Cosmic Connections: The Search for Alien Life, Double Black Holes & Betelgeuse's Secrets

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Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another fun and exciting episode

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of Space Nuts, the podcast that

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is out of this world.

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Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

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10, 9. Ignition

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sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,

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2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,

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3, 2, 1. Space nuts astronauts

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report it feels good.

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Heidi Campo: And joining us today is Professor Fred Fred

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Watson, astronomer at large.

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How are you today, Fred?

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Professor Fred Watson: Um, I'm very well. Probably a

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bit better than you are, because I hear you haven't been too well

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lately, and I hope you're feeling a little bit better, a little.

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Heidi Campo: Little under the weather, which is probably why I forgot to introduce myself.

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I am your. I am your.

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Professor Fred Watson: I should.

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Heidi Campo: I am the host of this episode. My, uh, name is

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Heidi Campo. I am filling in for Andrew

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Dunkley, who is our regular host, who is on a

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cruise around the world right now, and he's having just the

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time of his life. Um, you know, yeah, I've

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been better. I've been worse. Uh, I think this

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is just. I've been battling a fever.

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But the good thing about podcasting is we can do this at a

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distance.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, in fact, a distance almost equal to the Earth's

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diameter. It's quite a long way that separates us.

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Not quite, but getting on that way.

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Heidi Campo: Yeah, it's, uh, it's always my. My evenings,

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your mornings, my summer, your winter. It's opposite

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in so many ways.

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Professor Fred Watson: All wrong.

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Heidi Campo: But.

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Professor Fred Watson: But, uh, we're on the same. We're on the same page.

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Heidi Campo: We are.

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And. And one thing that I think everyone

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around the world can be on the same page on is

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everybody is always fascinated with

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extraterrestrial life and the search of it

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and the question of, is there life outside

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of our little blue marble that we live

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on? And it looks like our first story today

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is kind of talking about just that, um,

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they're scanning the famous. The

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Earthrise crater on a mission

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to find alien life.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, that's right.

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Heidi Campo: Um.

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Professor Fred Watson: Ah, I love this story because it links

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two very different eras in

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space flight. Um, it goes back

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right to the beginning of human flight in space,

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uh, when on the

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24th of December,

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1968, uh, William

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Anders, one of the three astronauts orbiting the

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moon on the Apollo 8 mission. Apollo 8 was a mission

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that did not land on the moon, but it was the first time humans had

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circumnavigated the moon. Uh, he took

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that amazing image of the

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gibbous Earth, the Earth, uh, sort of partly

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illuminated, rising above the limb of the moon.

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And, um, I, uh, remember that so

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clearly. Um, Heidi, I know it's long before

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your time but it was so

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exciting, Christmas Eve, really special,

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uh, that we got this image back with some

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very appropriate words as well from the crew of Apollo

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8. And it was, you know, it was the dawn of

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human spaceflight going to the moon. It was really.

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We thought, um. We thought there would be no end to this,

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that we'd be living on the moon by the

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1980s. It was an amazing

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time. Uh, so as I said, I remember it with great

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excitement. You probably picked that up already. Uh, now, um, in

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the foreground of that image is a large crater.

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Um, it's about 40 kilometers or 25 miles

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across. Uh, it was known as

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Pasteur T, Named after Louis

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Pasteur, uh, Pasteur T. Not, uh,

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quite sure what the T was. I think it was because there's probably a different

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one with a different letter as well.

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Um, um. But, uh,

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following the image and the fame and the

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iconic nature that that image, uh, taken by Apollo

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8 astronauts, um, produced,

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uh, that, uh, crater was renamed,

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uh, Anders Earthrise, named after William

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Anders, who is the astronaut who took the

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photo. And I've just checked and I'm sorry to

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say William Anders is no longer with us. He passed away

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just over a year ago in June 2024.

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But an exciting life he

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led. Uh, and so here we have this,

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uh, wonderful crater, well known, perhaps the best known

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of all lunar craters, even though it's not one of the biggest

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by any means. Uh, but what has happened now,

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uh, to link it with spaceflight today and to link it

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with your intro, uh, which, uh,

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is all related to astrobiology and the

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hunt for evidence of living

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organisms beyond our own planet. Uh, and one

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of the space missions that has that,

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uh, very much in mind is a European one.

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It's not a NASA mission. It's a European Space Agency

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mission. It's called juice. Juice, um,

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is an acronym for the Jupiter Icy Moons

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Explorer. Not quite sure what happened to the M

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in that, uh, in that acronym, but never mind.

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JUICE is a good name. Launched, uh, back

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in, uh, 2023, uh, and on its

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way to Jupiter with a few, um, slingshot

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maneuvers. Uh, it's, uh, going to reach

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Jupiter orbit in 2031.

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Uh, and, um, why are we talking

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about that in relation to the moon? Because,

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um, the spacecraft, uh, it's actually

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almost a year ago now, actually, um, flew

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past the moon, uh, and used

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that, uh, encounter

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of JUICE with the moon to test one

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of the primary pieces of equipment on board the

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spacecraft. And it's something called rime, another

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acronym, uh, not R H Y M E. That

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Would have been too complicated. Complicated. It's Rime,

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um, uh, the radar for icy moon

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exploration. And rime is

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a device that uh, will, we hope,

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uh, when the spacecraft is in orbit around

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Jupiter, uh, it will test

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the level of um.

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It will basically examine the structure beneath

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the icy surface of moons like Europa. Um,

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it won't be in orbit around Europa, it'll be in orbit around Jupiter. But

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it will make many flybys of Europa. And in

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doing that, it will use the RHYME instrument

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to probe what's underneath the ice

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of uh, ice, um,

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moons like Europa, probably some of the other ones as well.

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Uh, Ganymede and uh, Callisto are both also thought

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to be ice moons of this kind. A moon with

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an icy surface overlaying a global

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ocean which overlays a rocky body, the

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sort of moon itself. Now in order to test

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the RIME device, this radar for icy moon

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exploration, you need radio, uh,

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silence because it's very, very sensitive. So

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uh, what they did was uh, the

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mission controllers, they switched off all the other instruments

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on board, uh, Juice to

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test rime and tested it on.

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Yes, you've guessed it. Uh, the

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Anders Crater, the Anders

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Earthrise Crater. Uh, so that was the

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zone on the moon that they tested the

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radar with. Uh, and as far as I understand

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it came out absolutely perfectly.

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Um, the

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performance of the instrument was uh, as expected.

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And it looks as though we will

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find, um, uh, when

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Juice gets to Jupiter in 2031,

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that it's going to work for. Probing the

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suburbace region of uh, of

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Europa's ice fields.

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Heidi Campo: Well that is just fantastic. So we're

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not quite sure yet, but that information

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is coming. What do you think?

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, um. You mean

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what do you think they're going to find when the spacecraft gets to Jupiter? What's it going to find? What

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do you think I think it's going to find? Well, the first thing it'll find

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is layers in the ice. It

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will probably show a

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stratified ice formation.

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Um, what would be brilliant would be. And I

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don't know whether it's capable of doing this if it could

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probe down to the

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lowest layer of the ice where there's an

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interface between the underneath of the ice

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crust and the top of the briny

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ocean, uh, uh, on which the

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ice crust flows and it's liquid too. And it's kept that

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way because of the pressure of the ice on top and probably the

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tidal heating. Um, all of

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Jupiter's moons, especially IO, the volcanic

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one, they're all subject to being squashed and squeezed by the

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huge gravity of Jupiter itself. And so,

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um, that warms up the core and keeps the ocean

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liquid. Whether we'll see fish swimming in the

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ocean, uh, I think that might be a

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step too far. But what it might reveal

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is what the depth of the ice is.

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It might tell us what we would need to do to go and

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sample that water directly, how much ice we'd need to

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drill through. It may even tell us about the

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constituents of the ocean itself, give

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us some indication of just how briny it is.

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I think it would be, again, a step too far

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to find it penetrating down to the

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rocky seabed of that

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ocean, because that's where we

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expect to find hydrothermal vents. And

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they are thought to have been the cradle of life on Earth.

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Maybe they are the cradle of life on Europa,

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Callisto and Ganymede as well. So lots to

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imagine, uh, in the time between now and

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2031. Uh, I hope Space

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Nuts is still going strong in

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2031. And I hope you feel better by then, Heidi.

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Heidi Campo: I hope I feel better by then too.

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Professor Fred Watson: Space Nuts.

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Heidi Campo: Well, our next story is one, uh, that I think

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everybody's going to be really excited about because everyone

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here on Space Nuts is, seems to be obsessed with the

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same thing and that is black

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holes. And this is not

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just any black hole. This is

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a exotic. And then it's called

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a blazar. And it's an

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extreme double black hole.

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What? I didn't even know that you could have like a double black hole

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situation going on. But it's a good thing that we have

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you, an astronomer, to explain that to

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us.

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Professor Fred Watson: No, well, I'll do my best. Um,

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uh, so once again, going back to,

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I'm not going quite back as far as, um, the Apollo

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8 mission, but, um,

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uh, the blazar is

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a fairly new term, uh, that

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has been coined probably within the last 20 or

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30 years. Um, when I was a young

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astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, uh, they

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were a big time topic because nobody knew what they were. We had no

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idea that they were black holes back then. Uh,

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um, we called them Bl Lac objects. And

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Bl Lac is an abbreviation for Bl

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Lakerti, uh, which is a

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name for a variable star because that's what

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they were classified as, an extreme variable star, a

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star that varied in its brightness. Uh, but once we

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realized that these are actually black holes

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squirting out jets of material that,

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uh, aligns with the Earth and so

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looks very bright, then they were

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renamed blazars. Uh,

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and it's quite nice because The BL is still part of BL

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lac blt. Okay, so this

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particular one has uh, the wonderful name of

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OJ287, which is

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00:11:53.100 --> 00:11:55.940
perhaps notable only for its brevity, uh, but

253
00:11:55.940 --> 00:11:58.780
it's a good name. Uh, and it's.

254
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It's got, um, the uh.

255
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Basically the object has the

256
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distinction of producing a

257
00:12:07.760 --> 00:12:10.720
jet of material which is not quite

258
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aligned with our own planet, very nearly

259
00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:16.560
aligned with it, but it's crooked.

260
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Uh, it's a jet of material that looks like a

261
00:12:20.400 --> 00:12:23.080
corkscrew. Uh, it's got

262
00:12:23.080 --> 00:12:25.850
kinks in it basically. And the

263
00:12:26.500 --> 00:12:28.890
uh, deductions that have been made

264
00:12:29.370 --> 00:12:32.330
because of the crooked jet of material

265
00:12:32.730 --> 00:12:35.210
coming from this blazar is

266
00:12:35.530 --> 00:12:38.240
that it is, um,

267
00:12:38.410 --> 00:12:41.210
actually not one black hole that is doing

268
00:12:41.210 --> 00:12:43.770
all the activity. It's two.

269
00:12:44.010 --> 00:12:46.850
And just to recap, uh, when a black

270
00:12:46.850 --> 00:12:49.850
hole is in, um, the center of a

271
00:12:49.850 --> 00:12:52.350
galaxy, a supermassive black hole, uh, it

272
00:12:52.510 --> 00:12:55.390
has an accretion disk around it, a disk of M material

273
00:12:55.390 --> 00:12:57.950
that's swirling around the black hole that gets very

274
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energetic, can emit X rays, radio

275
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waves. But some of that material doesn't get sucked into the black

276
00:13:03.630 --> 00:13:06.430
hole. Some of it basically gets focused into

277
00:13:06.510 --> 00:13:09.390
one of, uh, well, a pair of jets going, uh,

278
00:13:09.390 --> 00:13:11.870
vertically perpendicular to the accretion disk,

279
00:13:12.110 --> 00:13:14.350
um, which are focused by magnetic forces.

280
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Now, um, the normal name for one of those is a

281
00:13:17.870 --> 00:13:20.570
quasar, uh, which is an

282
00:13:20.570 --> 00:13:22.930
acronym for a quasi stellar

283
00:13:23.570 --> 00:13:25.890
source. Um, uh, and

284
00:13:26.370 --> 00:13:29.290
a quasar, uh, is basically a

285
00:13:29.290 --> 00:13:32.230
single black hole emitting a jet of material which, uh,

286
00:13:32.450 --> 00:13:35.410
we see very brightly, uh, from

287
00:13:35.410 --> 00:13:37.010
our vantage point on Earth.

288
00:13:38.130 --> 00:13:40.290
So, um, uh, basically

289
00:13:41.330 --> 00:13:44.290
a blazar is one of those, but seen head on. So it's

290
00:13:44.290 --> 00:13:46.930
directly. The material is directly

291
00:13:47.330 --> 00:13:50.290
being aimed at, uh, the Earth. It's a special kind of,

292
00:13:50.450 --> 00:13:53.410
uh, quasar. Now the, uh, crooked

293
00:13:53.490 --> 00:13:56.450
jet tells you that there's something else going on.

294
00:13:56.610 --> 00:13:59.530
And the observers who

295
00:13:59.530 --> 00:14:02.290
have done this research, uh, and

296
00:14:02.850 --> 00:14:05.650
really looked at the hypothesis for

297
00:14:05.650 --> 00:14:08.490
what's happening is that it's not

298
00:14:08.490 --> 00:14:10.530
one black hole, but two.

299
00:14:11.070 --> 00:14:13.460
Uh, one of them has,

300
00:14:15.750 --> 00:14:17.460
um, basically a huge mass,

301
00:14:17.540 --> 00:14:20.500
18.35 billion

302
00:14:20.660 --> 00:14:23.500
solar masses. So 18.35

303
00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:26.380
billion times the mass of the Sun. It dwarfs the one at the

304
00:14:26.380 --> 00:14:28.740
center of our own galaxy, which is about 4 million

305
00:14:29.220 --> 00:14:31.860
times the mass of the Sun. But this

306
00:14:32.100 --> 00:14:34.990
18, uh,.35 billion solar mass black, uh,

307
00:14:35.300 --> 00:14:37.620
hole is at the center of

308
00:14:38.020 --> 00:14:40.980
activity there. And that's what's shooting out the jet.

309
00:14:41.700 --> 00:14:44.660
But, um, it has another one going around it which

310
00:14:44.660 --> 00:14:47.660
is probably less massive. I don't know that there's an estimate for the

311
00:14:47.660 --> 00:14:50.620
mass of the second one. And it's in a very elongated

312
00:14:50.620 --> 00:14:53.620
orbit around the main black hole. And every

313
00:14:53.620 --> 00:14:56.620
12 years it actually, uh, gets

314
00:14:56.620 --> 00:14:59.220
close enough to the main black hole to sort of

315
00:15:00.180 --> 00:15:02.780
steam through the accretion disk of the big black

316
00:15:02.780 --> 00:15:05.660
hole and essentially grab some of the

317
00:15:05.660 --> 00:15:08.500
material from that disk and basically

318
00:15:08.930 --> 00:15:11.920
produces its own jet of material, uh,

319
00:15:11.920 --> 00:15:14.650
and becomes a double quasar for a

320
00:15:14.650 --> 00:15:17.650
short time. Uh, and then, um, it

321
00:15:17.650 --> 00:15:20.130
fades away. And, you know,

322
00:15:20.130 --> 00:15:22.370
observations of, um, this object,

323
00:15:22.530 --> 00:15:25.330
OJ287, have been a mystery until

324
00:15:25.330 --> 00:15:28.290
now. Um, back in 2021,

325
00:15:28.450 --> 00:15:31.290
there was a huge increase in brightness that only

326
00:15:31.290 --> 00:15:33.930
took 12 hours. Uh, that's quite

327
00:15:33.930 --> 00:15:36.770
extraordinary, uh, you know, in something as compact

328
00:15:36.770 --> 00:15:39.620
as that. Uh, so we've got a, uh,

329
00:15:39.690 --> 00:15:42.630
theory that, um. And I might just add that it's

330
00:15:42.630 --> 00:15:45.190
very nicely expounded, uh, on

331
00:15:45.190 --> 00:15:48.110
thespace.com website by, uh, Keith Cooper,

332
00:15:48.110 --> 00:15:50.990
who's written an article on this. Uh, and

333
00:15:50.990 --> 00:15:53.910
I think, uh, the

334
00:15:53.910 --> 00:15:56.789
bottom line is that this object will continue to be observed.

335
00:15:56.789 --> 00:15:59.590
We'll find out more about black holes. We'll discover more

336
00:15:59.590 --> 00:16:02.590
about double black holes like this one. Um, my

337
00:16:02.590 --> 00:16:05.270
question, uh, to the astronomers who've made

338
00:16:05.270 --> 00:16:08.240
this, uh, research would be, is there

339
00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:11.080
any chance of the two merging? Because we do know that black

340
00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:13.960
holes merge. We see their gravitational wave signals.

341
00:16:14.380 --> 00:16:17.320
Uh, and maybe that would be something that, down

342
00:16:17.320 --> 00:16:19.560
the track might happen. We might get a merger between

343
00:16:19.880 --> 00:16:22.840
OJ287 and its companion black hole.

344
00:16:23.560 --> 00:16:26.440
Heidi Campo: I mean, the images are truly incredible. If you guys

345
00:16:26.440 --> 00:16:29.280
are able to, um, look this up,

346
00:16:29.280 --> 00:16:31.480
I really encourage you because it really.

347
00:16:32.840 --> 00:16:35.610
I can't quite describe it, but it almost looks like, um,

348
00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:39.160
like you. Can you. I can't describe it. It looks

349
00:16:39.160 --> 00:16:42.160
like they are connected though. Like you can see like there's this spiraling

350
00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:44.720
energy between them. It's really interesting.

351
00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:49.320
Professor Fred Watson: Okay, we checked all four systems, and.

352
00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:52.199
Heidi Campo: Being with a go Space nets, I also wanted to ask

353
00:16:52.199 --> 00:16:54.960
you, were you really thirsty when you were looking at, um, the

354
00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:57.840
articles today? Because I realized juice is in all of them.

355
00:16:58.080 --> 00:17:00.840
With the first one, um, juice, the

356
00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:03.710
acronym. And then this one's OJ 2,

357
00:17:03.763 --> 00:17:06.750
8 7. And then the very

358
00:17:06.830 --> 00:17:09.790
last OJ orange juice. And the very

359
00:17:09.790 --> 00:17:12.630
last article we have is, uh,

360
00:17:12.630 --> 00:17:15.310
some people pronounce it Beetlejuice,

361
00:17:16.110 --> 00:17:19.030
but Beetle. Guys, um, we were

362
00:17:19.030 --> 00:17:21.390
talking about this before we logged on,

363
00:17:21.570 --> 00:17:24.550
um, and you told me the

364
00:17:24.550 --> 00:17:27.430
French way of pronouncing beetle.

365
00:17:27.430 --> 00:17:27.750
Geist.

366
00:17:27.750 --> 00:17:29.790
Professor Fred Watson: Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse.

367
00:17:30.110 --> 00:17:31.470
Heidi Campo: And then what was the German?

368
00:17:32.810 --> 00:17:35.570
Professor Fred Watson: Well, I don't know whether the Germans say it, but it would be Bettel

369
00:17:35.570 --> 00:17:37.290
Goiser, I guess, in German,

370
00:17:38.330 --> 00:17:41.250
but we often call it Betelgeuse because that's the

371
00:17:41.250 --> 00:17:44.010
easiest way to do it. But, uh, what a

372
00:17:44.010 --> 00:17:46.650
lovely comment to make, Heidi. I hadn't spotted.

373
00:17:46.890 --> 00:17:49.410
I had not spotted that link between the three

374
00:17:49.410 --> 00:17:50.650
stories. That's brilliant.

375
00:17:50.650 --> 00:17:53.410
Heidi Campo: Well, I'm just sitting here listening to you. I'm like, wait a second. Every

376
00:17:53.410 --> 00:17:55.210
article today mentions juice.

377
00:17:55.930 --> 00:17:58.850
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So it's a very juicy episode of

378
00:17:58.850 --> 00:18:00.010
Space Nuts today.

379
00:18:01.160 --> 00:18:03.960
So, um, and that's a lovely segue to the final story as well,

380
00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:06.880
which is about Betelgeuse or Betelgeuse or whatever you want

381
00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:09.880
to say. Uh, I copy. Um, Patrick

382
00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:12.880
Moore, that great science communicator, uh, in

383
00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:15.640
the United Kingdom, sadly no longer with us. But he

384
00:18:16.039 --> 00:18:18.840
encouraged many, many people to take up astronomy as

385
00:18:18.840 --> 00:18:21.680
a hobby and another large number to

386
00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:24.480
take up astronomy as a career. Including the

387
00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:27.460
person talking to you now. Uh, he pronounced it

388
00:18:27.460 --> 00:18:29.940
Betelgeuse. He made it French. Um, but

389
00:18:29.940 --> 00:18:32.860
Betelgeuse is as good as any. And why is it in the news?

390
00:18:32.860 --> 00:18:35.580
Because for a long time, this

391
00:18:35.580 --> 00:18:38.540
star, I should say it's the reddish star,

392
00:18:39.030 --> 00:18:41.939
uh, on Orion's shoulder. And that's the

393
00:18:41.939 --> 00:18:44.620
constellation of Orion, which is very familiar to all of you

394
00:18:44.780 --> 00:18:47.420
people in the Northern Hemisphere. Uh, and

395
00:18:47.420 --> 00:18:50.340
so it's the star on his right

396
00:18:50.340 --> 00:18:53.200
shoulder, a red giant star, very gigantic

397
00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:56.080
star, probably pretty unstable. Maybe we'll turn it into a

398
00:18:56.080 --> 00:18:59.000
supernova within the next 10,000 years or so.

399
00:18:59.080 --> 00:19:02.050
Something to look forward to. Um, but, um,

400
00:19:02.050 --> 00:19:04.760
now we see Betelgeuse, uh, in a different

401
00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:08.040
place because our view of Orion is upside

402
00:19:08.040 --> 00:19:10.920
down. Uh, and, um, people tend to notice more

403
00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:13.520
the three stars of Orion's belt, which we call the base of the

404
00:19:13.520 --> 00:19:16.040
saucepan. It's very confusing, Heidi.

405
00:19:16.250 --> 00:19:19.040
Um, um, but, um, it doesn't matter where it

406
00:19:19.040 --> 00:19:21.940
is. The main thing is, if I remember rightly, it's about

407
00:19:21.940 --> 00:19:24.860
500 light years away. I can't remember the exact figure, but it's something

408
00:19:24.860 --> 00:19:27.220
like that. Uh, and it's thought

409
00:19:28.340 --> 00:19:31.340
there's been a suspicion for many decades that

410
00:19:31.340 --> 00:19:34.340
it has a companion star. Now, companion

411
00:19:34.340 --> 00:19:37.220
stars are not at all uncommon. Uh, in fact,

412
00:19:37.300 --> 00:19:40.180
probably more stars in the galaxy are double stars.

413
00:19:40.260 --> 00:19:43.170
So they have a companion. They're a binary object, uh,

414
00:19:43.170 --> 00:19:46.100
than single ones. Um, our sun is a

415
00:19:46.100 --> 00:19:48.770
bit unusual in that respect because it's definitely a single

416
00:19:48.770 --> 00:19:51.650
star, at least to the best of our knowledge so

417
00:19:51.650 --> 00:19:54.650
far. Um, this, however, is

418
00:19:54.650 --> 00:19:57.050
a putative, uh, discovery.

419
00:19:57.370 --> 00:19:59.910
Sorry, a discovery of a putative satellite. Uh,

420
00:20:00.970 --> 00:20:03.609
star of Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse

421
00:20:04.090 --> 00:20:06.850
Uh, which has been detected with the

422
00:20:06.850 --> 00:20:09.850
Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii, one of the eight

423
00:20:09.850 --> 00:20:12.810
meter class telescopes. That is at the summit of Mauna

424
00:20:12.810 --> 00:20:15.390
Kea, the mountain on the Big island there.

425
00:20:15.870 --> 00:20:18.790
Um, and uh, the thing that interests me

426
00:20:18.790 --> 00:20:21.430
about it, um, because we don't really know much about what's

427
00:20:21.430 --> 00:20:24.110
discovered except there's a faint blob showing up next to

428
00:20:24.350 --> 00:20:27.070
Betelgeuse, which is thought to be the companion

429
00:20:27.550 --> 00:20:30.070
M. But the method used was something we call speckle

430
00:20:30.070 --> 00:20:32.590
imaging, um, which is a way of

431
00:20:32.910 --> 00:20:35.710
trying to tease out detailed information

432
00:20:35.950 --> 00:20:38.790
in an image in spite of the turbulence of the

433
00:20:38.790 --> 00:20:41.090
atmosphere, um, sort of

434
00:20:41.250 --> 00:20:44.170
blurring the image out, uh, as the, as the light comes

435
00:20:44.170 --> 00:20:47.170
through it. If you can take very, very short

436
00:20:47.330 --> 00:20:50.290
exposures, you know, perhaps a thousandth of a second,

437
00:20:51.170 --> 00:20:54.170
take an image lasting that long, you'll freeze

438
00:20:54.170 --> 00:20:56.930
the turbulence of the atmosphere. And by doing that,

439
00:20:56.930 --> 00:20:59.730
it's possible to tease out much, uh, more

440
00:20:59.730 --> 00:21:02.570
detail. This technique called speckle imaging. And

441
00:21:02.570 --> 00:21:04.850
that's how this object has been found.

442
00:21:05.660 --> 00:21:08.540
The reason there is still some doubt about

443
00:21:08.620 --> 00:21:11.100
whether it's a real companion or not

444
00:21:11.500 --> 00:21:14.420
is because as I understand it, over the time that this

445
00:21:14.420 --> 00:21:16.460
object has been observed, um,

446
00:21:17.260 --> 00:21:19.980
Betelgeuse and its companion, there's been no

447
00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:22.860
apparent movement of the companion.

448
00:21:23.360 --> 00:21:26.300
Uh, and if you've got something in orbit around another star,

449
00:21:26.840 --> 00:21:29.740
uh, this close as it seems to be, you would expect to

450
00:21:29.740 --> 00:21:32.570
see some motion of the image of the object.

451
00:21:32.570 --> 00:21:35.570
We see that with one or two of the exoplanets that

452
00:21:35.570 --> 00:21:38.530
have been discovered. Of the 7,000

453
00:21:38.530 --> 00:21:41.170
odd exoplanets that we know, there's only a

454
00:21:41.170 --> 00:21:43.970
handful that have been seen by direct imaging. Most of them,

455
00:21:44.390 --> 00:21:47.370
uh, it's by deducing their presence from

456
00:21:47.370 --> 00:21:49.810
other evidence. But one or two have been shown,

457
00:21:50.270 --> 00:21:53.170
uh, by direct imaging and you can see their motion around

458
00:21:53.170 --> 00:21:55.890
the parent star. That's why we know those planets are

459
00:21:55.890 --> 00:21:58.850
real. Now you would expect the same thing to happen with

460
00:21:58.850 --> 00:22:01.810
a star and a companion star like we're talking

461
00:22:01.810 --> 00:22:04.730
about now. But, um, so far, as far as I

462
00:22:04.730 --> 00:22:07.490
know, no motion has been detected.

463
00:22:07.970 --> 00:22:10.770
And once again, if you want to read about that, there's a great article

464
00:22:10.770 --> 00:22:12.690
on the sky and Telescope website.

465
00:22:13.730 --> 00:22:16.650
Heidi Campo: Well, and I'm looking at this one too. I realize now that I probably say this

466
00:22:16.650 --> 00:22:19.410
about a lot of our articles, but this is also such a beautiful

467
00:22:19.410 --> 00:22:21.970
image. Um, and the one here.

468
00:22:22.130 --> 00:22:25.010
So this, this photo is, that's the technique

469
00:22:25.010 --> 00:22:27.990
they used is the really short,

470
00:22:28.620 --> 00:22:31.550
um, that is just stunning because

471
00:22:31.550 --> 00:22:32.270
you, it's.

472
00:22:32.270 --> 00:22:34.710
Professor Fred Watson: So what, what they do is they, they take really short

473
00:22:34.710 --> 00:22:37.590
exposures and then they kind of stack the good ones,

474
00:22:37.590 --> 00:22:40.350
the ones that are showing what they expect to show. They stack them

475
00:22:40.350 --> 00:22:43.030
up to build up what we call the signal to noise

476
00:22:43.030 --> 00:22:45.750
ratio in the image to make it, uh, an image

477
00:22:45.750 --> 00:22:48.670
that's got some credibility to it rather

478
00:22:48.670 --> 00:22:51.590
than just, you know, just noise. But yes, you're right. It's a

479
00:22:51.590 --> 00:22:52.230
stunning image.

480
00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.600
Heidi Campo: Yeah. Usually you don't, um. I

481
00:22:55.600 --> 00:22:58.360
don't know what it is about it. There's just so much detail in it. It

482
00:22:58.360 --> 00:23:01.200
almost looks, I

483
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:04.040
don't. Just different from a lot of the space images that you see. And

484
00:23:04.040 --> 00:23:05.600
it's really, really beautiful to me.

485
00:23:06.080 --> 00:23:08.980
But I also had another thought, um,

486
00:23:08.980 --> 00:23:11.760
when you introduced this to how you mentioned how Orion's

487
00:23:11.760 --> 00:23:14.400
upside down for you. And it made me remember,

488
00:23:14.820 --> 00:23:17.440
um, I think this was episodes

489
00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:20.080
quite a ways back where we talked about how

490
00:23:20.650 --> 00:23:23.050
different cultures refer to the Moon and different

491
00:23:23.050 --> 00:23:25.610
genders. So like, I've always. People,

492
00:23:26.010 --> 00:23:28.810
people in the US we always. I hear the Moon

493
00:23:28.810 --> 00:23:31.810
referred to in the female. Then you're like, oh. And then I think you

494
00:23:31.810 --> 00:23:34.690
mentioned, um, Aboriginals mentioned it in

495
00:23:34.690 --> 00:23:37.650
the masculine. And then it made me really think. I'm like,

496
00:23:37.650 --> 00:23:40.530
wait a second. Are there totally. There's probably totally different

497
00:23:40.530 --> 00:23:43.490
constellations in every other culture? And this would

498
00:23:43.490 --> 00:23:46.000
probably be a whole other episode and a whole other tangent.

499
00:23:46.390 --> 00:23:49.070
But how did we come up with the

500
00:23:49.070 --> 00:23:51.510
universal constellations that astronomers

501
00:23:51.510 --> 00:23:53.190
worldwide use?

502
00:23:55.290 --> 00:23:57.950
Professor Fred Watson: Um, yeah, the short answer is they're derived

503
00:23:57.950 --> 00:24:00.910
from, I, uh, think ancient Babylonian

504
00:24:00.910 --> 00:24:02.790
constellations. They go back a very, very long time,

505
00:24:03.710 --> 00:24:06.710
uh, and were adopted by the Greeks and

506
00:24:06.710 --> 00:24:09.350
Romans. And I think it was Ptolemy who basically

507
00:24:09.350 --> 00:24:12.070
produced the first map that recorded them. That's

508
00:24:12.070 --> 00:24:15.030
2,000 years ago. And so that's, uh, in

509
00:24:15.190 --> 00:24:17.830
what you might call Western culture that was rooted

510
00:24:18.050 --> 00:24:20.890
to existence very early on. And those constellations

511
00:24:20.890 --> 00:24:23.790
that we're all familiar with in the world of astronomy, uh,

512
00:24:23.870 --> 00:24:26.610
uh, um, they're basically taken

513
00:24:26.610 --> 00:24:29.410
from that era. But you're absolutely right.

514
00:24:29.700 --> 00:24:32.490
Uh, other cultures have their own

515
00:24:32.490 --> 00:24:35.370
constellations. Here in Australia, um, there

516
00:24:35.370 --> 00:24:38.130
are something like 450 different nation

517
00:24:38.130 --> 00:24:40.930
groups within Australia. So individual

518
00:24:41.890 --> 00:24:44.360
groups of Aboriginal people, uh, are,

519
00:24:44.360 --> 00:24:47.310
uh. And they have their own constellation. They have

520
00:24:47.310 --> 00:24:50.070
different languages as well. Uh, these

521
00:24:50.070 --> 00:24:52.670
first nations people in Australia are a very

522
00:24:53.230 --> 00:24:55.600
diverse and, um,

523
00:24:55.600 --> 00:24:58.590
interesting set of cultures. So

524
00:24:58.830 --> 00:25:01.750
constellations vary from one part of Australia to

525
00:25:01.750 --> 00:25:04.710
another. The traditional first nations constellations, they're quite

526
00:25:04.710 --> 00:25:07.640
different, uh, and have different stories. Um,

527
00:25:07.790 --> 00:25:10.790
one of them I could just mention in the context of

528
00:25:10.790 --> 00:25:13.760
Orion. Um, I can't remember where this comes from, but

529
00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:16.620
it's one of the language groups. It may be uh,

530
00:25:16.620 --> 00:25:19.320
in Northern Victoria, which is one of our states in

531
00:25:19.320 --> 00:25:22.320
Australia. But they see Orion as

532
00:25:22.320 --> 00:25:25.280
a canoe with three brothers in

533
00:25:25.280 --> 00:25:27.560
it, uh, which are the three stars of the belt

534
00:25:28.120 --> 00:25:31.120
sitting right in the middle. And, um,

535
00:25:31.480 --> 00:25:34.320
what we know as the Orion Nebula, that faint

536
00:25:34.320 --> 00:25:36.800
patch which in the northern tradition is

537
00:25:36.800 --> 00:25:39.760
Orion's sword. Um, they see that as a fish that

538
00:25:39.760 --> 00:25:41.140
these three brothers have, of course.

539
00:25:41.300 --> 00:25:42.260
Heidi Campo: Oh, that's so cute.

540
00:25:42.260 --> 00:25:45.100
Professor Fred Watson: You know. Yeah. Uh, and there are other style

541
00:25:45.100 --> 00:25:48.030
groups that don't relate to ours. Um,

542
00:25:48.820 --> 00:25:51.820
uh, I might just mention why I studied this and it

543
00:25:51.820 --> 00:25:54.580
goes back 20 years. Um, I work

544
00:25:54.660 --> 00:25:57.380
sometimes with a very well known classical music

545
00:25:57.380 --> 00:26:00.340
composer in Australia, Russ Edwards, who's produced some

546
00:26:00.500 --> 00:26:02.500
fabulous music in his career.

547
00:26:02.990 --> 00:26:05.660
Um, but he and I collaborated on his

548
00:26:05.660 --> 00:26:08.400
fourth Symphony, which is a choral work. So it's got

549
00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:11.320
actually two choirs singing. And what I did for the

550
00:26:11.320 --> 00:26:14.240
words was to take a journey right through the sky

551
00:26:14.320 --> 00:26:16.560
from the far northern horizon here in Australia,

552
00:26:17.040 --> 00:26:19.480
down to the south polar star, which is called Sigma

553
00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:22.340
Octantis. Um, and, um,

554
00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:25.600
in doing that, um, I tried to pull

555
00:26:25.600 --> 00:26:28.400
together the western star names and constellations

556
00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:31.640
with their first nations equivalent. And it was

557
00:26:31.640 --> 00:26:34.480
quite a difficult job because there are so many different cultures

558
00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:37.360
in the aboriginal population of Australia. But

559
00:26:37.360 --> 00:26:40.200
we did it. Uh, and, um, it actually won a

560
00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:43.120
major award. The CD that was made won a major award.

561
00:26:43.120 --> 00:26:45.720
Heidi Campo: So beautiful.

562
00:26:45.800 --> 00:26:48.600
We're gonna maybe. Maybe we'll see if Huw can

563
00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:52.000
find that symphony and we can have that be our exit music

564
00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:52.920
for this episode.

565
00:26:54.440 --> 00:26:55.480
Professor Fred Watson: Well, you never know. He might.

566
00:26:55.480 --> 00:26:55.960
Heidi Campo: He might.

567
00:26:56.070 --> 00:26:57.720
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yeah. ABC cd.

568
00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:00.600
Heidi Campo: He's pretty incredible. But this was a great episode.

569
00:27:00.760 --> 00:27:03.000
Thank you so much for joining us. And

570
00:27:03.400 --> 00:27:06.250
we will catch you, you guys, later

571
00:27:06.650 --> 00:27:09.530
with our next episode, which will be a Q and A

572
00:27:09.530 --> 00:27:12.450
episode. Until then, see you guys

573
00:27:12.450 --> 00:27:12.970
next time.

574
00:27:12.970 --> 00:27:15.890
Andrew Dunkley: Hello, Fred. Hello, Heidi. Hello, Huw in the studio.

575
00:27:15.890 --> 00:27:16.650
Andrew, again.

576
00:27:16.970 --> 00:27:19.920
And since I spoke to you last, we have, uh,

577
00:27:20.489 --> 00:27:22.650
been sort of halfway around the UK

578
00:27:23.610 --> 00:27:25.770
from Ireland, uh, in

579
00:27:26.010 --> 00:27:28.650
Cob, Uh, near County Cork.

580
00:27:28.930 --> 00:27:31.720
Uh, from there we went across to Liverpool

581
00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:35.000
and then, uh. No, Edinburgh. Edinburgh.

582
00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:38.000
Sorry, Fred, I nearly left out Edinburgh. My goodness. And

583
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:40.840
then, uh, we went down to Liverpool and then around to

584
00:27:40.840 --> 00:27:43.080
Dover, then across to

585
00:27:43.320 --> 00:27:45.840
Norway, which is where we spent today in

586
00:27:45.840 --> 00:27:48.790
Bergen. And it's been a fabulous trip. Uh,

587
00:27:48.790 --> 00:27:51.160
unfortunately, Fred did not get to go

588
00:27:51.480 --> 00:27:53.800
to the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh,

589
00:27:54.360 --> 00:27:57.210
but, um, did see a heck of a lot of the

590
00:27:57.210 --> 00:28:00.210
place. That castle is remarkable. I mean,

591
00:28:01.090 --> 00:28:03.950
it stands out like a sore thumb, but, uh,

592
00:28:03.950 --> 00:28:06.810
a very good sore thumb, if I can put it to you that

593
00:28:06.810 --> 00:28:09.730
way. But, uh, I can see why. Ah, so Many

594
00:28:09.730 --> 00:28:12.450
people love Edinburgh, Fred. Uh, I know you

595
00:28:12.530 --> 00:28:15.090
spent a, uh, great many years there

596
00:28:15.890 --> 00:28:18.690
and uh, I think you were educated in that

597
00:28:18.830 --> 00:28:21.350
um, part of the world or I know you worked at the Royal

598
00:28:21.660 --> 00:28:24.420
Observatory. Um, yeah,

599
00:28:24.420 --> 00:28:27.420
fabulous. Um, uh, Cove was brilliant

600
00:28:27.420 --> 00:28:30.420
in Ireland and we, we uh, did a lot of uh, things

601
00:28:30.420 --> 00:28:33.420
connected with the Titanic because the last passengers

602
00:28:34.370 --> 00:28:37.190
uh, to board the Titanic did that, uh,

603
00:28:37.340 --> 00:28:40.100
in um, in Cove. And most of

604
00:28:40.100 --> 00:28:41.870
them were Irish, um,

605
00:28:42.780 --> 00:28:45.740
immigrants headed for the United States and

606
00:28:46.060 --> 00:28:46.880
none of them made it.

607
00:28:47.110 --> 00:28:47.350
Professor Fred Watson: It.

608
00:28:47.590 --> 00:28:50.470
Andrew Dunkley: Well, not most of them didn't make it, which

609
00:28:50.550 --> 00:28:53.550
is a very sad tale that most people are very much aware

610
00:28:53.550 --> 00:28:56.510
of. Then to Liverpool where we um, visited the

611
00:28:56.510 --> 00:28:59.190
Beatles quite literally. We went to all of their houses

612
00:28:59.830 --> 00:29:02.550
and uh, did quite, quite a bit.

613
00:29:02.949 --> 00:29:05.830
We actually did a taxi tour of Liverpool

614
00:29:05.830 --> 00:29:08.790
visiting the major beetle sites and

615
00:29:08.790 --> 00:29:11.670
I highly recommend that. It was just fabulous. Strawberry

616
00:29:11.670 --> 00:29:14.480
Fields. Um, gosh,

617
00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:17.280
all their houses, their schools, uh, Penny

618
00:29:17.280 --> 00:29:19.920
Lane, uh, you name it, we saw it.

619
00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:22.640
And um, that was just a terrific day.

620
00:29:23.390 --> 00:29:26.100
Uh, one of my highlights. And then, uh,

621
00:29:26.990 --> 00:29:29.800
uh, in Dover we went to the castle and went

622
00:29:29.800 --> 00:29:32.800
through all the siege tunnels and the World War I and World War II

623
00:29:32.800 --> 00:29:35.800
tunnels. I didn't know. I thought I knew everything, but

624
00:29:35.800 --> 00:29:38.450
I didn't know that they coordinated the

625
00:29:38.450 --> 00:29:41.290
evacuation from Dunkirk from the tunnels

626
00:29:41.290 --> 00:29:43.770
underneath Dover Castle. So there you are.

627
00:29:44.170 --> 00:29:46.970
And then today we're in Bergen and we

628
00:29:46.970 --> 00:29:49.210
went uh, looking at fjords

629
00:29:49.850 --> 00:29:52.730
and waterfalls and I must say

630
00:29:52.730 --> 00:29:55.210
Norway has got to be one of the most

631
00:29:55.210 --> 00:29:57.530
picturesque countries I've ever seen.

632
00:29:57.930 --> 00:30:00.850
It is just dotted with beautiful little homes on the

633
00:30:00.850 --> 00:30:03.130
sides of mountains overlooking fjords.

634
00:30:03.830 --> 00:30:06.620
Uh, and these things are enormous. I think their biggest ones.

635
00:30:06.620 --> 00:30:09.580
179 kilometers long and 900 meters

636
00:30:09.580 --> 00:30:12.260
deep. And we had a quick look at it today.

637
00:30:12.330 --> 00:30:14.740
Uh, yeah, beautiful harbour, Bergen.

638
00:30:15.140 --> 00:30:18.140
And we continue uh, our trek, uh, up the

639
00:30:18.140 --> 00:30:20.820
coast, uh, to Shalden tomorrow. And then

640
00:30:20.900 --> 00:30:23.700
we're going to cross into the Arctic Circle

641
00:30:23.860 --> 00:30:26.460
in a few days and visit North Cape, the

642
00:30:26.460 --> 00:30:29.220
northernmost point of Europe,

643
00:30:29.610 --> 00:30:32.490
mainland Europe. So looking forward to that. Uh, still

644
00:30:32.490 --> 00:30:35.490
quite a few stops to go. A uh, couple of two

645
00:30:35.490 --> 00:30:38.170
or three more weeks on board. I think probably three.

646
00:30:38.870 --> 00:30:41.730
Uh, but hope all is well with everybody. Uh, we've

647
00:30:41.730 --> 00:30:44.730
got, got our fingers crossed for the northern lights, but it's not

648
00:30:44.730 --> 00:30:47.000
a good time of year and the forecasts uh,

649
00:30:47.610 --> 00:30:50.410
at best are 50, 50, but mainly May,

650
00:30:50.650 --> 00:30:53.290
may be opportunistic in Greenland.

651
00:30:53.850 --> 00:30:56.660
So I'll keep you posted. All right, until next time.

652
00:30:56.660 --> 00:30:58.260
Take care. See you soon.

653
00:30:59.460 --> 00:31:02.340
Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to the Space Nuts podcast,

654
00:31:03.860 --> 00:31:06.660
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655
00:31:06.820 --> 00:31:09.580
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656
00:31:09.580 --> 00:31:11.379
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658
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659
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