Jan. 30, 2025

Extreme Winds, Martian Clays & Hidden Stars: #491 - The Interstellar Exploration

Extreme Winds, Martian Clays & Hidden Stars: #491 - The Interstellar Exploration

Space Nuts Episode 491: The Windiest Planet, Martian Mysteries, and Light Pollution Concerns
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner in this captivating episode of Space Nuts, where they explore some of the most fascinating cosmic discoveries...

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Space Nuts Episode 491: The Windiest Planet, Martian Mysteries, and Light Pollution Concerns
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner in this captivating episode of Space Nuts, where they explore some of the most fascinating cosmic discoveries of our time. From the extraordinary winds of a distant exoplanet to intriguing geological findings on Mars, and the looming threat of light pollution on astronomical observations, this episode is packed with insights that will expand your cosmic perspective.
Episode Highlights:
- The Windiest Planet: Discover Wasp 127B, the exoplanet with astonishing wind speeds reaching up to 33,000 kilometers per hour. Andrew and Jonti delve into the implications of these extreme weather conditions and what they reveal about the planet's atmosphere and energy dynamics.
- Martian Terrain Discovery: A new study uncovers a fascinating area on Mars that suggests the presence of permanent liquid water in the planet's ancient past. Jonti explains the significance of the clay deposits found in the northern lowlands and how they relate to the theory of a Martian ocean.
- Protostar Insights: Learn about T Tauri North, a protostar set to fade from view as it moves behind a thick disk of material in a triple star system. Andrew and Jonti discuss the scientific opportunities this presents for studying the formation of stars and planets in such systems.
- Light Pollution Threat: The Extremely Large Telescope, built in one of the darkest places on Earth, faces potential light pollution from a nearby renewable energy project. Explore the challenges this poses to astronomical research and the delicate balance between development and preservation of dark skies.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
If you'd like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit spacenutspodcast.com/about
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
00:00 - Introduction to the episode and topics
02:15 - Discussion on Wasp 127B and its extreme winds
10:30 - Insights into Martian clay deposits and ancient oceans
18:00 - The fading protostar T Tauri North and its implications
26:45 - Light pollution concerns for the Extremely Large Telescope
30:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement
✍️ Episode References
Wasp 127B Discovery
https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/
Mars Clay Deposits
https://mars.nasa.gov/
T Tauri Stars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_Tauri_star
Extremely Large Telescope
https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/elt/

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WEBVTT

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Hi there, thanks for joining us, and welcome to a

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fresh episode of Space Nuts.

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My name is.

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Andrew, Uncle, your host. It's always good to have your company.

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Coming up, we are going to look at the windiest

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planet ever discovered. This is planet Baked Beans. No it's not,

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it's called something else, but yeah, it's it's quite extraordinary.

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The numbers will blow your mind. A strange area of

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terrain has been identified in Mars, which tells a very

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interesting tale about the planet's history. We're going to look

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at a protostar that we won't be able to look

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at soon and it's also part of a triple star system,

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and time permitting, we are going to bring up that

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old chestnut again, light pollution. That's all coming up on

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this episode of Space Nuts. Fifteen second, Channel ten nine

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ignition Space Nuts or three two one Space Nuts. But

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it meels good, indeed it is now. Fred's still away

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gallivanting around with reindeer in the Northern Hemisphere somewhere, and

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joining us in his place is Professor John D. Horner,

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Professor of astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland.

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Hi, joundy, how are you going good?

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Good and you.

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Getting that slowly, a little bit sniffy. We're having the

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joys of summer around herese It's been nice and dry

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and warm for the last few dar I saw the

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plants have been getting too excited, and I think couple

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are a little bit from their excitement.

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Our plants are very unexcited because we're going to hit

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forty two celsius today and I've got the air conditioning

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on and it usually cuts itself off pretty quickly this

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time of the day because you know, it equalizes through

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the thermostep. It has been running NonStop for forty five

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minutes now because it cannot keep the temperature down.

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Because it's so hot outside right right at the moment.

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One of the beauties of the Darling Downs is that

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our heat wears don't get quite that extreme. I think

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further west they do, but this area around to One

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was just really lovely. So our summers are pretty much

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thirty to thirty five most days, but gets cool enough

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at night. Sleep still a very rare that we'll get

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up near to forty. I think in the couple of

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years I've been in this house, we've not hit forty yet,

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and yet we don't have all the humidity that make

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Brisbane the kind of world's armpit. The sound of it, Johnny, Yeah, well,

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I tell you who likes this kind of weather. It's

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the local snake population. I drove into our we live

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in a gated estate. We drove in.

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I drove in yesterday and saw what I thought was

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a piece of plastic hose on the road. It wasn't.

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It was a five foot Eastern brown snake crossing the

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road mining its own business. But that's the third time

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we've seen one this summer. If you want to have

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a look at it, I've put photos of it on

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Instagram and TikTok. So yeah, it's it was a big one.

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I let him go, I let you go, or the

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old sayings say, you know, they're not scared of you

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than you are of them. Out of the Australian But

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when I moved out here from the UK, everybody was

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kind of oh, no, you're going. All the animals will

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kill you. You know, the drop pay will get you

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all this. And so I got a book called Australia's

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Most Dangerous Animals, which is only a little one. Turns

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out the most dangerous animal in Australia have gone to

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that book is not sharks or snakes. I mean, obviously

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it's people. But aside from people, it's European honeybee because

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people would allergic to them and they are in and

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that really puts it in perspective. It's the case that

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Australia has all these animals that can be dangerous, but

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they're also nearly all cowards, so they'll typically get out

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of your way. It's not like the you know, rattlesnakes

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in the US, or I think is it cobra's in

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the subcontinent, where they'll actually aggressively defend themselves, but they

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just want to run away. It's tail between the legs,

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shoot off.

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Yes, if they had legs, I could probably do that.

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Yep.

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Now we should get on with it because we've got

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a lot to talk about. We're going to focus firstly

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on the windiest planet ever discovered, planet Baked Beans. It's

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not it's it's WASP one two seven B tell us

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all about it.

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The joys of catalog numbers that do exactly what they're

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saying on that in incidentally, for those who are not

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sucking on the catalog numbers that are given to exoplanets,

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which are really useful to astronomers, but not really good

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for everybody's imagination. The International Astronomical Union are slowly naming

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planets and their stars, and they're doing it in a

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very kind of democratic, global community type fashion. And this

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one hasn't yet been named, but it may well be

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in the future, so names coming soon. Probably people will

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nominate make beans given this story, but we'll just have

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to see how that ends out. What's one twenty seven Bees,

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a planet that was found using the transit methods. So

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the WASP program is a wide angle search for planets,

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and they've got this array of essentially pretty good the

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SLR cameras with wide angle lenses all strapped together that

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have been staring at the same patch of the night

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sky whenever it's above the horizon for a long long time.

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And they have a couple of stations around the world.

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And what this lets them do is monitor the brightness

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of all the stars in that field of view and

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look for any of them that periodically winked us. And

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this is the same technique that NASA's Kepler mission used

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that the Test mission uses as well, and they find

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planets by looking at the planets passing between us and

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the star blocking out some of that light and causing

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the star to dimm and then brighten. And it's a

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technique that is really effective, but it's very biased towards

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finding planets that are big because a bigger planet blocks

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more light, and finding planets that are nearer to the

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star because the planet that's nearer to the star goes

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around more quickly, so you get more winks in a

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given period of time. And that's very true of this planet.

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This is a planet that's big. It's one and a

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third times larger than Jupiter in terms of diameter. It's

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also quite light. It's less massive than Saturn. It's about

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a fifth of Jupiter's mass, which means it's one of

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the least planets we know. People describe it as a

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super puff. But because it's big, it's got this big diameter,

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it blocks quite a big chunk of its stars like,

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making it relatively obvious for people to detect. And it

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goes around every four days, so this star winks at

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as every four days or so, and that's how this

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planet was discovered. Now, because it's big, because it stars

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quite bright, it's a really prime target for people to

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look at to see if they can learn more about it.

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We want to develop the tools to study the atmospheres

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of planets around other stars and learn more about them,

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so not to just know that they're there, but actually

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characterize them, and that helps us understand how planets form,

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what the diversity of planets is, and all the rest

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of it. And this has been a prime target for

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that kind of work for a few years. The new

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results that have come out are the results of people

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trying to study the atmosphere of this planet. They used

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a very large telescope which is remarkably imaginatively named, and

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they were getting oblimations with this huge ground based telescope

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to study the spectra of this planet. So to take

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the light that we get from the planet separately from

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the star, break it into its component colors and look

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at what spectral lines are in there. Because the spectral

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lines give you the fingerprint of the competition of the atmosphere.

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They also tell you things like how quickly the atmosphere

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is moving, how hot it is, and with enough information

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you can even start inferring things about the structure where

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the clouds are, things like that. Now this is really

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cutting edge, So even with the biggest telescopes in the world.

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We can only really do it for big, fluffy planets

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that are very near their starts. We know when they're

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being able to do it for planets like Earth yet,

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but it's a step on that journey. So that's the

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background here. What happened with this planet is that the

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observations when they got the spectrum, it revealed something really

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weird for the different things in the atmosphere. Instead of

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having a single peak in the spectrum that said, hey, okay,

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we've got hydrogen or whatever, they found two peaks quite

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close together but certainly quite separate from one another, distinctly separate.

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Are this puzzle for a little bit, And there was

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a bit of a continuum between them as well, So

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it wasn't just like one narrow spike and a gap

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in another narrows bike. But what they realized was that,

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thanks to the Dopper effect, just exactly the same kind

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of thing we use for the radial velocity measurements that

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we do have starts to measure their wobbles. If you've

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got gas that's coming towards here, light that it emits

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and light that it absorbs, that light will be blue shifted.

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The wavelength will be shorter than it would be if

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that was stationary. If that gas is moving away from us,

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the light stretched out, and so the light's red shifted,

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And the degree to which the light is blue or

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red shifted tells you the speed. The quicker it's moving,

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the bigger the shifts. You know, this is the same

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thing you get if a police carra and ambulance comes past.

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You know, you hear the siren when it's approaching, and

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it's high pitched and fast, you like n n no Nino.

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And then it goes past and it's going away in here,

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Nino Nino. And the fact that it's going the bigger

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the shifted. So when they're in a real hurry, it's

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really distinct. That allows them to figure out what's going

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on here. So it turns out that this planet is

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the victim of incredibly high wind speeds. There's extreme weather

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going on, and what they think it is best described

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as is like an equatorial jet, where we've got winds

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going around the planet at ridiculously high speed. Now, this

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is a planet that goes around its star every four days.

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Its surface temperature of the cloud tops is like eleven

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hundred degrees sea, so it's really extreme anyway. But the

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wind speed to explain these two peaks, must be about

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thirty three thousand kilometers per hour, so that's nine kilometers

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per second, which is just ridiculous. And you've got the

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blue shifted peaks on one side of the planet the

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wind's coming towards us, and yeah, the red shifted peak

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because on the other side of the planet, on the

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other edge of the planet, the wind's going away from us.

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So you get this peak to peak with about eighteen

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kilometers a second, between nine kilometers a second towards us

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and nine kilometers per second away. Putting that in scale,

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that is sixteen to faster than the fastest winds we've

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ever seen in the Solar System, which are the two

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hundred kilometers per hour winds on net Tune, and is

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therefore something like one hundred and sixty one hundred and

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fifty times stronger than the strongest wing gust ever recorded

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on Earth. So that's just insane remarkable wind speed, and

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it tells us a lot about the properties of the atmosphere.

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There's going to be a lot we learn about it

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in terms of how energy is moved from the daylight

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side to the nighttime side, because this planet should be

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tidally locked, so it should keep one side facing towards

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the style, one side facing away, and these winds are

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probably what's transferring the heat from the daytime side, which

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is super hot, rather to the night side, which is.

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Called I was going to get to that. Yeah, that

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makes perfect sense. So you get getting superheated on one side,

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and it's just yeah, around and around, absolutely and a.

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Bit more than anybody would have expected to find. But

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that's the natural of this kind of exploration. We I

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always think it's true of most things in astronomy that

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the also you are to the conditions that are in

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your room right now, the better we understand it. So

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the further we go away from standard temperature, room temperature,

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room pressure, the less understanding we have, the more we

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have to learn. Now we've got guideposts in our Soul system,

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so we've learned a bit about planets that are like

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the Solar System planets. But when it comes to something

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like this super hot, super puffy planet around this star

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that is similar to but a bit bigger and a

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bit hotter than the Sun, it's totally different to anything

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we've ever seen and experienced and therefore you get results

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you don't expect, and in understanding those we get a

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better handle of how planets work.

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Yes, fascinating. How does it compare to the guest giants

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in our Solar System? I mean, they've much further away

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from the star, so further away, but.

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There's still a lot of interesting things happening. Energy wise.

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We've got a lot of data for Jupiter and Saturin

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and more limited data from the Voyager spacecraft that went

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to your inner selection. We've basically been to Jupiter and

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Saturn more often. But the highest speeds that we've ever

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observed in the Solar System of those on Neptune, which

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were about two thousand kilometers per hour. Now, that is

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pretty impressive from an Earth based point of view and

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was a big surprise because Neptune is so far from

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the Sun, it's got so little energy that that was

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a surprise. And it turns out it's due to the

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energy coming from the interior of the planet in part,

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as well as the solar radiation getting there. Yeah, that

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was a shock. But this is sixteen times stronger than

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you get on Nettune. Like I said, it's about one

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hundred and seventy times stronger than our strongest wind here

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on Earth, one hundred and fifty times. I think there

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was a cyclone, a typhoon, be a hurricane because of

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the base, and it's in Hurricane Patricia a few years

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ago that rapidly intensified and became the strongest in terms

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of continuous wind speed on Earth that we'd ever obbed

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set And that was two hundred and fifteen kilometers per

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hour as a continuous wind speed, with gusts normally up

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to fifty percent higher than that.

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Yeah.

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No, I mean if you said that the gus we

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was three hundred and thirty kilometers per hour, this is

261
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one hundred time up.

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Wow. Yeah, the big numbers, aren't they? But what we're

263
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thirty three thousand will kill a meter. It's an hour

264
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twenty and a half thousand miles an hour for our

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American rent. That's that's outrageous. Kite flyers would be so

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very thrill Well.

267
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Well, I mean to put it another way. That's basically

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like the circumference of the Earth every hour, isn't it.

269
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It would be close. Yes, I'm just trying to double

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chap my distance at almost so us circumference is about

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forty thousand. So if you could travel at the speed

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of this wind and you'd be able to get around

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the Earth in about every seventy minutes. The International Space

274
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Station goes round about every nine two minutes, so it's

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speed it's faster than the speed that the space station

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is opening Earth.

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Fascinating. Yes, well there it is the windiest planet ever discovered.

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Edgel Take about now, John Ty, Let's move on to

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our next story. This is another discovery on Mars. A

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strange area of rain has been identified. It's not so

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much what it looks like that is the discovery, although

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that is true. It's what it tells us about the

283
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history of the planet that's even more fascinating.

284
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Yeah, this shook me really when I read it was

285
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really interesting, but particularly given that it speaks something very

286
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similar to the kind of terrain I've got locally. So

287
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the dialing downs here are quite striking because you've got

288
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these flat topped mess which stand a few hundred meters

289
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above the rest of the terrain here, and it's a

290
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very flat area. But with these distinct areas that are

291
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raised up with flattops, some of them are more hill shaped,

292
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and this is a similar area on Mars. It's an

293
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area of what are described as butts and mess which

294
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date back a huge amount of time. It's in the

295
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northern hemisphere of Mars, which is this lowland area with

296
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far fewer craters than the southern highlands, So it's a

297
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low terrain with lots and lots of well a lot

298
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of lack of craters compared to the southern hemmosphere, which

299
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has long been argued to be the place that you'd

300
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expect to have had an ocean on Mars in the

301
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very distant past, and that remains somewhat controversial. Other explanations

302
00:15:09.720 --> 00:15:12.120
are available, and in fact, there's a study came out

303
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in the last week looking at Mars quakes arguing that

304
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the origin of these terrains may not have been a

305
00:15:17.720 --> 00:15:19.799
giant impact like we think, but could have been linked

306
00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:22.440
to plate tectonics. So there's a lot of discussion and

307
00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:25.240
a lot of study going on with this, but the

308
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general consensus is that that northern area of Mars, the lowlands,

309
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has been heavily resurfaced when Mars was in and that's

310
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why you've got fewer creators sex it's had less time

311
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to build up the creators and that's kind of the

312
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evidence for the ocean, or one of the big bits

313
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of the evidence for the ocean. If you took the

314
00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:43.240
earth soceans away, you'd honestly see a very similar thing.

315
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The ocean floor has far fewer creators than the rest

316
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of the Earth's surface. Yea. Now, what's interesting with this

317
00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:53.000
area is that the team who studied have used data

318
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from a number of instruments, the high rise cameras which

319
00:15:55.600 --> 00:16:00.080
are going around Mars, data from Marsh Reconnaissance Orbitter, you know,

320
00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:02.960
Mars Express and the X and Mars Stress Gas Analyzer.

321
00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:05.159
So they've got loads of data from lots of different

322
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sources looking at this area with the butts and the meses,

323
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and what the found is that on the sides of them,

324
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where it's been weathered away, you've got evidence of a

325
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huge depth of material that are clays. So this is

326
00:16:19.799 --> 00:16:23.639
very clay material, stretching up to three hundred and fifty

327
00:16:23.720 --> 00:16:27.720
meters vertically, so really big depth of clay material. Now,

328
00:16:28.559 --> 00:16:33.600
the idea seems to be that originally whatever it was

329
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that created that area laid down deposits as a fairly

330
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flat layer up to the height of what we see

331
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as the tops of the butts and mesas. This is

332
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maund of sandy and then over billions of years that's

333
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been weathered away, just like what's happening here. So the

334
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areas with the flattertops or areas where there's been a

335
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slight with stronger material on top and weathering hasn't happened,

336
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so they've been weathered around that. Yeah, So exposing these

337
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lads of clays is exposing almost like chronlogical sequence of

338
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material that has been deposited. So to have three hundred

339
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and fifty meters depths of clay materials is really interesting

340
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because these clays only form in the presence of liquid water.

341
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It needs to be permanent liquid water. It can't just

342
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be that you've got a few drops of water on

343
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a rock that m doesn't give you clay. So to

344
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have this depth of clays is suggesting that there was

345
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permanent liquid water above this area for a very long time.

346
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You're looking at deposits from that, and that is really

347
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strong evidence that there was permanent liquid water over a

348
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very lengthy period of time in the area on Mars

349
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that everybody has been arguing for ages was once home

350
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to an ocean, so it seems to be yet another

351
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piece of evidence for the presence of that kind of

352
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northern hemisphere, beautiful ocean kind of three and a half

353
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four billion years ago in the ancient past. Now that's

354
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really exciting in itself, but there's a nice additional twist,

355
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which is that this area which looks now so exciting,

356
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whether this evidence of clay materials is tied to part

357
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of Mars that we call Oxyaplanum, and that's going to

358
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be the destination for the European Rosalind Franklin Mission. Now

359
00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:13.519
that mission was meant to launch three or four years

360
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ago as a joint initiative between the Europeans and the Russians.

361
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But when everything that's going on with Russia and the

362
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Ukraine kicked off, the Europeans pulled their collaboration with Russia,

363
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which meant that they had to rebuild a lot of stuff.

364
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They had to now do what the Russians were going

365
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to do for them, and that delayed things. So it's

366
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now purely a European mission. It looks like it's going

367
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to launch in twenty twenty eight, and it is a

368
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mission that is designed very specifically to look for evidence

369
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of life on Mars, particularly past life and the name Roslin. Franklin,

370
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of course, comes from the incredibly gifted researcher who did

371
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most of the work that led to Crick and Watson

372
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getting the Nobel Prize for the structure of DNA, but

373
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unfortunately she passed away before the prize was awarded at

374
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a very young age. So it's nice to see her honored.

375
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And it's and I seem to go together that the

376
00:19:02.519 --> 00:19:05.039
place that that mission is going to go now looks

377
00:19:05.079 --> 00:19:07.240
even more interesting than it did before. So it's like

378
00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:08.640
lefts are the perfect sact.

379
00:19:10.359 --> 00:19:14.200
Yeah, Look, we are learning more and more and more

380
00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:17.559
the evidence is stacking up. Are we very far away

381
00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:21.599
from saying definitively okay? This was what Mars was like

382
00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:25.119
at this time, no questions asked.

383
00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:27.240
I'd like to think so. I mean, it's one of

384
00:19:27.319 --> 00:19:30.039
the cool things about astronomy and particularly this kind of

385
00:19:30.039 --> 00:19:34.240
planetary science that speaks to the kind of detective story fans,

386
00:19:34.279 --> 00:19:37.160
because what we're doing effectively studying a crime scene that

387
00:19:37.279 --> 00:19:39.720
is four billion years old, and we try to piece

388
00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:42.400
together all the clues, and we're trying to piece together

389
00:19:42.440 --> 00:19:45.119
a narrative that explains what we see, that makes sense,

390
00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:48.640
that fits together, and there will always be other possibilities

391
00:19:49.279 --> 00:19:52.160
that can explain it. But with every bit of evidence

392
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:55.200
we get, what happens is that the number of possible

393
00:19:55.240 --> 00:19:59.640
explanations gets whittled down because a new observation and new

394
00:19:59.640 --> 00:20:03.000
disco will say that while this explanation no longer makes sense,

395
00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:06.200
it no longer works. So we're building towards this more

396
00:20:06.279 --> 00:20:09.640
robust than the standach. I mean, personally, my instinct is

397
00:20:09.640 --> 00:20:12.440
that it looks like an ocean. It looks like what

398
00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:14.880
you would expect if an ocean had been there. And

399
00:20:14.920 --> 00:20:17.160
the fact we're getting more and more evidence that supports

400
00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:22.599
that is really encouraging. When it becomes absolutely indiffinite to

401
00:20:22.599 --> 00:20:24.519
the accept that I'm not entirely show but I'm sure

402
00:20:24.599 --> 00:20:26.200
Rosalind Franklin will really help with that.

403
00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:30.319
I And we're lucky because we've we've got a planet

404
00:20:30.359 --> 00:20:32.640
we can compare it to, so we can see evidence

405
00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:35.559
here that equates to things there. We can go, Okay,

406
00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:38.279
well this is the same, this is this is a

407
00:20:38.279 --> 00:20:42.680
piece of history that ears shared with Mars, and that

408
00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:45.480
that kind of narrows down the possibilities significantly.

409
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:49.720
We don't have to go there. What we do that

410
00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:50.960
we don't have to go there.

411
00:20:50.799 --> 00:20:56.119
Directly sometimes to sort of compare notes. It's it's fascinating,

412
00:20:56.319 --> 00:21:00.839
it's fabulous. It's a really interesting contrast with exoplanets. So

413
00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:02.599
on the one hand, we've got this one planet for

414
00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:06.119
a system that we've known since we've known about the universe, essentially,

415
00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:09.680
where we've got incredibly fine levels of detail, the fact

416
00:21:09.720 --> 00:21:12.079
that we can talk as we are doing here about

417
00:21:12.440 --> 00:21:15.440
a relatively small area on the surface of a given

418
00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:18.440
planet that we've imaged and where we're sending a spacecraft.

419
00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:22.759
So we know the Solar System objects in incredibly exquisite detail,

420
00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:26.960
this wealth of information that's sometimes almost too overwhelming for

421
00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:28.480
us to actually be able to work out what that

422
00:21:28.519 --> 00:21:32.079
planet's all about. For exoplanets, for most of them we

423
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:34.200
only know that they're there and maybe how massive they

424
00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:36.359
are or how big they are. But we know about

425
00:21:36.440 --> 00:21:39.000
more of them and more diversity. So on the one hand,

426
00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:41.279
we've got one system we know incredibly well, with more

427
00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:43.960
than a million objects in it that we've studied. For

428
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:45.720
all the others, we know one or two objects and

429
00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:48.119
we know a little bit about them, but by learning

430
00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:50.400
more about them, we'll learn more about the Solar System,

431
00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:53.279
and by better studying the planets in the Solar System.

432
00:21:53.319 --> 00:21:55.799
That gives us a ground truth to work from Fred's planets.

433
00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:58.319
So it two feels that are very different but linked

434
00:21:58.319 --> 00:21:59.319
together really nicely.

435
00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:05.680
Indeed, all right, really interesting history, and I suppose just

436
00:22:05.720 --> 00:22:07.599
to add a little bit more to that. We look

437
00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:09.799
at the history of Earth, and you know, I still

438
00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:12.119
struggle to get my head around the fact that there

439
00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:17.279
used to be rainforests in Antarctica. You know, these things

440
00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:19.640
have taken millions of years to change, or tens of

441
00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:22.759
thousands of years in some circumstances. So we shouldn't be

442
00:22:22.799 --> 00:22:27.079
surprised by a planet like Mars having had oceans and

443
00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:29.160
rivers and all those other things.

444
00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:31.640
So, yeah, this is space nuts.

445
00:22:31.799 --> 00:22:37.519
You're with Andrew Dunkley and Professor John T. Horna murder

446
00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:40.039
your space nuts.

447
00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:41.799
Now, Johnny, not.

448
00:22:41.799 --> 00:22:44.720
Your area of expertise, but I know you've done your homework.

449
00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:49.519
A proto star, which I'll get you to explain, give

450
00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:54.359
us a definition of is soon going to disappear for

451
00:22:55.279 --> 00:22:57.240
what will be obvious reasons. But it's part of a

452
00:22:57.279 --> 00:22:59.960
triple star system. This is all very intriguing.

453
00:23:01.039 --> 00:23:03.599
This is a star in the constellation Taurus that is

454
00:23:03.720 --> 00:23:07.839
kind of the archetypal example of a protest star that's

455
00:23:07.880 --> 00:23:10.559
nearly but not quite a fully grown star. So it's

456
00:23:10.559 --> 00:23:13.680
a star that is still in the latter stages of forming,

457
00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:17.279
finalizing its formation. It's still condensing under gravity. It has

458
00:23:17.319 --> 00:23:19.200
got a bit of nuclear fusion going on, but it's

459
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:21.079
not settled down. It's not become what we call the

460
00:23:21.119 --> 00:23:25.279
main sequence star like the Sun yet. Now it's relatively

461
00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:28.880
bright and easy to study, so that means amateursterronomers around

462
00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:32.160
the world are getting measurements of the brightness of this

463
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:35.680
star all the time. It's about magnitude twelve magnitude eleven ish,

464
00:23:36.319 --> 00:23:38.279
which means that it is about one hundred to two

465
00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:41.079
hundred times two fancy with a naked eye. But it's

466
00:23:41.079 --> 00:23:43.319
well within the reach of amage telescopes, and we've got

467
00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:46.279
this long history of observations of it. Now as we

468
00:23:46.440 --> 00:23:49.039
got better observations of it and the area that's in

469
00:23:49.119 --> 00:23:53.000
it's part of a huge star farming area. When observations

470
00:23:53.039 --> 00:23:55.400
started coming in the infrared, it was revealed that there

471
00:23:55.400 --> 00:23:58.240
were two other protest stars nearby that you can't see

472
00:23:58.519 --> 00:24:02.160
in optical You can't see them with telescopes. So this

473
00:24:02.279 --> 00:24:04.680
sem became known as Tetry North, and the other two

474
00:24:04.680 --> 00:24:06.920
are t Tory South A and t Tory South B.

475
00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:09.400
And it turns out that all three of them are

476
00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:12.079
moving together, so you've essentially got t Tory South A

477
00:24:12.200 --> 00:24:16.440
and B is a much closer binary with a circumbinary

478
00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:19.559
disc of material, a disc from which planets are probably

479
00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:21.799
forming as we speak, and that disk is really thick,

480
00:24:22.200 --> 00:24:24.119
and it just so happens that that disk is edge

481
00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:27.119
on to us, so the light from those stars trying

482
00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:30.720
to reach us is passing through the disc and absorbed.

483
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:34.200
We can't see it optically. There's more than twenty magnitudes

484
00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:36.519
of extinction, which means if those stars would normally be

485
00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:40.079
magnitude ten or eleven, they're instead magnitude thirty or thirty

486
00:24:40.119 --> 00:24:43.000
one and just way beyond anything we can observe. But

487
00:24:43.079 --> 00:24:45.000
if for red radiation can make it through the disk

488
00:24:45.079 --> 00:24:48.599
so we can see that they're there, then T Toring North,

489
00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:52.000
the star we've always known as t Tory, is a

490
00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:54.519
bit away from those stars, also orbiting their common center

491
00:24:54.559 --> 00:24:57.599
of gravity, the kind of third component of the triple system,

492
00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:00.400
and it too has a product plantar disc. It's got

493
00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:03.079
a disc around it where planet's forming as well, but

494
00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:05.359
fortunately for us, instead of being edge on, that disk

495
00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:08.200
is tilted so that we can see directly to the start.

496
00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:11.359
So we see t Tory and it's bright and we

497
00:25:11.359 --> 00:25:13.240
can observe it when we've learned a lot from it.

498
00:25:13.920 --> 00:25:17.279
But over the last couple of years, those amateur astronomers

499
00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:20.119
that have been reporting its magnitude and studying it continuously

500
00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:22.559
have seen it fade a couple of times by one

501
00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:25.519
or two magnitudes and brighten up again. And that caught

502
00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:28.559
people's interesting because you wouldn't really expect this protest start

503
00:25:28.599 --> 00:25:32.160
to be variable like that. So there's something interesting going on.

504
00:25:32.759 --> 00:25:36.519
And as we've got more information and better images from

505
00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:39.440
the professional telescopes, what it appears to be is that

506
00:25:39.440 --> 00:25:41.720
that orbital motion of the binary star and then the

507
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:45.400
extra component t Tory that orbital motion, I think the

508
00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:48.720
orbital period is about four thousand, six hundred years, and

509
00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:51.880
slowly over time, the more distant component, the one we

510
00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:54.440
can see, is moving so that it's going to pass

511
00:25:54.519 --> 00:25:58.359
behind the disk of material around the binary. And we

512
00:25:58.400 --> 00:26:00.839
know that that disk is thick enough tops the binary

513
00:26:01.480 --> 00:26:03.920
and tee Tory is going to be ducking behind it,

514
00:26:04.359 --> 00:26:07.240
so What that means is that those dimmings we've seen

515
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:11.160
have essentially been the light from that star passing through

516
00:26:11.160 --> 00:26:13.839
the outskirts of this disk of material, and in the

517
00:26:13.839 --> 00:26:17.319
coming years therefore, it's going to be moving properly behind

518
00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:19.640
that disk so long as we've got the orbital Martian right,

519
00:26:20.160 --> 00:26:22.200
and we'll gradually dimm to the point we won't be

520
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:24.680
able to see it with the optical insurance, you know,

521
00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:27.279
with these telescopes that the amateurs are using, it'll fade

522
00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:30.640
away fed to black, still be visible in the infrared,

523
00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:33.640
but it'll take about one hundred years for it to

524
00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:38.519
traverse behind this disk before it starts to reappear again. Now,

525
00:26:38.839 --> 00:26:41.480
from the point of view of optical observers, the next

526
00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:44.039
few years will be interesting as it fades out, But

527
00:26:44.200 --> 00:26:48.839
for professional astronomers it's a really promising and valuable opportunity

528
00:26:48.839 --> 00:26:50.599
because if we can predictly see an advance and we

529
00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:54.160
can see it happening, then we can do observations of

530
00:26:54.200 --> 00:26:57.839
the light from that protest star as it passes through

531
00:26:57.839 --> 00:26:59.720
the outskirts of the disk and as it moves through

532
00:26:59.720 --> 00:27:02.880
the day, which allows us to probe different locations in

533
00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:05.200
the disc get an idea of what the chemistry of

534
00:27:05.200 --> 00:27:08.039
the discs, like, what the particle science distribution is are

535
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:10.680
is it mainly small particles? Are the bigger bits of that?

536
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:14.799
How is the planet formation process progressing? We can almost

537
00:27:14.839 --> 00:27:17.759
get a density profile as the star moved through is

538
00:27:17.839 --> 00:27:21.519
like scamming at different locations, So it is simultaneously a

539
00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:23.680
little bit sound because the star is going to go away.

540
00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:25.599
I mean, it's coming back. So it's not the end

541
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:28.720
of the world, but it's also really really exciting because

542
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:31.559
it should be such a wealth of scientific information for

543
00:27:31.640 --> 00:27:35.960
us to bedroom understand how planets form. Speaking of the end.

544
00:27:35.880 --> 00:27:39.599
Of the world, is this the development of a three

545
00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:40.759
body problem?

546
00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:46.079
Possibly? Now, triple star systems like this are not that uncommon.

547
00:27:46.119 --> 00:27:48.559
I mean A common joke among astronomers, which probably tells

548
00:27:48.599 --> 00:27:51.759
you that astronomers aren't very funny, is that more than

549
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:55.480
one in every one star is in a multiple star system,

550
00:27:55.880 --> 00:27:59.640
which is a bit species early. So the reality seems

551
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:02.960
to be that around fifty percent of stars give ortech.

552
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:04.880
So this is a handwaving number. It could be as

553
00:28:05.119 --> 00:28:06.960
low as forty per cent, as high as sixty percent,

554
00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:11.000
but roughly fifty percent of stars are single, which means

555
00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:13.880
the other half of stars are all in multiple star systems.

556
00:28:14.799 --> 00:28:17.720
So to clarify this, I'm not talking about the individual stars,

557
00:28:17.720 --> 00:28:20.240
but I'm on about the systems as we see them. Yeah,

558
00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:23.000
fifty percent of star systems are stars on their own.

559
00:28:23.799 --> 00:28:26.480
Fifty percent of star systems are not stars on their own,

560
00:28:27.160 --> 00:28:29.640
which means that the majority of stars are in multiple

561
00:28:29.640 --> 00:28:33.000
star systems. Because of the numbers, even if you just

562
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:35.400
assume that the other fifty percent of double stars before

563
00:28:35.400 --> 00:28:39.039
you get to these higher level hierarchical things, fifty percent

564
00:28:39.079 --> 00:28:41.480
of systems have two stars, fifty percent have one star,

565
00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:44.640
so that means two thirds of stars are in double systems.

566
00:28:45.480 --> 00:28:47.960
It's more complex, but yeah, it shows that astronomers don't

567
00:28:47.960 --> 00:28:50.519
have a great sense of humor. But what it also

568
00:28:50.599 --> 00:28:54.319
points out is that multiple star systems are far from

569
00:28:54.359 --> 00:28:57.519
the exception. They're really the norm, and we're seeing planet

570
00:28:57.519 --> 00:29:00.519
formation happening in these systems and we're discovering plant in them.

571
00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:03.519
We found planets that are almost kind of analogous to

572
00:29:03.559 --> 00:29:05.960
Tatooine from Star Wars, where there are two stars in

573
00:29:05.960 --> 00:29:08.799
the middle quite close together and the planet's opening on

574
00:29:08.839 --> 00:29:11.880
the outside orbiting both of them at once. We've also

575
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:14.480
seen systems where there are two stars that are widely

576
00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:17.119
separated and the planet's going around one of them. We

577
00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:20.279
found planets in triple and quadruple star systems as well,

578
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:22.160
and this is just going to be another one of

579
00:29:22.200 --> 00:29:25.279
those type of systems setting up for the future.

580
00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:30.000
Okay, we do see on Earth that issue of single

581
00:29:30.079 --> 00:29:34.319
and multiple star systems. You've got solo artists and you've

582
00:29:34.359 --> 00:29:34.960
got bands.

583
00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:37.200
Yeah, they're all.

584
00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:42.200
Made up of stars, some of them. Yes, fascinating story

585
00:29:42.440 --> 00:29:46.720
and we'll watch with interest. How many billion years before

586
00:29:46.759 --> 00:29:48.000
we know the result of this.

587
00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:50.680
We should see it happening over the next few years. Now,

588
00:29:50.680 --> 00:29:53.839
I should say that this isn't without precedent, and keen

589
00:29:53.839 --> 00:29:56.480
amateur astronomers listening for podcasts will be aware of a

590
00:29:56.519 --> 00:30:01.279
star called Epsilon Origa, which confused people for ages. So

591
00:30:01.319 --> 00:30:03.759
we've known about variable stars for a long time. The

592
00:30:03.839 --> 00:30:06.880
traditional owners of the land here in Australia have been

593
00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:09.880
very aware of the intrinsic variability of stars like Beetlejuice

594
00:30:09.920 --> 00:30:14.200
mel Dabaran, which very kind of spasmodically over periods of

595
00:30:14.200 --> 00:30:16.720
a few hundred days. But we're also aware of eclipsing

596
00:30:16.960 --> 00:30:21.839
binary stars and a great astronomer called Gudric way back

597
00:30:21.880 --> 00:30:25.279
a couple of hundred years ago, figured out the reason

598
00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:27.920
for this. He's a fascinating character to read about. He

599
00:30:27.960 --> 00:30:30.759
died very young. I mean he was an amateur astronomer,

600
00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:34.680
but he explained the periodic variations of the star Algol,

601
00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:37.960
the winking Demon star, by explaining that there were two

602
00:30:37.960 --> 00:30:39.960
stars going around each other, and when they blocked each

603
00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:42.039
other out in the light, wood dim and you get

604
00:30:42.039 --> 00:30:44.880
this star dimming every few days by enough to see

605
00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:47.279
with anaked eye, and then brightening again. So we kind

606
00:30:47.319 --> 00:30:51.119
of understood that, but Ebsil and Aurigi really puzzled people

607
00:30:51.160 --> 00:30:53.160
for a long time. It's a star in the northern

608
00:30:53.200 --> 00:30:55.440
constellation Ariga. You can see it from Australia, but it's

609
00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:58.519
quite low to the north that every twenty seven years

610
00:30:58.599 --> 00:31:02.359
or so dims for a couple of years by more

611
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:04.759
than a magnitude. So this again is easy to see

612
00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:07.599
with a naked eye. But you can't explain that as

613
00:31:07.640 --> 00:31:10.599
a binary star. That isn't one star passing in front

614
00:31:10.599 --> 00:31:12.799
of another because it doesn't take two years for the

615
00:31:12.839 --> 00:31:15.200
eclipse to happen that so how would have to be

616
00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:18.400
immeasurably vast, and therefore should be really bright or really

617
00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:22.000
red doesn't happen. Over the last fifty years or so,

618
00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:25.640
people realize the explanation for that was probably that this

619
00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:28.759
was a binary star system, whether the second star in

620
00:31:28.799 --> 00:31:31.279
the system had a really big disc around it, a

621
00:31:31.319 --> 00:31:34.799
protoplanetary disc, and this was finally confirmed with the most

622
00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:37.920
recent of the dimmings, where we finally got to the

623
00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:40.279
technology point where we can do it. So it's a

624
00:31:40.279 --> 00:31:43.200
similar story to the one we've just talked about, but

625
00:31:43.279 --> 00:31:47.000
that's kind of the archetypal system, where you've got an

626
00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:50.359
eclipse caused by the disc rather than the star. And

627
00:31:50.440 --> 00:31:52.960
because the disk is big in the case of excellon AIGI,

628
00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:55.480
it's probably bigger than the distance between the Earth and Pluto,

629
00:31:55.960 --> 00:31:58.960
probably about fifty au in radius one hundred au across,

630
00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:01.039
where one au as a distance from the Earth of

631
00:32:01.039 --> 00:32:04.079
the th and that takes a couple of years. As

632
00:32:04.119 --> 00:32:06.119
it's moving around in it's oh bit pass in front

633
00:32:06.160 --> 00:32:09.359
of the background star, the brightest star, causing it to them,

634
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:12.440
causing it that behavior, and this is just another example

635
00:32:12.440 --> 00:32:14.559
of that. But in this case the disk is much thicker,

636
00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:18.119
so TITORI will it's actually disappear.

637
00:32:18.680 --> 00:32:20.680
Okay, but not forever.

638
00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:26.079
The MUDs.

639
00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:32.039
Let's very quickly look at one more story. I I

640
00:32:32.119 --> 00:32:34.200
this is this is something that Fred and I talk

641
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:37.400
about quite regularly, so I'm sure he'll raise it again

642
00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:41.319
when he gets back. But there are concerns about light

643
00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:47.640
pollute pollution affecting the extremely large telescope. Now this is

644
00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:50.680
a real worry because this telescope is probably one of

645
00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:55.960
the most significant ones on the planet. And yeah, there

646
00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:58.799
are a few people get in their feathers ruffled by this.

647
00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:01.960
It is the story here. Like I said, well, just

648
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:03.920
cover it briefly, and I'm sure Fred will dive into

649
00:33:03.960 --> 00:33:05.920
it in a bit more detail will hopefully get solved.

650
00:33:06.200 --> 00:33:08.400
That's the first thing today. It's still early days with this,

651
00:33:08.920 --> 00:33:11.640
but the extremely large telescope is built on top of

652
00:33:11.680 --> 00:33:17.200
what's called Sero Amazona, this peak in Chili's at Kama

653
00:33:17.240 --> 00:33:19.839
Desert that is basically one of the darkest sites on

654
00:33:19.880 --> 00:33:24.319
the planet. And this site was specifically chosen solid light

655
00:33:24.359 --> 00:33:28.400
pollution that it would facilitate the incredible work this enormous

656
00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:31.440
telescope is going to do. And this telescope is you know,

657
00:33:31.640 --> 00:33:35.759
something like a billion dollar project. It's a really expensive thing,

658
00:33:35.799 --> 00:33:38.880
maybe even more than that that has been built there.

659
00:33:39.279 --> 00:33:42.519
Chili is fully on board obviously building it on their land.

660
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:44.799
The site has been bought. It's going to be an

661
00:33:44.839 --> 00:33:48.319
expensive deal to make. But there are real concerns now

662
00:33:48.359 --> 00:33:51.240
because there is an American company that is wanting to

663
00:33:51.279 --> 00:33:54.359
build a renewable energy plant and it's going to be

664
00:33:54.359 --> 00:33:58.440
a huge planet. It's primarily to manufacture hydrogen, but it's

665
00:33:58.440 --> 00:34:00.680
also going to have huge amounts of sol and things

666
00:34:00.759 --> 00:34:03.680
like that, and that is a ten billion dollar scale project.

667
00:34:04.119 --> 00:34:06.559
But they want to build this within just a few

668
00:34:06.640 --> 00:34:10.239
kilometers of the site for a lot of these telescopes,

669
00:34:10.280 --> 00:34:12.519
like the site for the Redal large telescope stuff like this.

670
00:34:13.519 --> 00:34:15.880
Now that is a real concern because this will generate

671
00:34:15.920 --> 00:34:19.239
a huge amount of light pollution because it will build

672
00:34:19.400 --> 00:34:24.320
up essentially, and that it is thought, would possibly reduce

673
00:34:24.360 --> 00:34:26.880
the effectiveness of both the telescopes that are already there,

674
00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:30.599
but also the extremely large telescope by ten percent or more,

675
00:34:30.679 --> 00:34:34.559
which is a huge impact, and it really lessens the

676
00:34:34.639 --> 00:34:36.880
relevance of that telescope when he's trying to do cutting

677
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:39.519
edge stuff, when it's trying to compete with the giant

678
00:34:39.519 --> 00:34:43.079
Magellan telescope, and if it ever gets big, built the

679
00:34:43.159 --> 00:34:44.800
one that they were going to put on Hawaii as well,

680
00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:48.840
although that's still under debate. The thirty meter telescope, Now,

681
00:34:49.559 --> 00:34:53.079
this isn't insurmountable. The Chileans have said that this project

682
00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:56.960
is only in the early stages of proposal. The people

683
00:34:56.960 --> 00:34:59.400
involved with the building and the telescope have pointed out

684
00:34:59.400 --> 00:35:02.280
that there is no specific reason why the site that's

685
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:04.960
proposed for the renewable energy clouds, it's the only class

686
00:35:04.960 --> 00:35:07.360
that could build it. They could build it somewhere else.

687
00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:10.760
But it's a real challenge because you're talking about a

688
00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:14.039
one and a half billion dollar telescope versus a ten

689
00:35:14.119 --> 00:35:18.000
billion dollar industrial path that'll create jobs. So I can

690
00:35:18.079 --> 00:35:22.079
understand the conflict for the Chilean government, but also if

691
00:35:22.119 --> 00:35:24.519
you can find a happy medium, whether two don't interfere

692
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:28.440
with each other, that'll be brilliant, particularly if the observatory

693
00:35:28.840 --> 00:35:30.840
can then make use of the renewable energy and cut

694
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:34.320
its energy budget. It's one of these situations, like many,

695
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:37.639
that isn't truly black and white, but there's a lot

696
00:35:37.679 --> 00:35:39.519
of complexity, a lot of shades of brain in it,

697
00:35:39.559 --> 00:35:42.360
and the hope is that it gets sorted. The Chilean

698
00:35:42.679 --> 00:35:46.760
impact agency that assesses these things put a statement out

699
00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:48.800
at the end of last year saying that the projects

700
00:35:48.800 --> 00:35:51.840
in its only stages. No decision has been made, and

701
00:35:51.880 --> 00:35:54.119
I suspect the information has come out now to help

702
00:35:54.239 --> 00:35:57.320
ensure that people are aware of the problem so that

703
00:35:57.360 --> 00:35:59.840
the right decision gets made, because if you don't talk,

704
00:36:00.280 --> 00:36:02.960
if nobody's aware of it, mistakes get made, and it's

705
00:36:03.039 --> 00:36:04.559
very hard to change it after the fact.

706
00:36:05.119 --> 00:36:09.559
Yes, yes, indeed, but it would be fairly tragic for

707
00:36:09.639 --> 00:36:14.159
the telescopes in the area because they're estimating that that

708
00:36:14.480 --> 00:36:17.920
renewable energy project would increase the brightness of the area

709
00:36:17.960 --> 00:36:20.519
by ten percent. That is a huge increase.

710
00:36:20.920 --> 00:36:23.639
Well, absolutely, and I mean you see it everywhere. I'm

711
00:36:23.880 --> 00:36:26.079
very aware where alive. I've moved out a couple of

712
00:36:26.159 --> 00:36:28.079
years ago to this beautiful house that we're in now,

713
00:36:28.079 --> 00:36:31.239
and it's got quite dad skies. But they have built

714
00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:35.159
a new industrial park about fifteen cares aware that I

715
00:36:35.199 --> 00:36:37.000
pass every day going into work. And one of the

716
00:36:37.039 --> 00:36:40.320
things plus is they're self tractors because we're a big

717
00:36:40.360 --> 00:36:45.000
agricultural area, and their building is surrounded by floodlights to

718
00:36:45.320 --> 00:36:48.760
obviously illuminate things to prevent thieves. I always think that

719
00:36:48.760 --> 00:36:50.840
when you're illuminating things like that, what you're actually doing

720
00:36:50.920 --> 00:36:52.719
is giving your shopping list to the food thing. Look

721
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:54.719
at all this fabulous stuff you could take away with you.

722
00:36:56.320 --> 00:36:59.840
But these floodlights have really noticeably from about fifteen cares

723
00:36:59.880 --> 00:37:02.480
of increase the brightness of the sky from my house

724
00:37:02.519 --> 00:37:04.760
to the southeast. Now I want to be looking to

725
00:37:04.840 --> 00:37:06.199
the north hest. So it's not the end of the

726
00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:09.119
world for me personally, but it's a really good example

727
00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:11.599
of how a single piece of building, a single project,

728
00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:15.280
can hugely impact the light for a very large area

729
00:37:15.400 --> 00:37:18.480
around with no indication of malice. People aren't doing this

730
00:37:18.599 --> 00:37:22.400
deliberately now, but they're doing it in ignorance of the

731
00:37:22.400 --> 00:37:24.880
impact they have because they're not there themselves looking, and

732
00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:27.559
when they're looking, they're looking at their products their local area.

733
00:37:28.639 --> 00:37:31.159
It's a challenge and it's hard to get people's hearts

734
00:37:31.159 --> 00:37:35.079
on mind on board. If you get aggressive and combative

735
00:37:35.119 --> 00:37:36.760
with it. It's a lot better to try and discuss

736
00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:38.760
it and let people know it's at the end of

737
00:37:38.800 --> 00:37:42.199
the day, if they turn those spotlights and point them down,

738
00:37:43.039 --> 00:37:44.920
that will mean less light pollution, and the only thing

739
00:37:44.920 --> 00:37:46.400
it will mean from their point of view is that

740
00:37:46.440 --> 00:37:49.039
burglars coming in by helicopter have a slightly easiest pan.

741
00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:57.000
Yes, good point, good point, and that happens a lot. Oh, absolutely, Yeah.

742
00:37:57.079 --> 00:37:59.719
I'm sure Fred will be kind to talk about this one,

743
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:03.719
having visited the area himself and yes, did the work

744
00:38:03.760 --> 00:38:07.760
going on there? Yeah, this will really be something that

745
00:38:07.800 --> 00:38:12.800
will bother him, I expect anyway. Yes, it's a work

746
00:38:12.800 --> 00:38:15.360
in progress. But if you'd like to chase up any

747
00:38:15.400 --> 00:38:17.920
of the stories we've talked about today, I think you'll

748
00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:21.639
find all of them on space dot com fabulous website,

749
00:38:21.719 --> 00:38:28.000
and we we really appreciate the work they do. And

750
00:38:28.039 --> 00:38:30.400
if you would like to chase anything up between episodes,

751
00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:32.800
by all means, go to our website. You can check

752
00:38:32.800 --> 00:38:36.719
out the notes on each episode at space Nuts podcast

753
00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:39.719
dot com or spacenuts dot io. And while you there

754
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:42.719
have a look around, you can visit the shop where

755
00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:45.559
you can get one of these. This is a spacenut

756
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:48.199
shirt with our logo on it, designed by my good

757
00:38:48.239 --> 00:38:52.239
brother Steve. Or you can hit the supporter button if

758
00:38:52.280 --> 00:38:54.559
you'd like to become a supporter of Space Nuts whatever,

759
00:38:54.920 --> 00:38:58.280
floats your boat, John Dy, thank you so much. We'll

760
00:38:58.320 --> 00:39:00.159
catch you on the very next.

761
00:39:00.159 --> 00:39:03.000
Episode, absolutely looking forward to it. Thank you for having

762
00:39:03.039 --> 00:39:04.480
me Professor John D.

763
00:39:04.559 --> 00:39:08.000
Horner, Professor of astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland,

764
00:39:08.559 --> 00:39:11.639
our expert voice on this episode of Space Nuts. And

765
00:39:11.679 --> 00:39:14.599
to Hugh in the studio he couldn't find his way

766
00:39:14.679 --> 00:39:17.480
in because of the light pollution around his place.

767
00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:18.960
And from me Andrew.

768
00:39:18.760 --> 00:39:20.440
Dunkley, thanks for your company. I'll catch you on the

769
00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:23.760
next episode of Space Nuts. See you then bye bye.

770
00:39:24.599 --> 00:39:29.639
You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast, available at

771
00:39:29.679 --> 00:39:34.960
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.

772
00:39:35.159 --> 00:39:38.280
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773
00:39:38.480 --> 00:39:44.039
This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot Com.
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