Cosmic Conundrums: Time Dilation, Dark Matter & the Quest for Faster-Than-Light Travel

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Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another episode of space nuts.

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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: I'm your host for this summer, filling in

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for Andrew Dunkley. My name is Heidi Campo.

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And joining us is professor Fred Watson,

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astronomer at large.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, good to be here, Heidi, as always. And

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you're also our host for this winter here in Australia.

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So, yeah, lovely to talk. And um, I think we've got

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some pretty great questions from our, uh, listeners for this episode.

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Heidi Campo: We do. We have some really fun, uh,

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uh, not episodes. We have some fun questions.

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Um, our first question today is

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Martins from Latvia. And here

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is his question.

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Martins: Hello guys. It's, uh, Martins from

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Latvia. Um, I've been loving your show. Been

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listening since 2017. And, um,

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so I have a question about dark matter.

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Okay, just kidding. I have a question about speed,

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uh, of light. So we have two objects.

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One object is on Earth and the other one is traveling

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in space at the speed of light. After some

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time it comes back and the object that's on Earth is

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older than the other object.

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So why is that happening again? Why? They aren't

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the same, uh, age. I mean. Yeah,

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there's something to do probably when you're reaching speed of light that

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time is slowing down or something. But why it's slowing

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down? Why isn't it, uh, like. Yeah,

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just curious. And uh.

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Yeah, and I have, um, some

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dad joke for your, uh, arsenal,

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Andrew. So, uh, how do you

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put a space baby to sleep? You rock it.

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So anyways, guys, cheers then.

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Yeah, have a good one.

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Heidi Campo: Well, I think those space babies will

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being well with those jokes. Thank you so much, Martinez.

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That's a. That was a good one.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yep. Space babies, uh, always need to be

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rocked. That's right.

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So, uh, now that's a great question.

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Um, um, I have visited Latvia actually.

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Uh, some years ago we did a tour there. I do

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remember, um, you know, Heidi, because we've

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talked about it before. I'm very fond of trains. We

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traveled on a little railway, uh, through the snow and

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through, uh. Because we always visit these places in

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winter, uh, through snow and woodlands. And it

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trundled along at something like

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nine miles an hour. Maybe it

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was a fast walking pace

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because it was a very old line, but it was a lot of fun.

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Anyway, enough about Latvia.

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Uh, let's get to the speed of light, which is basically

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what Martin's question is about.

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Um, this is, it's one of the

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fundamental aspects of

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relativity. Uh, Einstein's two theories

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of relativity. One was about motion. The other was about

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gravity. It's the one about motion that covers this. That's

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called the special theory of relativity. Uh, dated

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1905. And it turns out

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that the thinking that Einstein had had,

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uh, leading up to this. Was

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that we know that the speed of light

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is a bizarre quantity.

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Because in a vacuum it's always the same.

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We know also that it's the maximum

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speed that anything can attain. In fact, you can't actually achieve

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the speed of light with an object. Because

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you would have to put infinite energy in to get it to the speed of

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light. And we don't have infin infinite energy. So light

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and its other electromagnetic waves.

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They are the only things that can travel at the speed of light.

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But if you had something that you are accelerating.

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Well, let me just go back. The speed of light is

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almost like a magic number. It's not magic because it's a

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very round number. It's about 300,000 kilometers per second.

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Uh uh, it is, however,

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the fact that it doesn't change in a vacuum. And it

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doesn't matter how fast the source is moving. You'd expect

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if you have a source that's moving. That sends out a

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beam of light. Um, the source's speed

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would add to the speed of light. And the speed of light

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would increase. But it doesn't doesn't work like that.

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And once you establish that, then

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it turns out. And there's

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some quite sort of simple ways of

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seeing how this might work. Which we don't really have time

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to talk about. But some of the books about special

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relativity. That talk about people looking at somebody

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moving on a train. Show you how the geometry

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works. That, uh. Because the speed of light

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is always the same. Then what it tells

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you is perceptions of time and distance

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must change. And so the key

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thing here. And the point that, uh, Martins

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is raising. Is that if you've got

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an observer who is stationary.

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Compared with somebody who's moving at a very high

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speed. Nearly, uh, the speed of light or

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yeah. It doesn't matter whether it's near the speed of light or

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not. The effect works. But it's when you get

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nearer the speed of light. That it becomes noticeable.

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Um, the time that you observe.

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Um, that moving person,

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uh, experiencing is slower. So your

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time's ticking away as normal. And

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the person who's moving past you. Their time

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is ticking away as normal. But when the

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stationary person if you could see the clock

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on the moving vehicle or whatever it is. Train Going

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at nearly the speed of light. Just to mix a few metaphors there,

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um, what you would see is their clocks would seem to be going

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much more slowly than yours is. And

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that's the time dilation effect. And

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yes, it means that, um, if you can

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then bring these two back together, the moving

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person has experienced less time

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relative to you than you have. And

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that's the. It's sometimes called the twins paradox.

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Because if you take two twins, one goes off at the

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speed of light, comes back again, or nearly the speed of light,

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comes back again there they have aged much less

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than the twin who stayed put.

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So that's the bottom line. And

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it's such a counterintuitive concept that it

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is really hard to get your head around. But we know it works.

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Uh, in fact, um, the demonstration,

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um, the practical demonstration of this phenomenon

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happening in reality, uh, I think it was just

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before the Second World War. Might have been round about the

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same time. But there are things called cosmic rays which are

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bombarding the Earth all the time. These are subatomic particles that

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come from space. Um, and they are

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predominantly a species of

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subatomic particle called a muon. So these

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muons were observed coming down

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through space at, uh, nearly the speed of light.

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And we know how long they take to

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decay in the laboratory. But

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their decay time was much longer when

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they were observed coming in at the speed of light, nearly the

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speed of light, the time had dilated. So the decays

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were much longer than what we observe in the laboratory when

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they're not stationary, but they're going

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much more slowly. So it is a proven fact

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this works. Uh, if we could

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build a spacecraft that would get us to. I can't remember

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what it is. I think it's

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99.99998% of the speed

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of light. Head off for 500

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light years, come back again. Uh, you will be 10

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years older, whereas everybody else on Earth

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will be a thousand years older. So it's that

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sort of thing. Your time has slowed down relative to what

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they've experienced.

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Heidi Campo: I had a weird nightmare about that the other night.

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Professor Fred Watson: Oh, did you?

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Heidi Campo: It was the strangest thing. I had a nightma. Um,

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somebody put me in, like, some kind of a cryo sleep. And I woke up and so

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much time had passed that everyone I knew had died. And so I

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had them put me back in cryo sleep for

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thousands of more years until we discovered the technology to travel

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back in time so I could go back in time and link

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back up with everyone I loved.

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Professor Fred Watson: That's A pretty good one is that.

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Heidi Campo: I have a very active dreamscape. Uh,

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at night I wake up exhausted.

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Professor Fred Watson: Okay.

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Heidi Campo: All right.

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Well, our next, uh, question has a little bit of philosophy in it.

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Um, this, this question is coming from Art

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from Rochester, New York. And it's, ah, it's quite a

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long question. So let's, uh, grab a cup of

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tea here. Art

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says, I was listening to the June 13 program

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concerning the flying banana, which prompted me to

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submit my first question to Space Nuts.

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It is a question I had been pondering for some time. You

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will be glad to hear it is not a black hole question, but

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rather a what if question. The great

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American philosopher Julius Henry Marx once

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postulated, time flies like an arrow, fruit

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flies like a banana. Based

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on empirical evidence, I can confirm that fruit

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flies like a banana. My question

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revolves around time flying like an arrow.

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To the best of my understanding, when we shoot off

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rockets to the moon or Pluto, in order to get

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there accurately, the rocket scientists use an

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amphimerus. M. You'll have to correct me on the

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pronunciations of that or possible

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amphimerds as a sort of a map.

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If faster than light space travel were

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possible, how could one navigate from point A to

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point B? Is it possible to develop an

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ephemeris for faster than light

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travel? Thank you, Art from Rochester, New

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York.

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Professor Fred Watson: A great question, Art. And, uh, yeah,

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your pronunciation is correct. Ephemeris is what

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these things are, and ephemerides is what a

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lot of them, ah, are. So what's an ephemeris? Well,

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uh, the original

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meaning, um, and I guess this really is still

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the meaning of the word is, uh, to

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predict where, uh, planets

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are going to be, uh, in the future,

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where celestial objects are going to be.

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So, um, going back to my

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master's degree, uh, back, you know,

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150 years ago, my work was on,

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um, the orbits of asteroids. And

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so there were two problems. First problem was how

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do you take observations of an asteroid? And remember, all we had

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in those days was the direction

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that you could see measured with a telescope. How do you

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turn that into knowledge of the orbit of

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the asteroid, uh, in three dimensions? And you can

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do it. You need at least three observations to do that, but you

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can do it. You can mathematically deduce the orbit

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from just three directions in space. But then

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once you've got the orbit, what you want to know is where it's

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going to be in the future, what's its direction in space

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going to be? And that is what an ephemeris is.

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It's how the position of an object changes,

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uh, in the sky, uh, over time. Um,

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so it comes from the word ephemeral, meaning

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stuff that's temporary. Uh, so an

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ephemeris, uh, is the,

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basically it's a table of where an object

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will be over a given amount of time. And of course it's

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critically important these days because we now know

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that, which we didn't know when I did my master's

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degree. We now know that the Earth's locality

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is pretty heavily populated with asteroids. And there's,

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you know, we might want to know where they are

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just in case one's uh, heading our way. So

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um, I, you know, I think the question, Art's uh, question

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is uh, a good one in the sense

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that, okay, he's saying, yes, we, we

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use ephemera, um, ephemerities to, to

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basically navigate to

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objects. Um, it's

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actually a little bit more than that because we, we

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use effectively a three dimensional map of where these,

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these planets are, uh, in order

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to dictate where they're going to be when

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your rocket arrives there. And that's critically important of course,

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because you want the rocket to get to the orbit

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of for example Pluto, as Art mentions,

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uh, when Pluto is going to be where,

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whereabouts the rocket is. You don't want to reach the

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orbit of Pluto and find Pluto somewhere else. That's why you

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need uh, an ephemeris. But

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uh, if you could travel faster than the speed of light,

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and we've already shown that that's impossible,

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uh, in this episode because you need infinite energy to do

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that, uh, to reach the speed of light. But if you

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could, um, the ephemeris would still

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work. Um, you would need to put

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in a negative number for the.

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I think the speed of light

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actually goes into ephemeris calculations. I remember it

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well. But I think you uh, put in a

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factor. It wouldn't be a negative number. It would be a factor that

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would allow for the fact that you were traveling at faster than the

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speed of light. So you could do it. It's not

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an impossible mathematical problem.

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For what it's worth.

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Heidi Campo: Well that was fantastic. Uh, I just about understood that

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too.

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Professor Fred Watson: Sorry.

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Heidi Campo: Uh, no, you always do such a great job of explaining these.

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Um, my IQ is going up every time I'm

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um, involved on these, uh, these episodes. And also

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great questions. We have some of the

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smartest, smartest listeners. I mean these people

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are, are brilliant.

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Speaker C: Space nuts.

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Heidi Campo: Um, our next question is another audio

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question, um, from David from Munich.

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And it's a little bit of a longer question as well. So,

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so we are going to go ahead and play that for you

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now.

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Speaker C: Hey guys, David from Unique here. Uh,

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shout out to Andrew, Fred and

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Jonti and I heard that you're a bit

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shorter in questions so I thought that's my chance

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to submit one. I'm currently

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looking at the picture from um, or taken by

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the James Webb Telescope. You know the first one, the first um,

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deep space which was also presented by President

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Biden back then. And I realized that the

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galaxies do differ in

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their color pretty much. So there are

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more white ones, uh, orange ones and also

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reddish ones. And I um, wonder

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how is that, Is it due to the fact that

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um. Or is this like the red shift because they're

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moving away, which I kind of

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doubt, but I don't know what, what is it else?

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Or is there so much material of a different,

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of different kind in the galaxy that appears

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for us more red or more blue.

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So would be nice if you could explain that.

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And um, also I wonder a bit.

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Let's imagine we would travel to this far

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distant galaxies. Um, if we

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could do it potentially

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would it not be some kind of

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travel through the time?

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So because when we look back there, right. We see them

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on their early stages. So till

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it's a long time until um, until the

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light reaches us. And if you would travel to that

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far distant uh, galaxies you would

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basically. Or what I imagine is like you would

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travel through time, right. So if you did, the moment

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you come closer and closer the galaxy or

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maybe let's think of a single planet would then change

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its appearance, right? So you would see that it's

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alter, uh, it shifts maybe its base or

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it merges with another galaxy. Um,

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is my thinking correct, Would it like the

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far. The closer you come the more it would

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change its shape and it, I

335
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don't know, colors maybe.

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Um, and things you would see.

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Um. Yes, thanks for taking my questions. Um,

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like the shop and, and um,

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till then.

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Heidi Campo: Well, thank you so much. Um,

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that was David from Munich. Thank you. That was a

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00:16:36.580 --> 00:16:38.820
well thought out question. Fred, I'm so curious.

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Professor Fred Watson: They were great questions Heidi from

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David and in fact the answer to both his

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questions is yes. Um,

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so David's asking whether

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the color changes that we see in the

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images, uh, of these deep fields as we

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call them, uh, looking way back in

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time, uh, whether those different colors of

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galaxies is caused by

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the different redshifts of these galaxies.

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And that's the bottom line. But there's a few

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caveats here. Let me just explain what I Mean, um,

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redshift is the phenomenon that,

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uh, as light travels through an expanding universe,

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uh, the universe is expanding, light is making its

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way through the universe, but as it goes, the universe is getting

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bigger. And so the light's wavelength is

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actually being stretched. Uh, and,

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uh, as you stretch the wavelength of light, it goes redder. It goes to

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the redder end of the spectrum. And so that's what's happening.

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But the caveat that I mentioned is that these

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are actually false colors in the sense that

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the James Webb telescope is an infrared telescope.

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So it is looking at light that our eyes are not

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sensitive to. It's actually redder than red light that it's

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looking at. So what the mission

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scientists do is they,

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um, they take the shortest

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wavelengths that the Web can see,

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which are really beyond our.

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They're redder than red for us, for our eyes,

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but they're the shortest wavelengths that the red can detect, and

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they make that blue in their colors. And then the

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longest wavelengths that the Web can detect, they make it

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red in their colors and that. So that mimics

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what we would see with our eyes,

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uh, with visible, you know, visible light, but it

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mimics it moved into the infrared. So it does mean

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that as objects, uh, you

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know, get redder, uh, in the infrared spectrum,

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we see them redder, uh, in the James Webb telescope images.

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And that's exactly the reason the most

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distant objects are so highly redshifted,

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that you're seeing them as red objects compared with

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the white objects, which are the much nearer ones.

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So David's right on that front. His second

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question, uh, what would some of these galaxies

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we're looking back, you know, up to. I think the record is

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looking back 13.52 billion years at the moment,

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which is 280 million years after the birth

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of the universe. It's a big puzzle as to how

394
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galaxies got so

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big and so rich, um, in that short period

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of time. But that's for the

397
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cosmologists, not for us. Um, they'll work it

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out. It'll be okay. Uh, the bottom line, though, is

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that if you could forget about the journey, because

400
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we can't travel the sort of speeds that you need. But

401
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if you imagined yourself, uh,

402
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instantly transported from

403
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our, uh, vantage point here on Earth to

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one of These early galaxies, 13.52

405
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billion years, billion light years away, what you

406
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would see would be a galaxy that might look a lot like

407
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ours. It has evolved because

408
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you're seeing it. I mean, you've got to imagine

409
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we're being transported

410
00:19:52.550 --> 00:19:55.470
instantaneously. So that what we see is what's happening

411
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now. That galaxy will have had 13.52

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billion years of evolution. It'll be quite different. It might

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actually be quite a boring galaxy compared with the

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very, uh, energetic, uh, infant galaxy that

415
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we look at with the James Webb telescope. Complicated

416
00:20:10.230 --> 00:20:12.870
answer to a simple question, but David's

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right on the money.

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Heidi Campo: That is such an interesting way of thinking about that. I, um,

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00:20:18.330 --> 00:20:20.890
I'm going to be spending, I'm going to be spending a while

420
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wrapping my head around that one.

421
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Professor Fred Watson: Okay, we checked all four systems and seeing where to go

422
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space nets.

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Heidi Campo: Um, our last, our last question of the evening is from

424
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Daryl Parker of South Australia.

425
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Daryl says, G' day, space nuts. I'm

426
00:20:39.490 --> 00:20:42.330
not sure of the best way to ask this question, so

427
00:20:42.330 --> 00:20:45.070
I'll just ask it the best way I can. That's

428
00:20:45.070 --> 00:20:47.350
usually, that's usually the, the best way.

429
00:20:48.510 --> 00:20:51.270
Uh, do objects, meteors, asteroids,

430
00:20:51.270 --> 00:20:53.590
comets, planets, stars,

431
00:20:53.750 --> 00:20:56.150
solar systems and galaxies

432
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produce heat as they move through space? Is

433
00:20:59.590 --> 00:21:02.590
it friction or is friction a thing

434
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in the vacuum of speed and the vacuum of space?

435
00:21:05.830 --> 00:21:08.670
Thank you in advance. And that's Daryl from South

436
00:21:08.670 --> 00:21:09.030
Australia.

437
00:21:10.710 --> 00:21:13.710
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, another great question. Um,

438
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so if space was a complete

439
00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:19.640
vacuum, and as I'll explain in a minute, it's

440
00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:22.360
not quite. But if it was a perfect vacuum

441
00:21:22.360 --> 00:21:25.060
with nothing in there, then, uh,

442
00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:27.520
there would be no friction,

443
00:21:29.390 --> 00:21:32.190
uh, as Daryl's calling, um,

444
00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:35.480
would be, uh, uh, you know,

445
00:21:35.480 --> 00:21:38.460
there'd be nothing to, uh, to limit the

446
00:21:38.460 --> 00:21:41.340
speed of motion, uh, of an object moving through it.

447
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And it wouldn't get hot. There would be no friction to heat it.

448
00:21:44.900 --> 00:21:47.820
And I think the way Daryl's thinking here, and it's quite right

449
00:21:47.820 --> 00:21:50.660
to, uh. When a spacecraft enters the Earth's atmosphere,

450
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uh, it's the friction between the spacecraft itself

451
00:21:53.900 --> 00:21:56.820
moving against the air molecules that causes it to be heated and

452
00:21:56.820 --> 00:21:59.740
gives us this heat of reentry. There are a few subtleties to

453
00:21:59.740 --> 00:22:02.660
that, but that's basically the way it works. So things moving

454
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through an atmosphere get hot. Um,

455
00:22:05.800 --> 00:22:08.520
now, uh, space

456
00:22:08.600 --> 00:22:10.420
beyond the Earth's, uh,

457
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atmosphere is not a vacuum.

458
00:22:13.880 --> 00:22:16.680
It's very nearly a vacuum. And that's why you can put a

459
00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:19.240
satellite up and it'll stay up for 200 years or

460
00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:21.960
whatever. And it's why, you know, the Moon doesn't come

461
00:22:21.960 --> 00:22:24.800
crashing down to Earth. In fact, the moon's going the other way. It's moving away

462
00:22:24.800 --> 00:22:27.640
from the Earth very slowly, but

463
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the, um, it's nearly

464
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a vacuum, but it's not quite so.

465
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Uh, there is basically, um,

466
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a very, very slight braking effect,

467
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uh, which in the Earth's vicinity, the Earth's

468
00:22:43.570 --> 00:22:46.530
atmosphere doesn't just stop, it sort of fades away. So

469
00:22:46.530 --> 00:22:49.330
even 10,000 kilometers away,

470
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there's still a little bit of residual atmosphere, which would have a

471
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slowing effect on a spacecraft. When you get into

472
00:22:55.730 --> 00:22:58.730
interplanetary space, there's a lot

473
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of dust and there's, there's also subatomic

474
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particles there. When you get to interstellar space, the space

475
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between the stars, there is something that we call the

476
00:23:07.270 --> 00:23:09.590
interstellar medium, uh, which is

477
00:23:09.750 --> 00:23:12.670
basically the radiation and

478
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particle environment of interstellar space.

479
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There are subatomic particles all through space.

480
00:23:18.310 --> 00:23:21.070
Now there, it's still so much of a vacuum

481
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that there's nothing really to heat a spacecraft.

482
00:23:23.910 --> 00:23:26.070
So Voyager, as it ventures through

483
00:23:26.700 --> 00:23:29.260
interstellar space, is on the brink of interstellar space.

484
00:23:29.340 --> 00:23:31.900
Now that, uh, won't get hot because of that,

485
00:23:32.190 --> 00:23:35.100
um, because the friction is far too small.

486
00:23:35.420 --> 00:23:38.040
But when you do see its effects, uh,

487
00:23:38.300 --> 00:23:41.300
they are on very big scales. And we do

488
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see, uh, when we look at

489
00:23:44.140 --> 00:23:46.940
some objects deep in space, for example in a gas cloud,

490
00:23:47.090 --> 00:23:49.830
uh, a nebula, where, um,

491
00:23:50.140 --> 00:23:53.100
maybe there are stars forming, sometimes you see objects which

492
00:23:53.100 --> 00:23:56.100
are moving through that gas cloud. And what you can see

493
00:23:56.100 --> 00:23:59.060
is a shock wave, uh, being generated.

494
00:23:59.140 --> 00:24:02.020
And sometimes that causes star formation,

495
00:24:02.020 --> 00:24:04.180
that shockwave of the gas cloud.

496
00:24:04.600 --> 00:24:07.540
Um, now, yes, that's Jordy agreeing with me there.

497
00:24:08.040 --> 00:24:10.900
Uh, he's just come back from his walk, so

498
00:24:10.900 --> 00:24:13.680
he's very enthusiastic about this idea. Uh,

499
00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:16.520
he's probably seen a shockwave. Um,

500
00:24:16.520 --> 00:24:19.340
and a shockwave is what you get when something moves rapidly through the

501
00:24:19.340 --> 00:24:22.300
atmosphere. You know, that's what causes the sonic boom of a

502
00:24:22.300 --> 00:24:24.860
supersonic jet. Um, so

503
00:24:25.100 --> 00:24:27.860
with very big objects in gas

504
00:24:27.860 --> 00:24:30.620
clouds in space, then you do get that sort of

505
00:24:30.620 --> 00:24:33.620
effect. The interaction between the moving object and

506
00:24:33.620 --> 00:24:36.620
its surroundings generates a shockwave and would generate

507
00:24:36.620 --> 00:24:39.500
heat as well. So under certain circumstances the answer is

508
00:24:39.500 --> 00:24:42.300
yes, Darrell, but probably for most things it's

509
00:24:42.300 --> 00:24:42.620
no.

510
00:24:44.540 --> 00:24:44.940
Heidi Campo: So.

511
00:24:45.340 --> 00:24:48.220
So, Fred, I don't know if you'd have time for a follow up question

512
00:24:49.830 --> 00:24:52.710
of my own. Yes, um, so

513
00:24:53.350 --> 00:24:56.310
I guess I never really thought of, um, the

514
00:24:56.470 --> 00:24:59.430
gravity atmosphere around planets having

515
00:24:59.430 --> 00:25:02.270
different layers. It's like, I knew there was layers, but it's like to really

516
00:25:02.270 --> 00:25:05.230
think, okay, you know, it gets thinner and thinner and thinner, but

517
00:25:05.230 --> 00:25:08.110
there's still particles, uh, being pulled into that atmosphere. But it

518
00:25:08.110 --> 00:25:11.030
just, it spreads out quite a ways well

519
00:25:11.030 --> 00:25:13.830
beyond our atmosphere. Are there points of space,

520
00:25:13.830 --> 00:25:16.830
and you may have already mentioned this, but are there points of space where there's

521
00:25:16.830 --> 00:25:19.430
particles floating around that are not being affected by

522
00:25:19.760 --> 00:25:22.080
any gravity at all? Or is every

523
00:25:22.800 --> 00:25:25.360
part of space affected by something's

524
00:25:25.360 --> 00:25:25.920
gravity?

525
00:25:26.930 --> 00:25:29.720
Professor Fred Watson: Um, yeah, pretty well. Um, the thing about

526
00:25:29.720 --> 00:25:32.160
gravity is it, it goes on for

527
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:35.040
infinity. Um, it's, ah, it's a

528
00:25:35.040 --> 00:25:37.800
bit like actually light is the same. Electromagnetic

529
00:25:37.800 --> 00:25:40.760
radiation will not stop. It just keeps going until

530
00:25:40.760 --> 00:25:43.600
it gets too weak to be detected. You're talking

531
00:25:43.600 --> 00:25:46.570
about a dribble of, you know, hardly any photons.

532
00:25:46.810 --> 00:25:49.770
Gravity is the same. We don't know whether gravity

533
00:25:49.770 --> 00:25:52.770
has a subatomic particle equivalent. We think it might have, and

534
00:25:52.770 --> 00:25:55.770
we call them gravitons, but they haven't been discovered yet. But

535
00:25:55.770 --> 00:25:58.650
yes, uh, that's actually, you know, it's

536
00:25:58.650 --> 00:26:01.130
why, uh, an object like

537
00:26:01.290 --> 00:26:04.290
Pluto, way out there in the depths of the solar system,

538
00:26:04.290 --> 00:26:07.210
is still in orbit around the sun, even though

539
00:26:07.450 --> 00:26:09.770
it's all these, what is it, five, six billion

540
00:26:10.170 --> 00:26:13.140
kilometers away. Um, the gravity of

541
00:26:13.140 --> 00:26:15.380
the sun is still a force

542
00:26:15.780 --> 00:26:18.180
because gravity goes on forever.

543
00:26:18.710 --> 00:26:21.500
Uh, but of course, when you get way

544
00:26:21.500 --> 00:26:24.460
out into interstellar space, then you might feel

545
00:26:24.460 --> 00:26:27.220
the sun's gravity, but you'd also feel the gravity of other

546
00:26:27.220 --> 00:26:30.140
stars. Uh, and so I think you're

547
00:26:30.140 --> 00:26:32.620
right that there is always going to be a sort of gravity

548
00:26:32.620 --> 00:26:35.140
background, uh, because of the

549
00:26:35.140 --> 00:26:38.140
objects which are in the universe. Maybe

550
00:26:38.140 --> 00:26:40.580
it's pretty near zero in the space between

551
00:26:40.660 --> 00:26:43.620
galaxies, uh, which is pretty empty, although there are

552
00:26:43.620 --> 00:26:46.560
subatomic particles there too. Uh, but,

553
00:26:46.590 --> 00:26:49.290
uh, yeah, but no, it's a. It's a very, um,

554
00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:53.160
A very compelling force is gravity, which is just as

555
00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:55.760
well because otherwise we wouldn't exist.

556
00:26:56.480 --> 00:26:59.440
Heidi Campo: There's always something pulling. It's just going to

557
00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:02.000
be stronger or weaker. No matter if it's.

558
00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:04.640
No matter if it's the biggest gap in

559
00:27:05.040 --> 00:27:07.840
the known cosmos,

560
00:27:08.080 --> 00:27:10.800
there's still a little thread pulling us together.

561
00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:13.790
Oh, that's so beautiful. That's kind of cool. We're all connected

562
00:27:13.870 --> 00:27:14.430
somehow.

563
00:27:14.830 --> 00:27:16.830
Professor Fred Watson: That's a connection. That's right. Yeah.

564
00:27:17.590 --> 00:27:20.110
Heidi Campo: Um, Fred. Well, this has been a

565
00:27:20.670 --> 00:27:23.550
very enlightening Q and A episode

566
00:27:23.550 --> 00:27:26.110
of Space Nuts. Thank you so much for

567
00:27:26.750 --> 00:27:29.550
sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.

568
00:27:29.810 --> 00:27:32.710
Um, while your rooster. I'm sorry, your dog.

569
00:27:32.710 --> 00:27:34.430
Sings his song in the background.

570
00:27:35.790 --> 00:27:38.630
Professor Fred Watson: That's what he sounds like. I know. Um, his voice

571
00:27:38.630 --> 00:27:39.550
hasn't broken yet.

572
00:27:41.070 --> 00:27:43.990
Heidi Campo: It's kind of cute. It's endearing. Um, thank you so

573
00:27:43.990 --> 00:27:44.190
much.

574
00:27:44.190 --> 00:27:44.930
Professor Fred Watson: This has been, been.

575
00:27:44.930 --> 00:27:47.730
Heidi Campo: This has been fantastic. And, um, we

576
00:27:47.730 --> 00:27:50.530
will, we will, I guess, catch you guys next

577
00:27:50.530 --> 00:27:53.050
time. Please keep sending in your amazing

578
00:27:53.050 --> 00:27:55.850
questions. And, um, real quick, before

579
00:27:55.850 --> 00:27:58.260
we go, we are going to play a, uh,

580
00:27:58.650 --> 00:28:01.210
another, um, another

581
00:28:01.210 --> 00:28:03.970
update for you. So this is your little Treat for

582
00:28:03.970 --> 00:28:06.970
listening to the whole thing. We've got an update from Andrew,

583
00:28:06.970 --> 00:28:09.890
your beloved regular host. I know you

584
00:28:09.890 --> 00:28:12.490
guys probably miss him because your questions are still

585
00:28:12.730 --> 00:28:15.650
addressed to him, but, um, he's on his trip

586
00:28:15.650 --> 00:28:17.460
around the world. Going to let that, um,

587
00:28:18.950 --> 00:28:19.910
play back now.

588
00:28:19.990 --> 00:28:22.910
Andrew Dunkley: Hi, Fred, hi, Heidi, and hello, Huw

589
00:28:22.910 --> 00:28:23.630
in the studio.

590
00:28:23.630 --> 00:28:26.390
Andrew back again, reporting from the Crown

591
00:28:26.390 --> 00:28:29.270
Princess on our world tour. Uh, since I spoke to you

592
00:28:29.270 --> 00:28:32.230
last, our, uh, cruise has made news all over

593
00:28:32.230 --> 00:28:35.190
Australia. You might have seen some of the reports or heard some of

594
00:28:35.190 --> 00:28:38.110
the news about some of the conditions we've had to

595
00:28:38.110 --> 00:28:41.070
deal with. When I last spoke to you, I was explaining

596
00:28:41.070 --> 00:28:43.930
how we were heading into rough weather. We got off to a pretty

597
00:28:43.930 --> 00:28:46.930
rocky start. Well, it got much,

598
00:28:46.930 --> 00:28:49.730
much worse. We were having lunch in

599
00:28:50.050 --> 00:28:52.930
one of the restaurants at the back of the ship and

600
00:28:53.010 --> 00:28:55.930
we got hit by a weather front. It felt like we'd

601
00:28:55.930 --> 00:28:58.569
been rammed and the. The ship

602
00:28:58.569 --> 00:29:01.090
tilted over 7 degrees and it stayed there

603
00:29:01.490 --> 00:29:04.490
for the rest of the day. It just hit us out

604
00:29:04.490 --> 00:29:06.970
of nowhere. The captain had to do some heavy

605
00:29:06.970 --> 00:29:09.790
maneuvering to get us, uh, into. Into a, you know, better

606
00:29:09.790 --> 00:29:12.690
position. And they had to move, um,

607
00:29:12.790 --> 00:29:15.290
the ballast to, uh, keep the ship,

608
00:29:15.290 --> 00:29:18.110
uh, balanced and upright as much

609
00:29:18.110 --> 00:29:20.950
as they could. Uh, yeah, it was pretty harrowing.

610
00:29:21.190 --> 00:29:24.050
And the weather never got better, uh,

611
00:29:24.230 --> 00:29:26.910
until we got into Adelaide and were in protected

612
00:29:26.910 --> 00:29:29.830
waters. But, um, the Adelaide was fantastic. Went

613
00:29:29.830 --> 00:29:32.630
to, uh, Handorf, as I mentioned, that little German

614
00:29:32.630 --> 00:29:35.490
village where the German people. People came in all those

615
00:29:35.490 --> 00:29:38.050
years ago. They were, um, they were basically

616
00:29:38.050 --> 00:29:41.050
escaping, uh, Prussian oppression when they came out

617
00:29:41.050 --> 00:29:43.930
here in the 1800s. And, um, yeah, made it, made a German

618
00:29:43.930 --> 00:29:46.850
town, which is fantastic. Had, uh, a good look

619
00:29:46.850 --> 00:29:49.810
around Adelaide, although the weather was terrible. We went to Mount Lofty,

620
00:29:49.810 --> 00:29:52.730
which is one of the best views in Australia. And all we saw was

621
00:29:52.730 --> 00:29:55.530
cloud and very strong winds. It

622
00:29:55.530 --> 00:29:58.530
was, uh, it was quite nasty. Got

623
00:29:58.530 --> 00:30:01.430
back on board, uh, we had to stay the night in Adelaide because

624
00:30:01.430 --> 00:30:04.230
of the conditions, hoping they'd settle down. And we did have

625
00:30:04.230 --> 00:30:06.750
some good sailing until we got to the

626
00:30:06.990 --> 00:30:09.990
West Australian border and then another weather front hit

627
00:30:09.990 --> 00:30:12.510
us and it got rough again

628
00:30:13.310 --> 00:30:16.190
and. Yeah, gosh. And just to top it all

629
00:30:16.190 --> 00:30:19.070
off, we had a galley fire in the middle of the night at one

630
00:30:19.070 --> 00:30:21.990
point, which they dealt with very, very quickly. So it's been

631
00:30:21.990 --> 00:30:24.750
a bit of a dog's, uh, breakfast of a cruise

632
00:30:24.750 --> 00:30:27.550
in some respects, but we're still having a fantastic

633
00:30:27.550 --> 00:30:29.550
time. We stopped at Fremantle again,

634
00:30:30.310 --> 00:30:33.090
um, because of the weather. We were very late and so we

635
00:30:33.090 --> 00:30:36.090
stayed the night. We have friends in Fremantle so We spent the

636
00:30:36.090 --> 00:30:39.090
evening with them. It was fantastic. And we

637
00:30:39.090 --> 00:30:41.530
set sail again yesterday, headed west.

638
00:30:41.850 --> 00:30:44.730
We leave Australia now, headed for Mauritius. That'll be

639
00:30:44.730 --> 00:30:47.610
a seven day crossing of the Indian Ocean.

640
00:30:48.250 --> 00:30:50.970
So that's where things are at with our uh, current

641
00:30:50.970 --> 00:30:53.930
tour. Um, we're really enjoying

642
00:30:53.930 --> 00:30:56.490
ourselves. I must confess. The crew here

643
00:30:56.860 --> 00:30:59.660
is fantastic. And uh, you know, with

644
00:30:59.660 --> 00:31:02.540
over 2,000 Aussies on board, we outnumber everybody

645
00:31:02.540 --> 00:31:05.420
about 10 to 1. Which is, which is good.

646
00:31:05.660 --> 00:31:08.620
But so many nationalities. Hope all is well back home

647
00:31:08.620 --> 00:31:11.540
and in Houston of course. Heidi, look forward to talking

648
00:31:11.540 --> 00:31:13.780
to you next time. Uh, no, Aurora.

649
00:31:13.780 --> 00:31:13.820
Heidi Campo: Australa.

650
00:31:13.820 --> 00:31:16.220
Andrew Dunkley: Australis. Missed out completely. Couldn't see that.

651
00:31:16.460 --> 00:31:19.420
So um, hopefully when we get up north we'll see the other

652
00:31:19.420 --> 00:31:22.420
end of the uh, country and ah, see if

653
00:31:22.420 --> 00:31:25.220
there's any lights up there. North. So until next

654
00:31:25.220 --> 00:31:26.740
time, Andrew Dunkley signing off.

655
00:31:27.940 --> 00:31:30.740
Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to the Space Nuts. Podcast

656
00:31:32.340 --> 00:31:35.060
available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

657
00:31:35.300 --> 00:31:38.060
iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast

658
00:31:38.060 --> 00:31:39.780
player. You can also stream on

659
00:31:39.780 --> 00:31:42.740
demand at bitesz.com. This has been another

660
00:31:42.740 --> 00:31:44.820
quality podcast production from

661
00:31:44.820 --> 00:31:45.940
bitesz.com

662
00:31:47.140 --> 00:31:48.180
Heidi Campo: See you later, Fred.

663
00:31:48.820 --> 00:31:49.620
Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great.