March 29, 2026

Cosmic Comets, Magnetic Pole Puzzles & The Enigma of Time | Q&A

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Cosmic Q&A: Comets, Magnetic Reversals, and the Nature of Time
In this thought-provoking Q&A episode of Space Nuts, hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson tackle a series of intriguing listener questions that span the cosmos. From the fascinating journeys of comets to the implications of Earth's magnetic pole reversal, and the philosophical musings on the origin of time, this episode is a rich tapestry of cosmic inquiry.
Episode Highlights:
- The Journey of Comets: Listener Nate from Perth dives into the paths of comets, exploring whether they all follow similar trajectories or carve out their own unique paths. Andrew and Fred unravel the mysteries of the Oort Cloud and the gravitational influences that shape these celestial wanderers.
- Magnetic Pole Reversal: Michael from Canada raises concerns about the potential effects of Earth's overdue magnetic pole reversal on satellites in low Earth orbit. The hosts discuss the gradual nature of these reversals and the implications for our technology as the magnetic field weakens.
- The Nature of Time: Local listener George presents a profound question about the essence of time, contemplating whether it exists as a construct of energy motion. Andrew and Fred delve into the complexities of time in the context of relativity and quantum mechanics, exploring its elusive nature and the philosophical questions it raises.
- Galaxies and the Observable Universe: Tom from Ireland grapples with the concept of distance in the universe, questioning how galaxies can appear to be further apart than the age of the universe itself. Andrew and Fred clarify the concepts of look-back time and the universe's expansion, shedding light on this common cosmic conundrum.

For more Space Nuts, including our continuously updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, Instagram, and more. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
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Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.

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Hello again, and thank you for joining us on a

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Q and A edition of Space Nuts. Andrew Duncley here,

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thanks for your company today. We've got four questions to answer.

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Actually that usually ends up being ten because people ask

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multiple questions. I suppose you've got to use your time wisely.

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But we've got a question about the journey of comets.

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We've got a question about magnetic pole reversal. We've had

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that one before, but it was quite a while back.

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It's worth revisiting. The origin of time has been brought up,

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and the age of the universe versus galaxies far far away.

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We'll tackle all of that on this episode of Space.

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Nuts fifteen in Channel ten nine ignition sequence Space Nuts

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or three two Space Nurts as the Nights reported Bill's

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goods and.

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Joining us to unpack all all of that is Professor

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Fred What's an astronomer at Large?

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Hello Fred, Hello Andrew, Nice to see you again.

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Good to see you too. Haven't changed much since our

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last laid eyes on you.

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It's fully funny you should say that look looking good,

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looking good.

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Let's do some questions, shall we?

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Why not more ross blow here so we might as well?

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Yes, and nice to get a couple of new voices

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on the audio question list, and of course if you

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do have questions for us, jump on our website and

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send them through. Just click on the Ask Me Anything

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button ama up the top or it's more of a link.

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And if you've got a device with a microphone you

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should be able to record a lot. A few people

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have had issues with it lately, so maybe that's the

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reason why we're sort of questions. But anyway, we've got

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a couple. This first one comes from Andrea.

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Hi, Andrew and Fred. This is Andrea from Wanneroo in Perth,

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Western Australia. Question is around comets again and how do

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they How is their you know, pass created and tracked

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like their elliptical path? Do they all follow us.

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As similar.

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Journey or do they create their own as they come through?

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Thanks has appreciate it and love to show thanks Andrew.

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Lovely to hear from you, and nice to get a

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new voice into the into the program. And want a

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roo I think that's an Aboriginal word for wanting a

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pat kangaroo. No, I wouldn't have got there. I couldn't

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it myself. So Andrea's question is all about the journey

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of comets. Do they kind of all do the same thing,

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or do they figure it out for themselves or are

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they you know, they're real loaners and don't want to

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do what everyone else is doing.

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So it is a great question, Andrea, and it's actually

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got a little bit more to it than perhaps people

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might think, because comets, as you know, they make their

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appearance from time to time, and individual comets, some of

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them fairly regularly. But the story starts much much further

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away from the Sun than any of the planets, way

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way beyond the trans Neptunian objects. Those are icy asteroids

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out there where. We've got this hypothesized, never yet observed,

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but well established, I think, is the best way to

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call it, shell of cometary debris, And by that I

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mean chunks of ice basically, which are the leftovers from

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the gas cloud from which the Solar system formed. So

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these are ancient blocks of dusty ice.

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Let's be realistic. It's where the trade's left their junk

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after they finished building the solar sits.

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That's what it is, all right, Yeah, Well, the hypothesized

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celestial trade is it's the debris. It's the leftover stuff

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frozen at very low temperatures with the dusty you know,

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dusty contents as well. So the thinking is that shell

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of comets when when our sun as it chundles its

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way around the galaxy, it passes nearby other stars and

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other objects which gravitationally disturb the cloud. And so from

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time to time you might get quite large numbers of

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these cometary bodies being disturbed from where they lie and

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plunging down into the Fini Solar System. So there's probably

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a steady flux of these things coming in, but once

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in a while, because of gravitational disturbances, you'll get a

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lot more. And that was actually the subject of a

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book written by two colleagues of mine in Edinburgh called

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The Cosmic Serpent, when it worked out that maybe comets

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had actually had a lot to do with shaping the Earth,

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but impacts from comets when the Sun passed into the

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start anyway, here we have comets. So here's a mister

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comet sitting out there in the big Departner's comet sitting

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out there in the in the oak cloud and falls

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in towards the inner Solar System in a path that

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is almost a straight line, but it's not because it

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is actually an eclip, sorry, an ellipse. Anything that follows

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the gravity of an object follows in an elliptical path.

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It's in an orbit that often takes it round the Sun,

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and so you get that's when the Sun's radiation starts

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acting on the ice and you start to see it.

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So that path is determined just by gravity and the

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gravitation mechanics and sort of determined, well, what the starting

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point of that comet is in the Oort Cloud. Often, though,

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there might be an interaction with the gravity of some

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of the planets in the Inner Solar System, most especially Jupiter,

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and we think that many comets have their orbits modified

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by the planet Jupiter, so they become much much shorter,

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because in an orbit to take you out to the

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Oak Cloud, you're talking about tens, maybe even hundreds of

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thousands of years. But we find comets with periods much

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shorter than that, some even as small as four or

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five years. Anything with a period of revolution around the

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Sun of less than two hundred years is called a

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short period comet, and that includes comet Halley seventy six years.

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So that came down from the Oak Cloud a long

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long time ago, interacted with Jupiter that pushed it into

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a short period orbit. So their paths being modified all

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the time by you know, interactions with the planets, and

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sometimes they're modified in a in a really quite serious way.

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There's a great question, Andrea, and quite nice to think

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of it in the terms that you put it. What

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determines the pass that these objects take. It's all about

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gravity and where they started off from and whether they've

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you know, whether they've interacted with planets on the way down.

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You did mention the Oord Claud. They also come from

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the Kuiper Belt, don't they.

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The Kuiper Belts are much nearer than the York Cloud,

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and that there are one or two objects because the

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Caiper Belt they're pretty icy out there as well, you

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know that. But there might be rocky objects with a

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coating of ice, a bit like we think Plutoy's rocky core,

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slushy ocean over the top ice icy crust, whereas the

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comets don't have crusts, they're just chunks of ice. And

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I might mention the Ork Cloud was postulated by a

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very well known Dutch astronomer, Jan Ort I think in

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the nineteen fifties was when he said comets must come

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from a sort of reservoir somewhere, a cloud of comets.

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And the reason why he postulated that it was spherical

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aspherical shell is that comets when they come in from

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the Oak Cloud come in at all different angles. They

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don't just sit in the plane of the Solar System.

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Yeah. Well, we haven't seen it though, have we the

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Ork Cloud? Oh no, it doesn't, so it's still theoretical

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or we've got enough evidence to know. I think it's

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the plane at nine.

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I think there's more evidence for comets for Oak Cloud

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than for planet nine. You're right, though, I mean the

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problem is these objects are small. They are typically a

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few kilometers across, and they're you know, they're light Almost

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a light year away. Is the distance of the Oak Cloud.

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It's a long, long way out. It's way way beyond

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where Voyager one is now at twenty light at twenty

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three light hours away. It's much much further than that.

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And so you're not ever going to be able to

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see individual objects in the York Cloud with our telescopes.

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But the inferences and all the evidence supports the existence

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of this cloud.

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Okay, thank you, Andrew. Fabulous question, and we learn a

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little bit more about commets. O next question comes from

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Michael in Canada. Apologies Fred and Andrew. I do not

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have a dark matter or black hole question at this time,

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but perhaps this question still might be acceptable. I understand

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that Earth is somewhat overdue for a magnetic pole reversal,

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and that this is also not something immediate when it

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does occur. How likely is it that there might be

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some extraordinary negative effects on satellites in low Earth orbit?

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Thank you Fred and Andrew, and thank you Hugh in

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the studio for keeping these two in line every show. Yes, yes,

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he's conspicuous by his absence, is Hugh very busy man? Though,

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let's see, all right, negative effect on satellites in lower

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Earth or But if we start seeing that magnetic pole reversal,

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I suppose we should address the fact that it doesn't

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just happen like a light switch.

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That's certainly true. Yes, so the evidence for rehear not

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rehearsals reversals. They probably have to rehearse it as well.

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But the evidence for magnetic poor reversal comes from what

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we know from principally rocks deep under the ocean. Ocean

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bed rocks which have the grains of silicates. They're aligned

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in a way that you can trace the aarth magnetic history.

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And so the thinking is, I think this is still

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the sort of number that people talk about, something like

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three reversals of the magnetic the arth magnetism every million years. Now,

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that's fairly fairly slow compared with an object like the sum,

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which we think reverses its magnetic poles every twenty two years.

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So that's you know, that poot polary reversal, which we

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can sense from looking at sunspots, is much faster. So

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the process seems to be on Earth that you've got

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a gradual weakening of the magnetic field, which when it

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reappears is the other way around. And we think it's

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due to the interaction between the Earth's two cores. We've

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got a solid metallic core with a liquid metallic core

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on the outside, and the two are rotating with respect

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to one another. So it's a dynamo effect which generates

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a magnetic field. So we're talking about time scales for

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the reversal of thousands of years. It's not something as

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you said, it doesn't switch on overnight. The process takes

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a long long time, and it's i mean, there will

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be some spacecraft that will last for thousands of years

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because they're high enough that their orbits are not threatened

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by decay. However, I think the effects of the reversal

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of magnetic polarity are going to be negligible compared with

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the magnetic effects that you get from the Sun's the

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solar wind and the stream of seb atomic particles that

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comes from the Sun. I think that's the dominant magnetic

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force for satellites. They're beyond the protective magnetosphere that the

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Earth provides. That reversal will produce a reduction in the magnetosphere,

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and that itself might allow spacecraft to be bombarded more

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by solar wind particles. So there could be an effect

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caused by the weakening of the ospognetic field as reversal

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takes place.

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Okay, so there is something to that. Yeah, I issueably right,

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because one of the big dangers we face these days

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is a direct hit from a coronal mass ejection that

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could affect our electronics, electro fries, the electronics, and I

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know emergency services in this country and probably in other

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parts of the world are building that scenario into their

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emergency response systems. It's unpredictable. I mean it's it could happen.

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It may never happen, but it has happened in the past.

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In the early years of the telegraph, there was one

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particular case where the system was suffering and suffered a

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direct hit and no one knew what was going on.

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It was just a real shock.

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One person did, and that was an astronomer called Carrington.

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I can't remember. He's the Carrington event.

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Yeah, I can't remember his first name. His picture is

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actually on the current issue of Astronomy and Geophysics, which

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is the the Royal Astronomical Society's journal, and there's a

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picture on the front of it. I haven't read it yet,

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but it's me. Mister Carrington is the title of the article.

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I'm just trying to look up his name, Richard Richard

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Carrington Tugton. Yes, so he observed, sorry, I was going

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to say, he observed a very bright flare on the

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sun and then that was followed by all these magnetic

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effects that you've spoken about. So he recorded that flair.

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Yeah, September the first, eighteen fifty nine was the Carrington event.

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So yes, Michael, definitely something to your concerns hopefully never,

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but they can't write off the possibility. Thanks for your question.

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This is Space Nuts Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred

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I believe that this nation should commit itself we achieving

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the goal before this decade is out of landing a

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man on the Moon and returning him safely to the EUROPEUS.

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Next question, Fred comes from a local Indubo, New South Wales.

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Hello George, I'm not sure if we've met. I hope

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we do someday if we have it already, If that

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makes any sense at all, I have a question about

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the origin of time. Years ago, I read that time

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emanates from the ceaseless and never ending motion of energy

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that pervades the entire universe. It's beautifully written, George. If

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this universal energy were to freeze or even disappear, would

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time as we know it still exist or would it

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be in a state of quintessence or maybe even disappear

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as well. It seems to me that without the motion

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of energy to bring forth time, there would be no time.

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The most interesting conundrum, don't you think. Thank you for

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the interesting podcasts. Thank you, George. Great to hear from

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a local. This is something we've talked about time and

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time again for it.

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Look, it's a very deep thinking local as well, because

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George is pretty well on the money. I think what

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you read about a long time ago might not be

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current thoughts in this field. But time is one of

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the biggest mysteries that we have, and we really don't

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understand it how it arises. We know it's a dimension.

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We know that in the in the relativity world, time

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is flexible, we know it bends, but when you look

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at quantum mechanics, it apparently doesn't exist. So it's a

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very very peculiar thing. And these two that's one of

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the reasons why the two theories. The theory of relativity

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and quantum mechanics while they're at loggerheads because they've got

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fundamental inconsistencies between them. Now I've tried to follow this

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argument and debate is taking place at the level of

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quantum mathematics that is far deeper than my capabilities.

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From my.

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Fairly what's the word tawdry degree in mathematics that I have,

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which I only just scraped.

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It's a better degree in mathematics than mine.

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Well anyway, yes, it nearly wasn't a degree at all,

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only the generosity of the Scottish education system let me

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fail in exam five times and pass it on the

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sixth attempt.

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Yes, it sounds like my driver's license.

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All right, okay, don't remind me never to come driving

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with you anyway, I hang have it eventually. Yeah, so

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that the mathematics that you know, the quantum, particularly quantum mechanics,

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are quantum theory people theoreticians, that's the word I'm looking for.

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The mathematics that they use are very very abstruse and

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obscure to the likes of me. I could probably use

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the words like Hilbert's pace and things like that, but

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that's all. Now what I read though, is really interesting

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that you know it was actually Einstein who said times

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and illusion. In fact, the quote comes from a letter

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he wrote to the widow of a friend, a close

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friend of his, who died, And what he said in

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that letter was to those of us who believe in physics,

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we know that the concepts of past, present, and future

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are only a stubbornly persistent illusion. And he said that

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because relativity suggests that all of time exists, you know

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that it's that it's all there, and we see it

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as an illusion, We see it stepping from one moment

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to the next. But actually what we're doing is we're

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just plowing through something that exists in its entirety, which

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sort of casts all sorts of interesting questions about free

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will and things of that sort. If if if what's

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going to happen is already predetermined, what happened to free will?

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But quantum physics, so I think the quantum theoreticians they

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don't need time at all in their deliberations. And so

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what's I think emerging from this is that you've got

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these two different theories that suggest, and this is the

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language that they're using, that time actually doesn't exist, that

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time simply does not exist, and what we see as

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time actually emerges from quantum entanglement. Now, you and I

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have talked about quantum entanglement a lot, because it's something

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that space nuts listeners like talking about and I do too,

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even though it's not that straightforward to understand. But it's

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basically how you can if you've got two quantum particles

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in a state of superposition, which means that you you know,

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things like their position and their state are not determined

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until you observe them. If you've got two particles that

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come together in this entangled means, then they retain this

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what Einstein called spooky connection at a distance. They retain

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that in some weird way. How time might emerge from that,

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or the illusion of time might emerge from that, I

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have no idea, but it is something that is very

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much ongoing basically new physics ideas. Now, how do you

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probe that? How do you find out if these ideas

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are anything like the truth. Well, it's by looking for

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holes in relativity. For example, we test relativity all the time.

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It's good to I think the last time I read

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about it was something like one party in ten to

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the power eighteen is how accurate it is. So it's

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a very very robust theory.

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If you could if somebody keep trying to break it

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but they can't.

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Yeah, find if you could break it, then you might

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see a chink into the new physics that might underlie

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what we're talking about now. And likewise, with you know,

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the subatomic particle world, where we're seeing in the Large

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Hadron Collider, we're seeing we are seeing new particles. A

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new one was discovered not that long ago, but it's

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one that is not sort of revealing any cracks in

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our understanding of the particle world. Supersymmetry was the buzzword

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ten years ago where people were hoping that the upgraded

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Large hundred Collider would reveal evidence of what's called supersymmetry,

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which might talk about new dimensions and things of that sort.

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But there's absolutely no sign of it at the moment.

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So all of that's ongoing. Maybe there will be some

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chinks that appear.

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When they do.

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You and I'll talk about it, Andrew.

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Wouldn't it be cool?

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Yeah?

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I suppose you could. Quite often when we talk about

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this sort of thing. People get together on the Space

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podcast group on Facebook and talk about time and some

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of just say, look, time's a construct, it's not real.

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And I suppose to a certain degree that's true. We

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did invent time to suit ourselves on this planet, the

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construction of various forms of calendar and clocks, but we

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worked it in with what the planet's doing. That's our

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version of time. But we're talking about time at a

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universal level, the progression of existence, I suppose for one

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of a bitter description.

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I mean, yeah, to an astrophysicist, time seems to be

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a fundamental part of the universe because we see things evolving.

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It's one of the reasons why the Big Bang theory

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really rose to prominence, the fact that when you look

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further out into space, you're looking further back in time,

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and you see galaxies that are clearly different from what

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they are now you've seen them in the early universe.

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And of course that is ongoing with the web, telescope

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and all the weird and wonderful things we're discovering with that.

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So time is sort of real in that sense, but

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in a fundamental physics sense, maybe there's a deeper reality

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that hides underneath quantum theory and relativity, and it's down

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