> 01:03:01.430
happy to uh, have

1489
01:03:01.430 --> 01:03:03.750
you uh, post them on that

1490
01:03:04.150 --> 01:03:06.790
page, Dave, and hopefully that will help. But

1491
01:03:06.790 --> 01:03:08.950
uh, yeah, the idea of having to get up and do

1492
01:03:08.950 --> 01:03:10.430
it in the middle of the night, not, not

1493
01:03:10.430 --> 01:03:12.790
appealing. But, uh, that's life in astronomy,

1494
01:03:12.790 --> 01:03:13.510
isn't it, Fred Watson?

1495
01:03:13.590 --> 01:03:14.620
Professor Fred Watson: It is a bit, yeah.

1496
01:03:16.050 --> 01:03:18.690
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. All right, Dave, thanks very much for

1497
01:03:18.690 --> 01:03:20.090
your question. Don't forget, if you've got a

1498
01:03:20.090 --> 01:03:22.650
question, send it in to us because we'd love

1499
01:03:22.650 --> 01:03:25.450
to try, uh, and answer it. No guarantees of

1500
01:03:25.450 --> 01:03:27.610
course. Uh, but you go to our website,

1501
01:03:27.610 --> 01:03:29.248
spacenutspodcast.com

1502
01:03:29.612 --> 01:03:32.570
spacenuts.IO click on the AMA tab and

1503
01:03:32.570 --> 01:03:35.130
you can send uh, uh, questions there, audio

1504
01:03:35.130 --> 01:03:37.770
or text. Just remember to tell us who you are

1505
01:03:37.770 --> 01:03:40.450
and where you're from and we'll do the rest.

1506
01:03:40.910 --> 01:03:43.710
Or Huw in the studio will, if he ever turns

1507
01:03:43.710 --> 01:03:46.430
up again, because he didn't turn up today.

1508
01:03:47.070 --> 01:03:49.470
I don't know what he was doing. Probably

1509
01:03:49.470 --> 01:03:51.590
trying astrophotography in the middle of the

1510
01:03:51.590 --> 01:03:54.190
day. Just never listens to us.

1511
01:03:54.430 --> 01:03:56.869
That's his problem. Uh, Fred Watson, thank

1512
01:03:56.869 --> 01:03:59.790
you as always and uh, bon voyage.

1513
01:03:59.790 --> 01:04:02.640
Have a safe journey. Enjoy uh, your time in,

1514
01:04:02.640 --> 01:04:05.630
uh, in Japan and Ireland and the UK

1515
01:04:05.950 --> 01:04:08.550
and uh, yeah, and look forward to hearing

1516
01:04:08.550 --> 01:04:11.070
about your travels when you get back. And we

1517
01:04:11.070 --> 01:04:13.730
will welcome Jon, uh, Horner from the

1518
01:04:13.730 --> 01:04:16.570
University of Southern Queensland. Uh, with

1519
01:04:17.850 --> 01:04:20.010
Space, um, nuts for the foreseeable future.

1520
01:04:20.410 --> 01:04:22.250
So take care, Fred Watson, and thank you.

1521
01:04:22.890 --> 01:04:25.010
Professor Fred Watson: Thank you, Andrew. Uh, I'll miss you all.

1522
01:04:25.010 --> 01:04:27.440
But, um, I'll be glad to come back and, uh,

1523
01:04:27.440 --> 01:04:29.370
talk to you sometime before Christmas.

1524
01:04:29.530 --> 01:04:31.570
Andrew Dunkley: Okay, Catch you then. Professor, uh,

1525
01:04:31.610 --> 01:04:33.370
Fred Watson Watson, Astronomer at large. And

1526
01:04:33.370 --> 01:04:35.090
from me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks again for

1527
01:04:35.090 --> 01:04:36.930
your company. We'll see you on the very next

1528
01:04:36.930 --> 01:04:39.930
episode of Space Nuts. Until then, bye. Bye.