Galactic Mysteries: Fermi Bubbles, Saturn's Flash & High-Energy Life Forms

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Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another episode of Space Nuts.

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Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

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10, 9. Ignition

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sequence. Star 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.

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Astronauts report it feels good.

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Heidi Campo: I am your host, filling in for the beloved

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Andrew Dunkley. And my name is Heidi Campo.

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Joining us today is Professor Fred Watson,

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astronomer at large. And you are at

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large. You're still at your conference?

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, that's correct, yes. Um, still in. It's actually turning out

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to be rainy Adelaide today. There's, uh, quite heavy showers

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going through, which I can see out of the window. Um,

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and, um, hopefully, uh, I'll get a dry spell

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to walk up to the university to connect with

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my colleagues on the conference. Uh, I do have an

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umbrella, so that's all right.

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Being British, you always carry an umbrella.

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That's.

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Heidi Campo: I was gonna say you're good at astronomy and

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planetary science, bringing an umbrella.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. I should show you my umbrella. Actually, I can't do it now.

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But, um, it's got all the northern constellations on

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it. It's lovely. You flick it open

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and suddenly there's the sky in front of you, uh, all

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marked out, which came from Jodrell

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bank in Northern England, which is the home of the

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Lovell Radio telescope, which was the biggest, uh, radio.

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It was telescope in the world and it was built in

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1957. So, yeah.

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Heidi Campo: Wow. Well, that's a fun, fun fact to start

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off the episode.

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And I guess speaking of radio, I will brag

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for us. Before we started recording, Fred

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had mentioned to me that a story that we just

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covered on the last episode is hitting the radio

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with, uh, quite a lot of popularity.

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But you guys heard it here first.

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And, um, if you missed our last episode,

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you should go, uh, check that out. But just talking

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about the Big Crunch, and, um, we

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covered it thoroughly on the last episode, and it's

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the hot news in astronomy now, so you can go back

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and listen to that one. But we do have

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a lot of great stories in the queue for today as

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well that you're also going to want to hear. And, you

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know, this is funny because it's like, this is a science

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podcast, but I feel like the articles today are

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particularly Science Science rich. There's a

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lot of, um, and. And great

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variety too, Fred. These are going to be some really fun

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articles.

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So today, I don't even know I understand the

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word bubbles and I understand Milky Way,

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but I don't know what a Fermi bubble is

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that we have discovered in the Milky Way. And can you

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just tell Us Why they named it the Milky Way?

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Professor Fred Watson: Oh, um, you know, I.

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Heidi Campo: There's a meme on the Internet where it's like, who just looked up at that

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and thought, mmm, milky.

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Professor Fred Watson: The Greeks, I think, um, uh, um, and

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the Romans. It goes back. It's probably, you know, it's

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lost in time because it's got this

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milky appearance. Via lacta, it's called in Latin,

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uh, Milky Way. Uh, and, um,

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uh. So ancient people looked at it,

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thought it looked milky, called it the Milky Way,

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telling it like it is. And it's. And it's been

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known as that, um, ever since. And

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I think it's delightful that we still call it that. I mean,

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we technically we see it as. It's the edge,

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you know, the thickness of our galaxy that we're looking through when we see the

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Milky Way. It was Galileo who first saw that

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it was made of stars and not congealed milk or

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something like that. Uh, when he, when he perfected

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the telescope or perfected his telescope in 16,

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1609, uh, towards the end of 1609, early

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1610, he saw it was made of

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stars. And that was, um, the first time

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anybody knew really what it was made of. And that

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was, um, you know, only, excuse

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me, 400 years or so ago. So it's quite a

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recent discovery that it's actually, uh, made of

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celestial objects rather than something,

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um, almost supernatural, which I'm sure

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was very much on the minds of people before that.

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Supernatural milk from supernatural cows, probably.

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Excuse me.

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Heidi Campo: Yeah, I've always thought. I mean, it does. I guess I don't look at it and think

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milky. I think maybe Sparkle Way or something. But now

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that, uh, you know, thinking of it through the lens of ancient people,

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that makes sense.

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Professor Fred Watson: A lot of, um, you know, what you might call first nations

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cultures throughout the world see it differently. Here in, uh,

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Australia, a lot of the Aboriginal

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people. And there are something like 400

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different groups of Aboriginal people within Australia. It's

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a very. Because the. A big continent and these are small

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nations dotted throughout. But many of them

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saw it as a celestial river. Uh, oh, that's

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beautiful. You know, so. And that. And you can kind of get that

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because often rivers in Australia,

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uh, uh, are milky and the water's sometimes quite milky

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in appearance. So it sort of all makes sense.

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Heidi Campo: Hmm.

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Well, I guess today we're starting off by, uh, talking about

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milk bubbles.

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Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's, you know, the froth on your milk,

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um, which is very nice on a coffee or something like that. Anyway,

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that's a different story. So what are these things?

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Fermi bubbles. You mentioned them. Um, they,

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uh, and I'm not actually sure. I thought you were going to ask me who named them and

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I don't know the answer to that, so I'm very glad you didn't.

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Um, the um, Fermi bubbles are

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their structures which are

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uh, thousands of light years across,

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um, and they, they, we see them

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in, in radio telescopes. They're bubbles

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of hot gas. And um, and

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we think they're caused by sort of explosive

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activity in the center of

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our galaxy because we know that the

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center of our galaxy hosts uh, a 4 million solar

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mass black hole, um, which occasionally

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gobbles up material, um, uh, you

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know, approaches it and gets sucked into the

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accretion disk and whizzes around at high speeds

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radiating X rays and things of that sort and then get sucked

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uh, into the black hole. What doesn't get sucked in

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squirts upwards, uh, and downwards, uh, at

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the poles of rotation of the black hole, uh, to

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form jets. That's the way black holes behave

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when they're active, when they're gobbling stuff up. They form these jets which

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come about because of magnetic fields. So we think that the

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Fermi bubbles are the result of uh,

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previous outbursts in the galaxy's history.

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They've only been known for 15 years.

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Heidi 20,

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uh, 10 I think. They were first picked up by uh,

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gamma ray telescopes. So gamma rays are

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very short wa wavelength radiation at the opposite end of the

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spectrum from radio waves, uh, but they are

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symptomatic of high energy processes. So things that are

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very hot, uh, or you know, very active,

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like center of a galaxy with an

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active black hole in it, they're going to produce gamma rays as

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well. Um, so, um, violent

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events. They've been likened to

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volcanic eruptions from the center of uh, our galaxy

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forming these bubbles of material moving away

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from uh, the galactic center. They're both

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north and south of the center of the

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galaxy. Um, but some new

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observations using uh, the Green

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bank telescope, uh, National Science

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foundation over there in your country, uh, is a

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team, uh, from um, I can't remember

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which university. They're from North Carolina State

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University and some other institutions.

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What they've done is they've used uh, the

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Green bank radio telescope to get basically

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really high, uh, fidelity,

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uh, images and data on

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the composition of the gases within

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them, the speed that they're moving, things of that sort.

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Uh, um, so they've done what we would call a

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survey of the Fermi bubbles. Ah, and that

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lets them pick out fine details um,

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now the thing about the Fermi bubbles, as I said, they're very high energy. Their

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temperature, uh, within them

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is roughly a million degrees or

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so. Uh, 1 million degrees

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Celsius or Kelvin. Uh, it's a lot more in

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Fahrenheit, but it's about a million degrees.

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But there are clouds of

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gas within those bubbles, um,

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which are significant.

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You know, they're big clouds of gas. They

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weigh um, thousands of times the mass of the

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Sun. They're within the bubbles, uh, roughly.

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The uh, ones they've been identified are about 12,000 light

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years from the center of the Milky Way.

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And it's amazing thing, given that the

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temperature of the Fermi bubbles is a million degrees,

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these things are cold.

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They're uh, uh, well, cold in comparison, let me

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put it that way. They're only about 10,000 degrees.

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If you can describe 10,000 degrees as cold. Well it

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is compared with the million degrees that's, you know,

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that's surrounding them. And um, in fact there's

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a lovely quote from uh, uh,

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one of the um, uh, authors, the co author of the paper is

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actually at the Space Telescope Science Institute, STScI, which

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is in Baltimore. Um, somebody uh, called

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Andrew Fox. Uh, he

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um, has this lovely quote. Uh,

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he says they're around 10,000 degrees Kelvin, so

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cooler than their surroundings by at least a factor of 100.

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Finding these clouds within the Fermi bubble is like finding

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ice cubes in a volcano. And you know,

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that's really nice, a nice uh, summary.

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Um, and it's

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hard to understand m,

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why they're there. And one of the other

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astronomers involved with this says computer models of cool

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gas interacting with hot outflowing gas in

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extreme environments like the Fermi bubbles show that

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cool clouds should be rapidly destroyed, usually within a few

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million years. Uh, a timescale that

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aligns with independent estimates of the

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Fermi bubbles age. Um, and

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it wouldn't be possible for the clouds to be present,

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to be present at all if the bubbles

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were 10 million years or older. So that's what they're saying

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is, you know, you've got a scale of a few

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million years for these things to evaporate to become

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at the same temperature as the bubbles. But uh,

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uh, they haven't done that yet. Um,

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and one other quote if I may. Uh, because this

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is full of great quotes and there's my phone ringing

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and I don't know why, uh, I'm

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going to ignore it. They might be trying to get me out

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of the room. Do you mind if I take this? Heidi, let's Pause it.

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Let's pause it. We'll just.

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Actually, they've gone. All right.

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Heidi Campo: They'll be back. Don't worry.

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Professor Fred Watson: They'll be back.

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Heidi Campo: Probably.

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Professor Fred Watson: They will be back. Yes, I'm sure that's right.

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Uh, unless the place is on fire or something

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like that. Doesn't look to be. Um,

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so another quote, uh, ah,

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uh, uh, from one of the scientists involved with this.

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What makes this discovery even more remarkable is

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its synergy with ultraviolet observations from the Hubble

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Space Telescope. The clouds lie along a

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sight line previously observed with the Hubble Space

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Telescope, which detected highly

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ionized multiphase gas. Uh,

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that's just saying it's very excited. Uh, ranging in

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temperatures from a million to 100,000 degrees, which is what you

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would expect to see if cold gas is getting

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evaporated. In other words, there is evidence that

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these cold gas clouds are, uh, actually

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dissipating, that they're warming up. Uh, and

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basically, uh, they're going to disappear,

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you know, within a million years or so. Uh,

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so a really interesting story with a lot of loose ends tied up

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very nicely by the observations made by these scientists.

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Heidi Campo: Wow, that's a.

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I just. I'm still wrapping my head around that metaphor of the ice

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cube in a lava volcano or in a volcano.

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What an incredible discovery. That's one I'm

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definitely going to keep my eye on for

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further, um, research and

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seeing what we figure out. This is a really interesting

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phenomenon.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

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Uh, and, um, uh, Fermi bubbles.

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We've talked about them a little bit in the past on

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Spacenuts, uh, when the, uh, beloved

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Andrew Dunkley was there, uh, and he'll be back,

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I'm sure. Uh, um, the,

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uh, bottom line is though, that, um, they're still a bit

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mysterious. You know, clearly

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they are. They're sort of spherical in shape. You can see when you

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look at, um, images taken with,

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um, principally radio telescopes, but also Gamma Ray

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Telescope. Uh, it's that they're, they're quite

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spherical. That a bubble is a good name for it because they

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seem to be hollow. Uh, but

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how they actually are,

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how they arise, probably because the hot gas shooting

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up from the black hole, uh, might

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excavate a sort of spherical cavern in the

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surrounding gas. It's still a bit mysterious

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though.

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Generic: Three, two, one.

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Space nuts.

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Heidi Campo: Yeah.

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Speaking of mysteries, our next story

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is also quite mysterious

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and it seems like the race is on to figure out what

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the answer is. And we are trying to figure out. Did something

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just happen to Saturn? Saturn? Did it just get Hit

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what is going on? The headlines here is

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astronomers are racing to find out. So it

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sounds like this is also kind of a hot discovery

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that everybody wants to know the answer to

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is what's going on with Saturn?

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yeah, so, um, Saturn, I

293
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guess everybody's favorite planet, um, with its rings,

294
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wonderful uh, place to study and a great place

295
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to start with if you've got a small telescope because you.

296
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The rings are always quite breathtaking. Um,

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so uh,

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we know that um, planets, particularly in the

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outer parts of. Well we know planets everywhere are

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subject to bombardment by asteroids at a relatively

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low rate. Um, this is part of

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uh, the process of planet building, uh most of which

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took place four billion years ago, four and a half billion years ago. But

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there are still asteroids bombarding planets that,

305
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you know, m missed the boat really. Uh, and we know

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about asteroids that have hit the Earth in particular the

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dinosaur killer back in 66 million

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years ago. Um, so it's expected

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that you would see from time to time small uh, asteroids,

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meteorites, effectively hitting other planets.

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Uh, and the most well known one for the

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outer planets is a comet, uh,

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which uh, impacted um, the

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planet Jupiter back in, I think it was

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1994 or

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thereabouts. Um, uh, which

317
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uh, basically, uh,

318
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yes, it was 1994. I've just checked it up. A

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uh, comet called Shoemaker Levy nine,

320
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uh, which broke up actually because of Jupiter's intense

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gravitational field. It broke up before it hit the planet.

322
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Uh, but it did hit the planet and because

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people had observed the comet, uh, there

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were many observations made including by our Anglo

325
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Australian telescope here in Australia. Um,

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they managed to observe the impact of Shoemaker

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Levy nine fragments with the atmosphere of Jupiter.

328
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Um, and so we'd expect to see the same sort of thing with

329
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the other gas giants out there.

330
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And um, so with that as the

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background, what's hit the headlines

332
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uh at the moment is a

333
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flash that has been recorded. It's actually

334
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right on the limb of the planet Saturn,

335
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uh, by an amateur astronomer who was

336
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m taking video footage of the planet

337
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itself. Um, now it's

338
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an astronomer, uh, by the name of Mario

339
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Rana, who is a NASA employee

340
00:16:08.670 --> 00:16:11.430
and um, has. So as well

341
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as working for NASA, he's also an amateur astronomer.

342
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Uh, and he basically

343
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um, caught this image which you can

344
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find on the web. There's a few websites that have got a picture of

345
00:16:23.890 --> 00:16:26.890
it. It's a very blurry image of Saturn, which is kind

346
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of what you'd expect from a short exposure video image,

347
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uh, with a flash at one side. Now

348
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the question that everybody's asking, and

349
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this is what you were alluding to right at the beginning is

350
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uh, what is the flash? Is it something

351
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impacting the atmosphere of Saturn or

352
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is it perhaps a glitch in the data which are uh,

353
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not unknown at all. Uh, when you're doing

354
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astronomical imaging uh, with any kind of equipment

355
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there are often, there's often the possibility of a glitch.

356
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Uh so um, that is

357
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a ah question that can really only be

358
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resolved if somebody else

359
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was also observing plateau, not

360
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platurn Saturn. If somebody

361
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else was also observing the planet Saturn,

362
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sometimes abbreviated to platen, um,

363
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uh, then um, basically

364
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uh, and they found the same

365
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flash in their data. Um then that

366
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would prove that this was not a glitch in the

367
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data, that it's actually ah, um,

368
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something that's real, a real event. Uh

369
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and so uh, the search is on for

370
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somebody who was observing the planet Saturn

371
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on the 5th of July between

372
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9am and 9:15am UTC.

373
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That's Universal Coordinated universal Time. That's the sort

374
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of standard time that used to be called Greenwich

375
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Mean Time but is now much more sophisticated uh

376
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9:00am and 9:15 if any. Um,

377
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SpaceNots listeners have got footage of Saturn taken

378
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at that time, 5th of July, not very long ago

379
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between 9am and 9:15am M UTC.

380
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We want to see your data uh, because

381
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there could be evidence that this was a real event

382
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rather than a hot pixel or some sort of glitch in

383
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the data. So um, that's a story that I

384
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think is going to develop again, one we should keep an eye on

385
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Heidi, because hopefully maybe within the next

386
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couple of weeks we might find that somebody has

387
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recorded the planet Saturn at that time,

388
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uh, and that there is confirmation that it

389
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was actually an impacting object. Then we've got to think about what it

390
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might have been. Possibly a comet, possibly an

391
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asteroid, but something um, big enough to

392
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make a significant um, flash

393
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when it actually burned up or

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interacted with the atmosphere of Saturn.

395
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Heidi Campo: Yeah, yeah. This is just another reminder of how

396
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important citizen science is because this is

397
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a great example of you don't need to be

398
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a Fred Watson to make these discoveries. You could be,

399
00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:03.920
you know, any of our regular listeners, you could be a

400
00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:06.710
Heidi Campo and still do cool things and

401
00:19:06.710 --> 00:19:09.640
uh, uh, that's really exciting. So I guess we

402
00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:12.520
will find out. Uh, right now I guess it is just a

403
00:19:12.520 --> 00:19:14.320
big hands in the air. I don't know.

404
00:19:15.280 --> 00:19:18.000
We need more data to figure that out.

405
00:19:20.560 --> 00:19:23.520
Voice Over Guy: Okay, we checked all four systems and. Team with a go

406
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space nuts.

407
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Heidi Campo: But unlike our last Story where there is

408
00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:30.740
just so much conversation, lots of

409
00:19:30.740 --> 00:19:33.460
talk, lots of mystery, lots of data, lots of not

410
00:19:33.460 --> 00:19:35.340
data. We are talking about,

411
00:19:36.380 --> 00:19:39.260
I think it's, we're going to be split down the middle. It's

412
00:19:39.260 --> 00:19:41.980
either something you love to talk about or it's oh man, this

413
00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:44.620
again. But we are talking about the

414
00:19:44.620 --> 00:19:47.260
search for extraterrestrials.

415
00:19:48.060 --> 00:19:48.540
Professor Fred Watson: Yes.

416
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Heidi Campo: And uh, for, I think for those of you who

417
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are in the camp of you've watched the movie Contact

418
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and you loved it, then this will be the story for you.

419
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Professor Fred Watson: It's a really interesting story. The reason I put it in

420
00:20:01.300 --> 00:20:03.980
today Heidi, was that one of my

421
00:20:03.980 --> 00:20:06.420
colleagues at the conference actually

422
00:20:06.420 --> 00:20:09.300
mentioned this idea in his

423
00:20:09.300 --> 00:20:12.260
talk, uh, for about a fifth of a

424
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second. He didn't dwell on it. It was

425
00:20:14.900 --> 00:20:17.780
flashed up on the screen. High, uh, energy

426
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astrobiology was the term he used. And then he moved on to

427
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something else. And I thought those two words,

428
00:20:23.590 --> 00:20:26.390
oh, uh, three words I guess, high energy

429
00:20:26.390 --> 00:20:29.150
with uh, a hyphen in between. High

430
00:20:29.150 --> 00:20:31.550
energy and astrobiology.

431
00:20:31.550 --> 00:20:34.350
Astrobiology is the uh, study

432
00:20:34.350 --> 00:20:37.150
of the origin of life, how life evolved, how it

433
00:20:37.150 --> 00:20:39.910
became, uh, where it is throughout the universe.

434
00:20:40.630 --> 00:20:43.590
High uh, energy astronomy is at the opposite end. It's

435
00:20:43.590 --> 00:20:46.470
the stuff we've been talking about with the Fermi bubbles. It's uh, things

436
00:20:46.470 --> 00:20:48.870
that are very hot or very active or

437
00:20:49.470 --> 00:20:52.390
you know, full of radiation. Uh, the kinds of things that

438
00:20:52.390 --> 00:20:55.150
you don't associate with the origin of life.

439
00:20:55.670 --> 00:20:58.590
Uh, that you might um, you know, think

440
00:20:58.590 --> 00:21:01.390
that these high energy radiations would just

441
00:21:01.390 --> 00:21:04.390
destroy any sort of molecules that

442
00:21:04.390 --> 00:21:06.710
are trying to evolve into living

443
00:21:06.710 --> 00:21:09.670
organisms. Uh, and uh, that's

444
00:21:09.670 --> 00:21:12.330
why it seemed like um.

445
00:21:12.750 --> 00:21:15.750
Yes, it seemed like the word is an oxymoron, isn't it?

446
00:21:15.750 --> 00:21:18.550
An oxymoron's two things that go together that mean

447
00:21:18.550 --> 00:21:21.350
opposite things. That's what it seemed like. And

448
00:21:21.350 --> 00:21:24.110
then here I found ah, an article

449
00:21:24.190 --> 00:21:26.670
which is on the phys.org website,

450
00:21:26.670 --> 00:21:29.550
phys.org Ah, reviving

451
00:21:29.630 --> 00:21:32.630
search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence with

452
00:21:32.630 --> 00:21:34.830
High Energy Astronomy. And

453
00:21:35.550 --> 00:21:38.430
so it's really um, it's a white paper

454
00:21:38.430 --> 00:21:41.110
actually that's gone to the NASA Decadal

455
00:21:41.110 --> 00:21:43.870
Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy.

456
00:21:44.430 --> 00:21:47.270
Uh, and they uh, have a request for information and

457
00:21:47.270 --> 00:21:50.250
this white paper has uh, come in as a submission.

458
00:21:50.830 --> 00:21:53.210
Um, and it's got at uh, least

459
00:21:53.610 --> 00:21:56.410
two researchers involved with this. Uh, they're involved

460
00:21:56.410 --> 00:21:59.170
with a project called Breakthrough Listen, which we've

461
00:21:59.170 --> 00:22:02.130
certainly talked about before on uh, Space Nuts.

462
00:22:02.130 --> 00:22:05.030
Breakthrough Listen is a privately funded uh,

463
00:22:05.030 --> 00:22:07.930
venture to devote some of the time

464
00:22:07.930 --> 00:22:10.730
on two big radio telescopes, one of which is here in Australia,

465
00:22:10.810 --> 00:22:13.610
the Parkes radiodish to listening for

466
00:22:14.230 --> 00:22:16.690
uh, SETI signals. In other words, the search for

467
00:22:16.690 --> 00:22:18.890
extraterrestrial intelligence. Listening for

468
00:22:19.410 --> 00:22:21.810
signals that might actually

469
00:22:22.370 --> 00:22:25.330
be um, somebody's communication signals,

470
00:22:25.730 --> 00:22:28.710
uh, in a different star system. Uh,

471
00:22:28.930 --> 00:22:31.850
so these people are already tuned into that idea. Now

472
00:22:31.850 --> 00:22:34.690
the breakthrough listen has been going for some

473
00:22:34.690 --> 00:22:37.450
years, maybe 15, 10, 15 years. It's

474
00:22:37.450 --> 00:22:40.210
funded by a Russian billionaire called Yuri

475
00:22:40.210 --> 00:22:42.970
Milner. Uh, and they haven't found

476
00:22:42.970 --> 00:22:45.970
anything. Basically, uh, no signals have been

477
00:22:45.970 --> 00:22:48.850
detected that could be artificial in origin.

478
00:22:49.340 --> 00:22:52.020
And I think, um, maybe in a little bit of

479
00:22:52.020 --> 00:22:54.780
frustration around that, because

480
00:22:54.940 --> 00:22:57.820
radio is what you think of at first as

481
00:22:58.860 --> 00:23:01.780
extraterrestrial civilizations trying to communicate with one

482
00:23:01.780 --> 00:23:04.740
another. It's what we use in our civilization and uh,

483
00:23:04.859 --> 00:23:07.780
it leaks out into space. We know that the Earth is quite bright

484
00:23:07.780 --> 00:23:10.780
in the radio spectrum because of all our

485
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radio signals as we communicate with each other.

486
00:23:13.780 --> 00:23:16.620
Uh, so perhaps frustrated at the lack

487
00:23:16.620 --> 00:23:19.620
of any response on that, these scientists have

488
00:23:20.820 --> 00:23:23.820
posed the idea how could high energy astronomy be

489
00:23:23.820 --> 00:23:26.260
used to find radio signals from

490
00:23:26.580 --> 00:23:28.900
technological civilizations?

491
00:23:29.380 --> 00:23:32.180
And so it dwells on things

492
00:23:32.180 --> 00:23:34.820
like objects that emit M, cosmic rays,

493
00:23:34.900 --> 00:23:36.820
gamma rays, X rays,

494
00:23:37.520 --> 00:23:40.510
uh, all these things which are uh, come

495
00:23:40.510 --> 00:23:43.130
from sources of high energy emissions. Uh,

496
00:23:43.230 --> 00:23:46.070
they list a whole lot of them. Neutrinos, X rays,

497
00:23:46.070 --> 00:23:48.830
cosmic rays, gamma rays, pulsar

498
00:23:48.830 --> 00:23:51.510
wind, nebulae, neutron stars, black holes, solar

499
00:23:51.510 --> 00:23:54.430
flares and gamma ray bursts. Um, but how

500
00:23:54.430 --> 00:23:57.380
do you uh, associate that with uh,

501
00:23:57.870 --> 00:24:00.750
technological civilizations? Well, what you've got to do

502
00:24:00.750 --> 00:24:03.390
is think completely out of the box.

503
00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:06.910
Uh, and one of the boxes that they think out of

504
00:24:07.490 --> 00:24:10.450
is, you know, we uh, regard

505
00:24:10.450 --> 00:24:13.450
our environment here on Earth at a comfortable temperature of

506
00:24:13.450 --> 00:24:16.090
about 15 degrees Celsius on average for the whole

507
00:24:16.090 --> 00:24:18.690
planet, uh, as being where

508
00:24:19.170 --> 00:24:22.010
life has evolved, where we have evolved. But they are

509
00:24:22.010 --> 00:24:24.610
thinking way outside and they're saying, okay,

510
00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:27.880
uh, think of the surface of a neutron star. Now

511
00:24:27.880 --> 00:24:30.810
uh, I meant to look up what the average temperature of the surface of a

512
00:24:30.810 --> 00:24:33.610
neutron star is and I forgot to, but it is very, very

513
00:24:33.610 --> 00:24:36.530
hot. It's, you know, we're talking thousands of degrees.

514
00:24:37.350 --> 00:24:40.050
Um, and imagine uh, that

515
00:24:40.330 --> 00:24:41.030
ah,

516
00:24:43.570 --> 00:24:46.170
a life form could exist on such a

517
00:24:46.170 --> 00:24:48.930
surface that lives on nuclear energy

518
00:24:49.010 --> 00:24:51.770
and all that radiation that comes from the neutron

519
00:24:51.770 --> 00:24:54.450
stars. So how do you

520
00:24:54.450 --> 00:24:57.370
search the signals we get from neutron stars

521
00:24:57.370 --> 00:25:00.010
to look for artificial signals? And they're

522
00:25:00.010 --> 00:25:02.880
suggesting AI for that machine learning,

523
00:25:03.430 --> 00:25:06.160
uh, searching X ray images, neutrino bursts,

524
00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:09.150
gamma ray observations. Um,

525
00:25:09.150 --> 00:25:12.120
there is a quote, if I may, uh, read it from the

526
00:25:12.120 --> 00:25:15.040
study that says high energy seti, by and

527
00:25:15.040 --> 00:25:17.520
large Must be a commensal effort for the

528
00:25:17.600 --> 00:25:20.480
foreseeable future. That's one that everybody joins in.

529
00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:23.560
Dedicated programs will only be feasible after much further

530
00:25:23.560 --> 00:25:26.440
investigation. At, uh, this stage, our efforts will be like

531
00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:29.200
those of early radio and optical SETI pioneers

532
00:25:29.370 --> 00:25:31.450
who developed methods and infrastructure

533
00:25:32.090 --> 00:25:34.810
that took decades to grow into the robust

534
00:25:34.810 --> 00:25:37.690
subfield it is today. So,

535
00:25:37.850 --> 00:25:40.730
yeah, it's really interesting. I like

536
00:25:40.730 --> 00:25:43.450
the other comment as well. An even more basic reason for these

537
00:25:43.450 --> 00:25:46.290
studies is the difficulty in building optics for some kinds of

538
00:25:46.290 --> 00:25:48.770
radiation because we cannot make neutrino

539
00:25:48.770 --> 00:25:51.770
lenses. Every neutrino detector is sensitive

540
00:25:51.770 --> 00:25:54.530
to large areas of sky, making

541
00:25:54.530 --> 00:25:57.330
it a good SETI facility if you're looking at the

542
00:25:57.330 --> 00:26:00.320
whole sky. But what you find might not mean very

543
00:26:00.320 --> 00:26:03.280
much to us. So I'm not quite sure where this study is

544
00:26:03.280 --> 00:26:06.160
going. Um, I have to admit a little

545
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:09.040
bit of skepticism as to whether we would ever

546
00:26:09.040 --> 00:26:11.840
find a technosignature from the, uh, X rays

547
00:26:11.840 --> 00:26:14.679
coming from a neutron star. Um, it would

548
00:26:14.679 --> 00:26:17.600
be very mysterious. So the first thing I would think of would be,

549
00:26:17.630 --> 00:26:20.280
uh, well, maybe there's a planet going around it that's got a rather more

550
00:26:20.280 --> 00:26:21.680
benign environment to it.

551
00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:24.800
But, you know, we're always looking for planets in the Goldilocks

552
00:26:24.800 --> 00:26:27.520
zone, that zone where it's not too hot and not too cold for

553
00:26:27.840 --> 00:26:30.820
liquid water to exist, because that's the only form of. Of life we

554
00:26:30.820 --> 00:26:33.700
know, one that's based on liquid water. But, yes, there may be

555
00:26:33.700 --> 00:26:35.180
other forms of life. Who knows?

556
00:26:35.740 --> 00:26:38.660
Heidi Campo: We. I, I certainly don't. No, some

557
00:26:38.660 --> 00:26:41.070
of our listeners do. Maybe. Maybe, uh,

558
00:26:41.180 --> 00:26:43.060
Henrique will be the one to find them.

559
00:26:43.060 --> 00:26:43.580
Professor Fred Watson: Ah, yes.

560
00:26:43.580 --> 00:26:46.580
Heidi Campo: This, uh, this really does kind of sound like the plot

561
00:26:46.580 --> 00:26:49.420
line to contact some billionaire

562
00:26:49.420 --> 00:26:52.380
funding some young ambitious scientist. And I've

563
00:26:52.380 --> 00:26:55.300
always laughed because it's like, that's every scientist dream. If someone

564
00:26:55.300 --> 00:26:58.180
shows up with a blank check, and it's like, all right, how much money do you need? I

565
00:26:58.180 --> 00:27:01.180
will fund everything. And you're just like, thank you so much.

566
00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:04.380
Professor Fred Watson: Thank you. Yeah, I don't know, what do you say, but thank you.

567
00:27:05.580 --> 00:27:08.550
Heidi Campo: That'd be pretty cool. Um, my friend, um,

568
00:27:08.550 --> 00:27:11.460
Dr. Allison McGraw, she's a planetary scientist at

569
00:27:11.460 --> 00:27:14.300
the Lunar and Planetary Institute. She

570
00:27:14.700 --> 00:27:17.300
looks through telescopes, and she's sure her

571
00:27:17.300 --> 00:27:19.980
background's in, um, geology. And she's always thought that

572
00:27:19.980 --> 00:27:22.620
for extraterrestrial life, that we should look for

573
00:27:23.420 --> 00:27:25.900
planets with plastic signatures.

574
00:27:26.270 --> 00:27:27.070
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Yep.

575
00:27:27.070 --> 00:27:29.950
Heidi Campo: And that's always been. Her philosophy, is just looking for

576
00:27:30.510 --> 00:27:32.990
those kinds of materials or things that are

577
00:27:33.390 --> 00:27:36.230
not going to be organically made. I mean, she's like, we

578
00:27:36.230 --> 00:27:38.990
need planets that have garbage on them. Yeah,

579
00:27:39.710 --> 00:27:41.150
that's going to tell us there's life there.

580
00:27:42.029 --> 00:27:44.750
Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. And it's uh, another way that

581
00:27:44.890 --> 00:27:47.630
uh, people are already looking uh, for is,

582
00:27:47.630 --> 00:27:49.710
you know, gases in the atmospheres of

583
00:27:50.110 --> 00:27:52.670
exoplanets that can only be formed by industrial

584
00:27:52.670 --> 00:27:55.270
processes, which might be easier to find than plastic

585
00:27:55.270 --> 00:27:57.460
signatures. Some of the gases like

586
00:27:58.020 --> 00:28:00.900
fluorocarbons, things of that sort that only come out

587
00:28:00.900 --> 00:28:03.460
of smokestacks, uh, in

588
00:28:03.460 --> 00:28:06.210
industrial, you know, industrial machinery.

589
00:28:06.210 --> 00:28:08.980
Heidi Campo: Um, uh, so we found that and it was

590
00:28:08.980 --> 00:28:11.300
KB18B.

591
00:28:11.860 --> 00:28:13.660
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. K2.18B. That's right.

592
00:28:13.660 --> 00:28:14.980
Heidi Campo: K2.18B.

593
00:28:16.420 --> 00:28:18.980
Professor Fred Watson: Those are um, the signatures that

594
00:28:19.220 --> 00:28:21.820
are reputed to have been found, they still haven't been

595
00:28:21.820 --> 00:28:24.660
confirmed, are ah, chemicals that are only emitted by

596
00:28:24.660 --> 00:28:27.340
microbes on Earth. So they're not technosignatures, but they are

597
00:28:27.340 --> 00:28:29.760
bio, uh, signatures, what we might call

598
00:28:29.760 --> 00:28:31.760
biomarkers, if they are real.

599
00:28:32.560 --> 00:28:35.440
Heidi Campo: And that is an episode from a few weeks ago that we go

600
00:28:35.520 --> 00:28:38.080
in depth on if you were interested in

601
00:28:38.540 --> 00:28:40.720
ah, that particular planet.

602
00:28:41.520 --> 00:28:43.840
Professor Fred Watson: That's the one, um, which your husband likes, I believe.

603
00:28:44.560 --> 00:28:47.520
Heidi Campo: Yeah. Uh, I think he saw that on Instagram

604
00:28:47.520 --> 00:28:49.840
and he was fascinated because it was one of those

605
00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:52.840
clickbait type articles that has some headline. It's like, we

606
00:28:52.840 --> 00:28:55.690
found aliens. NASA confirms that

607
00:28:55.690 --> 00:28:57.810
we have found aliens. It's like, okay,

608
00:28:58.370 --> 00:29:01.170
we're alive. And then

609
00:29:01.170 --> 00:29:04.090
you read the study and you find out that they're just

610
00:29:04.090 --> 00:29:07.090
finding um, gas bubbles that might be something.

611
00:29:07.090 --> 00:29:10.010
That might be something. And it's, they're just looking at it through

612
00:29:10.010 --> 00:29:13.010
a few pixels on one telescope. So it's like, okay, we're

613
00:29:13.010 --> 00:29:15.890
not quite there yet. I think when we, if,

614
00:29:15.890 --> 00:29:18.890
if, if or when we do find something, it'll be more

615
00:29:18.890 --> 00:29:21.650
than one article from one random Instagram

616
00:29:21.650 --> 00:29:22.050
page.

617
00:29:23.030 --> 00:29:25.950
Professor Fred Watson: I think you're right there, everybody talking about

618
00:29:25.950 --> 00:29:26.310
it.

619
00:29:26.790 --> 00:29:29.620
Heidi Campo: Well, Fred, this has been a really fun, uh,

620
00:29:29.620 --> 00:29:32.430
conversation and I know that you're eager to

621
00:29:32.430 --> 00:29:35.190
get back to the rest of your conference where you can

622
00:29:35.430 --> 00:29:38.109
learn more and share more with us. So we're going to let

623
00:29:38.109 --> 00:29:40.830
you uh, get going. But thank you so much

624
00:29:40.830 --> 00:29:43.790
for joining me today. This has been really fun,

625
00:29:43.790 --> 00:29:46.550
talking about milky coffee bubbles and

626
00:29:47.500 --> 00:29:50.470
uh, Saturn and ETs and all the

627
00:29:50.470 --> 00:29:51.070
fun stuff.

628
00:29:51.310 --> 00:29:54.280
Professor Fred Watson: A high energy episode of, uh, um,

629
00:29:54.510 --> 00:29:57.390
Space Nuts. That's what we call it, don't we? Space Nuts. That's it.

630
00:29:59.470 --> 00:30:02.110
Yeah. No, it's great. Thank you, thank you very much, Heidi.

631
00:30:02.110 --> 00:30:05.110
Thanks as always for your time and enthusiasm

632
00:30:05.110 --> 00:30:06.350
and we'll talk again soon.

633
00:30:06.830 --> 00:30:09.470
Andrew Dunkley: Hi Fred. Hello, Heidi. Hello, Huw in the

634
00:30:09.470 --> 00:30:09.910
studio.

635
00:30:09.910 --> 00:30:12.750
Andrew again from somewhere in

636
00:30:12.750 --> 00:30:15.620
the Mediterranean and where We've spent, uh, a fair bit

637
00:30:15.620 --> 00:30:18.620
of time since I last spoke to you after our visit to

638
00:30:18.620 --> 00:30:20.580
Tenerife. What have we been doing since?

639
00:30:21.300 --> 00:30:24.220
Blimey. Uh, we've been everywhere. Uh, mainly

640
00:30:24.220 --> 00:30:26.260
in Spain, but also Morocco.

641
00:30:26.900 --> 00:30:29.779
We docked at Casablanca

642
00:30:29.940 --> 00:30:32.780
and then took a, A trip for a few hours

643
00:30:32.780 --> 00:30:35.780
to Marrakech. Now, we didn't catch the Marrakech

644
00:30:35.780 --> 00:30:38.340
Express, um, which

645
00:30:38.500 --> 00:30:41.350
is made famous by the Crosby, Stills Nash and Young

646
00:30:41.350 --> 00:30:43.630
song, but, uh, we did see it, actually.

647
00:30:44.750 --> 00:30:47.670
Uh, no, we went to Marrakech and, uh, we. We

648
00:30:47.670 --> 00:30:50.430
sat down to a traditional Moroccan lunch and, and

649
00:30:50.430 --> 00:30:53.310
looked at the countryside. Uh, it's a strange,

650
00:30:53.870 --> 00:30:56.790
strange change of terrain when

651
00:30:56.790 --> 00:30:59.070
you're driving from Casablanca to

652
00:30:59.230 --> 00:31:02.030
Marrakech, when you're heading south because it turns

653
00:31:02.030 --> 00:31:04.750
into desert very rapidly. But beautiful

654
00:31:04.750 --> 00:31:07.560
country. Quite, uh, quite different

655
00:31:07.560 --> 00:31:10.040
to what I expected. Uh, then we

656
00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:13.040
sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar and saw the

657
00:31:13.040 --> 00:31:15.840
Rock. We were supposed to stop there, but delays

658
00:31:15.840 --> 00:31:18.760
have, uh, forced us to skip the,

659
00:31:18.850 --> 00:31:21.560
uh, UK territory. And then it was

660
00:31:21.560 --> 00:31:24.360
on to, uh, Valencia.

661
00:31:24.440 --> 00:31:27.400
And we did a cooking class, believe it

662
00:31:27.400 --> 00:31:30.320
or not, uh, and learned how to make paella

663
00:31:30.320 --> 00:31:32.940
or. Paella or whatever is the local

664
00:31:32.940 --> 00:31:35.860
pronunciation. And we got to eat it later.

665
00:31:36.020 --> 00:31:38.580
Fantastic. And then we

666
00:31:38.580 --> 00:31:40.660
moved even further to

667
00:31:41.780 --> 00:31:44.740
Barcelona. And, uh, we. We

668
00:31:44.740 --> 00:31:47.579
discovered, um, things about Barcelona we

669
00:31:47.579 --> 00:31:50.190
didn't know. Like the hidden city that was, uh,

670
00:31:50.460 --> 00:31:53.460
dug up fairly recently, they didn't know

671
00:31:53.460 --> 00:31:56.100
was there, but it was, uh, a city

672
00:31:56.180 --> 00:31:59.030
underneath the city of Barcelona. Uh,

673
00:31:59.070 --> 00:32:02.030
so, uh, they've renovated that and uh, excavated

674
00:32:02.030 --> 00:32:04.830
it. I mean. And, uh, you know, you can see the streets and

675
00:32:04.830 --> 00:32:07.550
the. And the shops. They think it was a market called

676
00:32:07.710 --> 00:32:10.670
Elborn. Uh, worth looking up if you want to

677
00:32:10.670 --> 00:32:13.670
check it out. And we saw the cathedral there. I mean, you go

678
00:32:13.670 --> 00:32:16.670
to a European city, there's a cathedral, and of course,

679
00:32:16.670 --> 00:32:19.590
the famous Columbus statue where he's pointing

680
00:32:19.590 --> 00:32:22.590
out to sea. Uh, then we moved on

681
00:32:22.590 --> 00:32:25.180
again and dropped in yesterday to

682
00:32:25.180 --> 00:32:28.020
Majorca and did a bit of a cross country

683
00:32:28.260 --> 00:32:30.900
trip to see the caves of Drac.

684
00:32:31.060 --> 00:32:34.060
And they are, uh, spectacular. We

685
00:32:34.060 --> 00:32:36.820
even got treated to a wonderful little classical

686
00:32:36.820 --> 00:32:39.700
concert, uh, with people in boats on a

687
00:32:39.700 --> 00:32:42.420
lake in, in the depths of these caves.

688
00:32:43.220 --> 00:32:45.700
And there was an, uh, an organ,

689
00:32:46.020 --> 00:32:48.980
two violinists, a cello and a rower in

690
00:32:48.980 --> 00:32:51.760
one boat who did the concert for us was

691
00:32:51.760 --> 00:32:54.610
fantastic. Uh, and then we, um,

692
00:32:54.760 --> 00:32:57.760
looked around at, uh, many other places. One of

693
00:32:57.760 --> 00:33:00.600
the interesting things about Mallorca is in the farming

694
00:33:00.600 --> 00:33:02.280
district that we, we drove across.

695
00:33:03.590 --> 00:33:05.860
Uh, it used to have a problem with, um,

696
00:33:06.200 --> 00:33:09.080
groundwater. It was the. The ground was completely

697
00:33:09.080 --> 00:33:11.720
soaked and they wanted to use it and

698
00:33:11.960 --> 00:33:14.680
they couldn't figure out how to get the water out, so they

699
00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:17.630
contacted it. A Dutch engineer who came over and

700
00:33:17.630 --> 00:33:20.630
said, oh, I've got the solution for you, and put up

701
00:33:20.630 --> 00:33:23.110
about 2,000 of these

702
00:33:23.110 --> 00:33:26.110
windmills and dried the whole thing out by

703
00:33:26.110 --> 00:33:28.950
draining off the water through windmills. Well, the windmills are still

704
00:33:28.950 --> 00:33:31.670
there, but they don't use them anymore. Uh, they use

705
00:33:31.670 --> 00:33:34.630
electric pumps instead. And

706
00:33:34.950 --> 00:33:37.270
then, uh, we moved on today

707
00:33:37.750 --> 00:33:40.550
to Cartagena, the one in

708
00:33:40.550 --> 00:33:43.340
Spain, not the one in Colombia, although we. We've now been to

709
00:33:43.340 --> 00:33:46.220
both. And we, uh, did a little bit of a

710
00:33:46.220 --> 00:33:48.900
walking tour around Cartagena, Saw the Roman

711
00:33:48.900 --> 00:33:51.780
ruins, the, uh, Roman

712
00:33:51.780 --> 00:33:54.740
streets that they dug up, uh, recently, and

713
00:33:54.740 --> 00:33:57.740
some of the other architecture. But mainly we were there to try

714
00:33:57.740 --> 00:34:00.740
the food, the tapas and the

715
00:34:00.900 --> 00:34:03.780
amazing, uh, sangria and that

716
00:34:03.780 --> 00:34:06.580
incredible coffee that they produce with,

717
00:34:06.590 --> 00:34:08.999
um, Liquor 43 and,

718
00:34:09.399 --> 00:34:12.239
oh, gosh, it's so nice. Probably terrible for

719
00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:14.759
my heart, but, um, we'll get over it, I'm sure.

720
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:18.239
So that's where we're up to. Our next stop takes us back to

721
00:34:18.239 --> 00:34:20.799
Morocco, where we'll be getting off in

722
00:34:20.799 --> 00:34:23.679
Tangier, and then we'll be doing a coach trip

723
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:26.439
to the Blue City. So I'll, uh, report

724
00:34:26.439 --> 00:34:29.159
on that and more. By the time I talk to you next, we'll have made

725
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:32.159
several more stops, but, uh, it's really exciting. We're having

726
00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:34.890
a great time. Hope all is well in

727
00:34:34.890 --> 00:34:37.730
Houston and Sydney and everywhere else,

728
00:34:37.770 --> 00:34:40.650
uh, where Space Nuts people live. Talk

729
00:34:40.650 --> 00:34:42.130
to you soon. Bye for now.

730
00:34:42.820 --> 00:34:45.620
Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to the Space Nuts podcast,

731
00:34:47.220 --> 00:34:50.019
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732
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733
00:34:52.940 --> 00:34:54.660
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734
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735
00:34:57.700 --> 00:34:59.660
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736
00:34:59.660 --> 00:35:00.820
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