Jan. 17, 2025

Galactic Revelations, Cometary Wonders & Moon Mysteries: #487 - First Edition of 2025

Galactic Revelations, Cometary Wonders & Moon Mysteries: #487 - First Edition of 2025

Space Nuts Episode 487: Rethinking the Universe - Dark Energy, Comet Atlas, and Pluto's Moon Mystery
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they welcome the newest member to the team and kick off the first episode of 2025 with groundbreaking...

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Space Nuts Episode 487: Rethinking the Universe - Dark Energy, Comet Atlas, and Pluto's Moon Mystery
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they welcome the newest member to the team and kick off the first episode of 2025 with groundbreaking discussions and cosmic revelations. This episode is packed with intriguing topics, including a revolutionary paper challenging our understanding of dark energy, a mesmerizing comet lighting up our skies, and a fresh perspective on how Pluto acquired its moon, Charon.
Episode Highlights:
- Dark Energy Debate: Explore the bold new paper suggesting the universe might not have dark energy and isn't expanding as we thought. Fred Watson and guest Professor Jonti Horner delve into the implications of this paradigm-shifting research and what it means for the future of cosmology.
- Comet C/2024 G3 Atlas: Discover the celestial wonder of Comet Atlas, a once-in-160,000-year event. Learn about its journey close to the sun and how you can catch a glimpse of this spectacular comet in the night sky.
- Pluto's Moon Charon: Uncover the fascinating story behind Pluto's largest moon, Charon. Jonti Horner explains the new theory of a gentle collision that might have led to Charon's capture, providing fresh insights into the dynamics of our solar system.
- Astronomical Events of 2025: Get a sneak peek into the best celestial events to look forward to this year, including lunar eclipses and meteor showers.
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 favourite platform.
For more Space and Astronomy News Podcasts, visit our HQ at www.bitesz.com.
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 - Andrew Dunkley returns to Space Nuts with Professor Fred Watson
02:21 - Professor Jonti Horner is filling in for Fred for next month
04:38 - New research suggests the universe has no dark energy and isn't expanding
13:31 - Andrew Dunkley: The dark energy model fits the, uh, data better
16:21 - C 2024 G3 Atlas was discovered in 2024
22:51 - Fred says people should look out for comet in the evening sky next week
27:05 - This is an interesting story about how Pluto got its moon
34:02 - The encounter between Theia and Pluto lasted 10 hours, Fred says
36:43 - This year is absolutely terrible for eclipses of the sun
40:09 - Andrew Dunkley: Thanks to Professor Fred Watson and Professor Jonti Horner
✍️ Episode References
University of Southern Queensland
[https://www.usq.edu.au/](https://www.usq.edu.au/)
University of Canterbury
[https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/](https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/)
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
[https://academic.oup.com/mnras](https://academic.oup.com/mnras)
Dark Energy Survey
[https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/](https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/)
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
[https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/](https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/)
Space.com
[https://www.space.com/](https://www.space.com/)
Stellarium
[https://stellarium.org/](https://stellarium.org/)


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WEBVTT

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Hello again, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts.

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My name is Andrew Dunkley. Welcome to our first edition

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of twenty twenty five coming up.

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Oh boy, it is jam packed.

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Weick a lot of catching up to do, some really

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interesting things. One of the biggest this might be one

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of the biggest stories of the year already a new

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paper suggesting the universe has no dark matter and isn't

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expanding like we think, so that'll tip the whole thing

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upside down. We're also going to look at a comet

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that is in our skies at the moment, Comets C

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twenty twenty four, G three Atlas. So we'll talk about

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that and don't be a Karen Kiss and tell what's

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that mean. We'll tell you shortly on this edition of

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Space Nuts.

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Fifteen seconds guidance in Channel ten nine ignition Squench Space

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Nuts Guy or three two.

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One Space Nuts as when I report it. Neil's good

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and it feels real good to be back in the

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chair with Professor Fred Wat's an astronomer at large. Hello Fred,

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Hello Andrew, how are you doing?

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Mind doing well? It's good to be back.

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We had a nice break just very quickly Judy and

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I went to India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore.

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And then back home.

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And then we had to go to a wedding on

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New Year's Day, believe it or not, down in the

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snowy mountains. So we've had a very eventful break.

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What about you, Oh well, yes, I had a full

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break as well, because seven members of my UK family

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descended on us. Not all of them stayed with us,

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but most of them did because I had a significant

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birthday in December and so they all came to help.

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Me celebrate eight hundreds of real milestone.

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Absolutely, it does begin with an E, but it's not

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eight hundred and it's not eight either.

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Eighteen that's it. It's nearer to that.

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Just can't imagine being stuck in a room with that

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many poems all at once. But anyway, you know.

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They started fighting among themselves as as usual, but actually

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compared with the way the Ossies fought among themselves, there

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were pretty tame.

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I have to say. Yeah, well that happens a lot.

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Christmas brings that out in estuffes. Yeah, that was absolutely

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Now I.

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Have a little bit of a surprise for our audience.

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Moving forward, we have another guest with us at the moment,

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he is Professor John T.

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Horner.

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He's the professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland.

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Johnty, welcome, Thank you for having me. It's good to

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be here.

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It's good that you decided to join us, because we

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thought you'd say no.

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But anyway, the reason you're on.

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Board because Fred and I have basically run out of

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time to do catch up episodes for when both of

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us are going to be away over the coming months,

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and so this is technically Fred's only episode for the

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next month or so and you're going to fill in

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for him over that time frame.

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So we're really pleased about that. Can you tell us

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a little bit about.

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Yourself, you know, professor of estro physics.

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Very exciting, happy to do so. I mean you probably

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pick up from the accent that I've got a bit

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of a shared heritage with Fred, which I'm sure is

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the only reason you invited me on. It's to maintain

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the Yorkshire connection. I grew up in the North of

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England back in the eighties really and got hooked by

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astronomy very young. Thanks Sir Patrick Moore, and I seem

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to be expanding in a similar way to him as well,

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so I'm clearly mimicking his share and join my local

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astronomy society, which is a West the olkso Astronomy Society

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when I was about eight years old, and I now

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get to be their president. Actually, even though I'm in absentia,

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which is really kind of a lovely touching thing. You know,

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some young kid that came through the society went to

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talks from professional astronomers all the time, and basically that

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let me stay hooked through being a teenager and meant

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that I have the ammunition in the world with all

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I guess coming from a well salesio economic area, you know,

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not the best part of the world to grow up

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in at that time. Thanks to Magufacturre milk Snatcher, I

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still have the opportunity to head off to you and

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to get to study what I want to do, and

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that's allowed me to have a reasonably entertaining and challenging

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at time's career and move around the world. Wrapped up

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in Australia in about twenty ten and I've been here

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ever since. So despite the accent, I am officially Australian.

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I just quite found again. So well, that's kind of

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the potted history.

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We're so drilled to have you, and people will get

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to know you over the coming week, So welcome aboard,

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and we're going to have a lot of fun today

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talking about these topics, and we're going to start with

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probably a big one in regard to this new paper

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suggesting the universe has no dark energy and isn't expanding

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like we think.

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Your thoughts on this thread.

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Yeah, it's entertaining. It's something that I think is going

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to cause not a consternation by any means, but certainly

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give cosmologists, the people who look at the history and

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evolution of the universe as a whole, perhaps reason to

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pause and say, Okay, maybe this is a time to

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have a look at the paradigm under which we're working.

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And in fact the research that we're talking about, which

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has been done by a group actually all of them

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are at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. So

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it's the Kiwi's who stolen a march on us with this.

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Their paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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is entitled Supernova Evidence for Foundational Change to cosmological models

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and what they're basically saying is that we now have

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such a big collection of super and over data, and

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these are stars, as you know, that explode at the

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ends of their lives. They explode with a specific brightness.

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This is the trick to it. They become standard candles

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because they all reach the same peak brightness, and that

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allows them to give us a direct measurement of the

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geometry of the universe, basically their distance. And when you

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do that with the latest data, it turns out that

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the dark energy model, which is kind of getting a

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bit creaky because we've always thought dark energy are springing

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us of space, might be constant. There's new evidence that

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suggests that it's not, but that model might really need

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to be taken apart for a rethink. And the rethink

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that they're proposing is a model that is being called

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I've got the word time share in my mind, but

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it's actually timescape, which suggests that the reason why we

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think we see dark energy, and remember that was discovered

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back in nineteen ninety eight, the reason why we think

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we see dark energy is that the universe is far

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from homogeneous. It's not the same in all directions. It's

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got thick bits and thin bits in terms of the

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amount of matter that it contains. And the problem with

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all our cosmological modeling is the first premise that we

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start from, the first foundational fact ooid that we take,

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is that the universe is the same in all directions.

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It's isentropic and uniform, and that is not the case.

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We know that because we look out there and we

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see galaxies in some places and not in others, So

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we know that the universe is highly inhomogeneous. And what

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these people are saying is, perhaps that is the bigger

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effect that is manifesting itself in what we think we're

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seeing as an accelerated expansion of the universe caused by

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dark energy, whereas in reality that's not the case. The

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universe perhaps is not accelerating in its expansion, but what

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we can see makes us think it is. So the

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more measurements that we can make, the more likely we

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are to be able to pick between one model and another.

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So are they suggesting this is some kind of optical

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illusion in.

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A sense, yes, that's right, Well, all universe optical illusion

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in the you know, we see these things dotted around,

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and we've got to be very careful as to how

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we interpret that as a three dimensional entity, and that's

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always the problem. My take on it, if you'll forgive me,

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and I'd love to hear what John Ty thinks about

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this work as well. My take on it is that

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there is a lot of evidence not just from the

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super and Over observations, but from the geometry of the

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universe as a whole. When we look at the way

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galaxies form this kind of honeycomb of material, almost like

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a foam of galaxies. When you analyze that and look

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at the characteristic distances between galaxy and things of that sort,

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you can really work out what the geometry of the

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universe is like in some detail, and that allows you

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to tease out the constituent components, including the contribution of

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normal matter which is only about a five percent, constitution

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of dark matter which is something like twenty five percent,

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and this mysterious thing called dark energy, which is seventy percent.

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There's Jordy agreeing with everything I'm saying.

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He's yeah, wait, he couldn't wait to them back, couldn't wait.

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No, It's yeah, sorry about that, all right, Jordy.

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It's okay, So yeah, not confusing Jordie with John Ty.

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Which is an email and I apologially Jordan nearly.

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Got called Johnty, I have to say, and that's what

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they're enough for you, john Ty, Johnny.

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What's your take on this?

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And I do remember reading in one of her emails

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when we discussed this.

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Topic that it gave you a headache. Well, I think

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most of these things do, because we're trying to visue

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things that are the very limits of our understanding. And

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I always find it amazing that we're having this podcast

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here in all this technology we've developed, with this incredible

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wealth of understanding how the universe that has all been

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developed by about two kilograms of squishy stuff in people's heads,

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And it's amazing that two quos are squishy carbon can

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work out what the universe is like. But what I

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love about this is it's a really nice reminder of

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how science actually works. So you kind of get the

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impression at school that science has just done undusted, and

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here's a theory and that's it. But what we're actually

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doing is this kind of literative process where in astronomy

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we're not an experimental science. We're an observational science, which

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is a bit of a subtlety, but what it means

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is we're looking out of the universe like detectives. We're

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gathering all these clues and then we try and piece

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them together into a narrative of how things work. And

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what makes that narrative a theory is that you can

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use it to make predictions. If this is correct, then

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you will see this, then you'll see the other. And

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sometimes people make explicit predictions, like with the next generation

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of telescopes, you need to look for this, and this

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is a really good test. Other times it's a bit

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more implicit, because it's just saying this is how things behave.

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And typically those theories, those explanations do an exceptionally good

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job of explaining everything we already see and going a

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little bit beyond it. But there's this really long history

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of us hitting a wall where suddenly we've reached beyond

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the point where the theory works because we just didn't

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have enough data. So the theory was a good explanation,

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but it's not the final answer, and then you get

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the observationals that show the theory isn't quite right, and

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you go back and new bachelors of theories come, and

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sometimes they're just refinement or an improvement, which is what

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this is doing. Essentially, it's saying we can no longer

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assume the universe is howmo genius. You've got to take

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account of the papchoness. There's a few different models that

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try and do that in different ways. They'll predict different things.

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We can look at that in the future. Sometimes it

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knocks a theory over and you start again from scratch.

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And this is what we're seeing. We've seen science happening

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before our very eyes here, and it's because what we're

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looking at it's the hardest ever things to measure, the

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most challenging observations, really pushing the boundaries of what we know.

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And so as we get more detailed answers, you are

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going to hit a point where the simpler theory doesn't work.

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And I mean it makes my head hurt to call

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the curb cogmology the simple version because it really really isn't.

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But it's a steady improvement and we've seen it in

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the past. I use Newton's gravitation in all the research

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work I do all the simulations, even though it's wrong.

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It's wrong because you need to do general relativity to

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improve on it. That's, you know, if we were doing

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the podcast. One hundred and twenty years ago, that would

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have been the great revelation Newton was wrong. Here's Einstein.

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But Newton's model was good enough that it's easier for

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my simulations to use it, and the differences are so

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small we can ignore them. That was one hundred and

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twenty years ago. This is the equivalent kind of thing

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going on now. This is right at the forefront, and

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it's brilliant to see how all these new surveys that

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will put together best off the stuff twenty years ago

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and now pushing the limits of where that may or

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may not work, allowing to take that next step. Yeah.

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Would it be fair to say that challenging what we

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perceive to be the current reality is the way we

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can improve the potential outcomes or the potential changes in

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the way we look at cosmology or the universe as

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a whole. If we didn't challenge these things, there'd be

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no progress.

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Would that be a fair point? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely so.

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It's you know, essentially, what we're trying to do here,

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or the authors of this paper, is lift the lid

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on not the elephant in the room, in the sense

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that you know, we think there's something definitely drastically wrong

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with dark energy, because it's still very much the paradigm

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by which astronomers work. But lifting the lid on maybe complacency.

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So it is challenging our eye years and it will.

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It will produce new results. It may even produce a

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paper that says, no way the dark energy model fits

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the data better than the time skate model, especially when

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there is new data, and actually those data already exist,

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it's just that they've been fed into the mix yet,

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so there might be challenges to the new model. Not

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very far down the track. I kind of hope though,

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that this sort of thing actually starts to gain a

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little bit of traction, and that we might see some

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glimmer of hope in understanding what we have hitherto thought

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of as dark energy, because it's been one of the

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biggest puzzles faced by astrophysicists.

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Yes, that's kind of what this whole paper is doing. Actually,

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so the idea behind this is two or three different

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models what proposed in the last ten or fifteen years,

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and what this paper's doing in sane Now we have

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all this observational data. We've got enough data to compare

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the models and run a statistical test to see which

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fits better, essentially, and they find that the Timescape one

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fits a little bit better for this sample than dark Energy,

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but not enough to be definitive yet. And what's interesting

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is there's this fantastic thing called the Dark Energy Survey,

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which I think tomorrow day this sound at UQ has led.

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But it's this incredible global project that I know about

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because of the spinoffs in soulsism astronomy that I've heard about,

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which is an even bigger data set, and I suspect

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the next set with this is to say, look the

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test with the data set we use here, sure that

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this is a worthwhile test to do. Now let's use

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an even bigger data set so I could easily see

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you're talking about this again in twelve months, tund saying,

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remember that team that said Timescape was interesting, They've got

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a new one out. It's a sequel and it's really.

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Yeah, yeah, it could be really exparting down the track,

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and we obviously there's gonna be a lot of peer

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review or a lot of discussion, a lot of debate.

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Some will debankers, some will say, well, actually you know,

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they're onder something we might Yeah, who knows where this

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will lead, but we'll watch with great interest. This is

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space nuts. You can follow up that story on the

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conversation dot com. This is Space Nuts Andrew Dunkley with

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Fred and Johndy Horner and glad to have your company. Okay,

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we check your space nuts, right, Johnny, Yeah to you.

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And just before we started, you showed us some fabulous

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images of this comet. C twenty twenty four G three Atlas.

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Is that the right title for it?

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Like, if I get that right, it is? Yeah, And

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naming conventions for comics are a little bit like barcodes.

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So you've got two parts. The Atlas parties who discovered it,

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and that's the Atlas survey. The rest of it is

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a unique identifier that tells you when it was found.

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So the C tells you that this is a comet

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that is not a periodic comet. It's the first time

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we've seen it. If it was a periodic comet like

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comet Hallett and Berp, and it might even have a

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number before it. And then the twenty twenty four G

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three tells you when it was found, So it was

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discovered in twenty twenty four. The letter tells you which

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fortnight of the year it was found in so air

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would be the first fortnight in January be the second,

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and so on, and then three tells it was the

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third object in that fortnight. So nice, I'm straightforward, and

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it rolls off the tongue. I mean, it's easier than

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touching shan Atlas, which was last year. Now, this comet

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was found, and people got moderately excited. Got moderately excited

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because it was very faint when it was found, which

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suggests that it might be intrinsically relatively small as icy

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object goes. But when they worked out it's all a bit.

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They found that it was going to get within a

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tenth of the distance between the Earth and the Sun

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off the Sun, so it's going to get really close

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to the Sun. And all of the things being equal,

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the closer cometary nucleus gets to the Sun, the more

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active it gets, and therefore the more spectacle of the

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comet gets. So that's an indication that this comic could

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get very very bright around perihelium closest to the Sun,

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which is literally while we're recording this podcast, it's around now.

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The reason everybody's been tentative about it is being quite

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a small object. Small things that get close to the

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Sun tend not to survive. They tend to fall apart, disintegrate,

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and so with this thing, people have been far more cautious.

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And I'm used to with comments. Actually I'm used to

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people hyping them and me having to play the voice

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of reason. With this one, people have been really cautious

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because it might not survive. But now that it's that

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it's closest to the Sun, it's going really well and

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it is surviving. I mean that doesn't mean that in

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two days, sim it won't disintegrate, So caution. Their comets

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are like cats, they have tails that do whatever they want.

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But it's looking promising. At the minute. It's as nearly

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as bright as the planet Venus, but you can't see

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it sits within five degrees of the Sun. That's as

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we record this. But in the next few days it's

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going to start to move away from the Sun in

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the sky very low on the western horizon. Apologies to

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people in the northern hemisphere that this is going to

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be one which we're going to have a much better

359
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view down south just because of the orient of the

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comet's abit. It's diving very seeply south below the plane

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of the solar system, so as it moves away from

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the Sun, it's moving in a southerly direction. What all

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that means is that Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, So that Thursday,

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the sixteenth of January, through the weekend, maybe into next week,

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there is a chance we could have a reasonably bright comet,

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very low on the western horizon after sunset, probably a

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little bit brighter than Comet tour Chinchha Atlas was, but

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a little bit harder to see. It's a bit more

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lost in the Sun's glare, fading day by day as

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it gets higher above the horizon. So on Thursday, for

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me here to wonder in southeast Queensland, it'll said about

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forty five minutes after the sun. On Friday, it'll said

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about an hour after the sun on Saturday about an

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hour and a quarter. So you get this feel it's

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moving away from the sun low on the western horizon.

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I'm going to get out there and try and photograph it,

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and there are actually people getting photos of it in

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broad daylight at the minute. But thet there is don't

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do that unless you really know what you're doing. Beare

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it's a very good way of damaging your camera, your eyesight,

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and your wallet, and it could be very very good.

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They've described this as a once in one hundred and

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sixty thousand year comet. I also believe it's of old

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cloud origin.

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I mean that what does that mean? Basically, it means

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that people are throwing a lazoo around something that astronoms

387
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probably wouldn't mention. So comets move on these really elongated

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orbits around the Sun. And when a comet's trapped on

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an orbit that's relatively short period, you know, in tens

390
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or hundreds or even a few thousand years, it's not

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getting so far from the Sun that anything else is

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going to stir it up other than the planets in

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the inner soil system. So comet Halley is roughly seventy

394
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six years, and it comes back when you get to

395
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orbital periods of around one hundred thousand years or so,

396
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or even more than that. You're getting far enough from

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the Sun that you get perturbed by passing stars, by

398
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the tidal effects of the galaxy. Stuff like that. Saying

399
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that the things on one hundred and sixty thousand year

400
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orbit doesn't mean that it will be back in one

401
00:21:05.200 --> 00:21:07.759
hundred and sixty thousand years, because when it gets furthest

402
00:21:07.759 --> 00:21:09.880
from the Sun, it will be nudged around and will

403
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probably not coming on quite the same orbit. The reason

404
00:21:13.279 --> 00:21:15.839
that gets thrown around, though, is that it's currently one

405
00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:18.279
hundred and sixty thousand a year orbit, so therefore it

406
00:21:18.359 --> 00:21:20.599
wasn't seen at any point in the last one hundred

407
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and sixty thousand years. It's a little specious. What it

408
00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:27.200
did give astronomers a bit of faith for, though, is

409
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that this comet has probably been past the Sun at

410
00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:34.480
least once before. Because that orbit is slightly tightly bound.

411
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That gives a little bit more confidence that it would

412
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survive perihelium. So the comets that break up are either

413
00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:43.359
really small fragments of a bigger comet and they're too

414
00:21:43.400 --> 00:21:46.400
small to survive. All comets coming through for the very

415
00:21:46.440 --> 00:21:49.880
first time have a tendency to break apart more often.

416
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So the media stories use that number because it's a

417
00:21:53.759 --> 00:21:56.799
big number and it makes it sound exciting. It is

418
00:21:56.839 --> 00:21:58.200
not the best comt you'll see in the next one

419
00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:00.640
hundred and sixty thousand years. It's pop stably the best

420
00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:02.240
comet of this year, but we don't know untill the

421
00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:06.960
years over yet, but having that orbital period that is

422
00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:09.960
indicating it's been through before the give astronomers a little bit

423
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of faith that it might survive. And at the minute

424
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it's looking good. There's some glorious images out online from

425
00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:19.039
the Solar Helius Ferry Cobservatory SOHO, which points at the Sun,

426
00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:20.640
has a little thing in the middle to block the

427
00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:24.079
sun out so it can look at solar eruptions coronal

428
00:22:24.119 --> 00:22:26.200
mass ejections, and this commet's in the field of view

429
00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:28.960
at the minute, and it's the third brightest comet that

430
00:22:29.079 --> 00:22:31.920
SOHO has ever seen. It's brighter than trichinshan Atlas was

431
00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:34.000
at the minute. The only two that were better was

432
00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:38.279
Comet McNaught in early two thousand and seven and Comet

433
00:22:38.319 --> 00:22:42.160
ice On in twenty twelve. So it's in a steamed company.

434
00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:44.680
It could be really good and well worth a look,

435
00:22:44.680 --> 00:22:46.920
and you will see some awesome photos. I can almost

436
00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:48.279
guarantee that, Gosh.

437
00:22:48.119 --> 00:22:49.440
I'm going to have to get out there with my

438
00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:51.839
telescope and see if I can have a crack at it.

439
00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:58.480
We've talked about comments a lot, and we got pretty excited.

440
00:22:58.559 --> 00:22:59.440
Like last year in.

441
00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:03.240
The comet made the news and we couldn't see it

442
00:23:03.319 --> 00:23:05.480
because it was cloudy in Sydney, it was cloudy here.

443
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:10.279
I never got one chance to see it. I'm very

444
00:23:10.359 --> 00:23:11.640
hopeful about this one.

445
00:23:12.039 --> 00:23:13.799
Well, the great thing about this one, Andrew, is that

446
00:23:13.799 --> 00:23:15.160
you're not going to have to get up at three

447
00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:18.440
o'clock in the morning, as Johnty did to photograph the

448
00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:25.160
last one. So yeah, so I'm sure that fingers will

449
00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:28.519
be crossed. Sadly mine won't be because days in two

450
00:23:28.559 --> 00:23:31.839
days time, I'll be very well up in the northern Hemisphere,

451
00:23:32.519 --> 00:23:35.160
in the Arctic Circle in fact, so that's going to

452
00:23:35.319 --> 00:23:38.799
take me well away from night sky viewing of this comet.

453
00:23:38.920 --> 00:23:39.759
In the evening sky.

454
00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:41.599
Maybe when you take off you could just take your

455
00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:43.720
telescope and shove it out the window of the plane.

456
00:23:44.880 --> 00:23:47.960
I'll just think, I think, what time you fly. If

457
00:23:47.960 --> 00:23:50.599
you're taking off in the early evening, you might get

458
00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:52.079
to see it from the plane window, and that's a

459
00:23:52.079 --> 00:23:54.359
good way of being above the clowns it is.

460
00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:57.960
Indeed, Yeah, it's an afternoon flight. John t up to

461
00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:00.359
Bangkok and then from there up to stock Comb.

462
00:24:01.400 --> 00:24:05.559
So just to be on the western side of the aircraft.

463
00:24:06.839 --> 00:24:09.200
My seat is already picked so that I will be

464
00:24:09.240 --> 00:24:12.319
next to my wife.

465
00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:17.319
You probably need to be looking at her. Yes, indeed, Yeah,

466
00:24:17.359 --> 00:24:19.960
it's very exciting. So something to keep an eye out for.

467
00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:23.359
And Johnny just quickly if people want.

468
00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:27.480
To have a go at saying this best time, best way.

469
00:24:28.759 --> 00:24:30.640
The further south you are in the world, the better.

470
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:34.079
Actually I think about where I am. Really, the nearer

471
00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:36.640
you are to the equator, the most deeply things set,

472
00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:39.359
and so the higher above the horizon, they are a

473
00:24:39.359 --> 00:24:41.680
given amount of time before the set. So if it's

474
00:24:41.720 --> 00:24:44.039
thirteen minutes before something sets and you're at the pole,

475
00:24:44.039 --> 00:24:46.480
it's pretty much on the horizon already. If you're on

476
00:24:46.519 --> 00:24:50.480
the equator, it's setting vertically. But have a play around

477
00:24:50.519 --> 00:24:53.440
with one of the wonderful free planetarium programs. I often

478
00:24:53.519 --> 00:24:56.519
use Stilarium because that's a free one. You can just

479
00:24:56.559 --> 00:24:59.200
open in a browser window, set your location and awhere

480
00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:02.279
you go. And also what I did earlier on because

481
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:04.599
I'm looking at trying to get some photos Sursday Friday's

482
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:07.279
happy if the weather holds out, is actually hop onto

483
00:25:07.319 --> 00:25:10.039
Google Maps, have a look for a place around you,

484
00:25:10.039 --> 00:25:12.240
because you can drop that little peg man in and

485
00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:14.880
have a look what the horizon's like just south of

486
00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:16.920
west and there you can find somewhere with the lowest

487
00:25:16.920 --> 00:25:20.079
western horizon possible, because it's going to be quite low

488
00:25:20.119 --> 00:25:22.480
to the horizon, and if you can't see it with

489
00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:25.200
the naked eye, mob a camera, especially if you've got

490
00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:28.440
a DSLR type camera, bang it on a tripod roughly

491
00:25:28.480 --> 00:25:30.400
where it should be in play around with the exposure

492
00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:33.240
times because the images are shown. Before we started recording,

493
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:35.680
I could just see the comet with the naked eye,

494
00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:37.799
but it was really obvious through the back of the camera,

495
00:25:38.119 --> 00:25:41.039
and it was really obvious in the lens, so that

496
00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:43.200
comet I could see it with the naked eye, and

497
00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:45.079
it's like, yeah, wow, I can see it. Brilliant. But

498
00:25:45.160 --> 00:25:47.799
the photos came out better than my view was.

499
00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:52.480
Right, and get out of town, get somewhere dark.

500
00:25:52.599 --> 00:25:54.799
Dark's a bit less relevant when you're still so close

501
00:25:54.839 --> 00:25:57.119
to sunset. I mean, we're talking about observing here during

502
00:25:57.200 --> 00:26:01.480
twilight at least. Even if you go a week from now,

503
00:26:01.799 --> 00:26:04.119
it's still only setting at about eight pm, so it's

504
00:26:04.119 --> 00:26:05.920
only an hour and a bit after sunset, and by

505
00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:08.759
then it will be feding relatively quickly. If it goes

506
00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:10.599
really well, it might be visible with an eked eye

507
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:14.519
for about a fortnite. But that's tenuously but basically find

508
00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:17.759
somewhere with a low western horizon slightly south of west.

509
00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:20.400
Actually lower the better, because if the streets in the way,

510
00:26:20.440 --> 00:26:22.400
our buildings in the way, our people in the way,

511
00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:24.039
they're going to get in the way of the commet.

512
00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:26.759
So ideally want the western horizon to be as low

513
00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:27.440
as possible.

514
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:31.480
Yeah, okay, well we've got plenty of flat earth around

515
00:26:31.480 --> 00:26:33.920
this part of the world. Well use a different terminology

516
00:26:35.519 --> 00:26:40.400
any flat ground. So yeah, where we are in the northwest,

517
00:26:40.440 --> 00:26:43.000
it's probably or the central West. It's probably a great

518
00:26:43.039 --> 00:26:48.000
place to make some observations. Lots of stories online space

519
00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:51.160
dot com. But yeah, just do a search for comet

520
00:26:51.240 --> 00:26:54.319
see twenty twenty four G three, and yeah, you won't

521
00:26:54.359 --> 00:26:57.440
be disappointed. There's a space that It's Andrew Dunkley here

522
00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:03.200
with Professor Fred Watson and Professor John D. Horner Murder.

523
00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:05.480
Spacemuds.

524
00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:09.440
Our next story takes us to the outer Solar System.

525
00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:13.240
I kind of introduced this as don't be a Karen

526
00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:17.400
kiss and tell this is actually an interesting story about

527
00:27:17.400 --> 00:27:18.720
how Pluto got its.

528
00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:23.039
Moon, and you know, we talk about how Earth.

529
00:27:22.839 --> 00:27:26.720
Got its Moon with that massive collision with theear. Now

530
00:27:26.759 --> 00:27:30.680
they're starting to think something different happened with the Moon,

531
00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:35.079
Carron and Pluto. So take it away, whoever wants to

532
00:27:35.079 --> 00:27:36.119
pick this one up first.

533
00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:39.319
I think this is definitely John Tis because he's a

534
00:27:39.319 --> 00:27:42.599
planetary scientist, so cannot you go get.

535
00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:46.279
So we've got kind of broadly three types of moon

536
00:27:46.279 --> 00:27:48.319
in the Solar System. We've got what we call the

537
00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:51.039
regular supltes, which you see around the giant plummets, and

538
00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:55.000
that's io you're a pagnomy Clister type. The thinking about

539
00:27:55.079 --> 00:27:57.960
them is their form around their planets. Like the planet's

540
00:27:58.000 --> 00:27:59.920
farmed around the Sun, you get a disc of material.

541
00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:02.680
These things are creating that disk, and that's why they're

542
00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:05.400
pretty much in the plenty of the equator of those planets,

543
00:28:05.640 --> 00:28:09.160
and they look like miniplanetary systems essentially. You've then got

544
00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:12.599
what are called the irregular satellites, which are things typically

545
00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:15.119
again around the giant planets, that are way way out

546
00:28:15.960 --> 00:28:18.519
as much as twenty thirty million kilometers from the planet,

547
00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:22.000
moving on really bizarre orbits, really eccentric, really inclined, and

548
00:28:22.039 --> 00:28:25.440
typically small icy objects. And then we understand because they

549
00:28:25.480 --> 00:28:28.559
were captured it's really straightforward, that's how you form them.

550
00:28:28.599 --> 00:28:31.200
They didn't form where they are, they were grabbed. Then

551
00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:34.319
you've got the oddities, which are the things that don't

552
00:28:34.359 --> 00:28:38.599
fit either of those models, and they're the Moon, their neptunes, Moon, Triton,

553
00:28:39.319 --> 00:28:42.480
and a number of the satellite systems around smaller objects

554
00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:47.599
Pluto and Karam being kind of the really prime obvious example,

555
00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:50.720
And those ones didn't form in either of the two

556
00:28:50.799 --> 00:28:54.160
kind of standard ways. They have to be formed somewhere different,

557
00:28:54.720 --> 00:28:56.960
and it seems to be that collisions are part of

558
00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:00.279
that story. And the real key point here is that

559
00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:03.119
for the Earth and the Moon, for Pluto and Caron,

560
00:29:03.920 --> 00:29:05.839
the mass of the Moon compared to the mass of

561
00:29:05.880 --> 00:29:08.359
the planet is really, really, really big. So for the

562
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:12.519
regular satellites all their mass together, and it's still less

563
00:29:12.519 --> 00:29:14.880
than one ten thousandth of the mass of their planet.

564
00:29:15.559 --> 00:29:18.839
The irregular satellites are even less. But the Moon is

565
00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:20.920
an eighty first of the mass of the Earth, Caron

566
00:29:21.039 --> 00:29:23.480
is a sixth of the mass of Pluto, and that

567
00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:27.599
just doesn't work with a disc. That doesn't make sense. Equally,

568
00:29:27.799 --> 00:29:31.279
capturing them gravitationally doesn't work, So you need the dissipative

569
00:29:31.319 --> 00:29:34.160
foss You need something to slow them down. Otherwise they

570
00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:37.000
just fly by, get perturbed, and escape again. You need

571
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:40.799
something to put the brakes on. Added to that, you've

572
00:29:40.839 --> 00:29:43.599
got the similarities and the differences between the Moon and

573
00:29:43.640 --> 00:29:46.319
the object that hurts it. And we knew this since

574
00:29:46.359 --> 00:29:51.200
Apollo astronauts brought samples back. Our Moon is almost identical

575
00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:54.680
in composition to the Earth, but it's lacking in heavy

576
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:58.200
elements like iron and nickel, and it's overly rich in

577
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:00.319
the light stuff that makes up the Earth's c and

578
00:30:00.359 --> 00:30:02.839
that led people in the eighties to come up with

579
00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:05.000
the Big Smash idea that the Earth was in a

580
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:08.799
collision with something, and this was after it was differentiated,

581
00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:11.359
so all the heavy suffers in the middle, all the

582
00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:14.000
light suffers in the crust, and that splashed off and

583
00:30:14.039 --> 00:30:15.599
formed the Moon. And so you get a moon that

584
00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:18.359
is formed from the same material as the Earth. It's

585
00:30:18.440 --> 00:30:20.960
really big, but doesn't have all the iron and nickel.

586
00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:24.200
Then when it comes to Pluto, you've got a very

587
00:30:24.200 --> 00:30:26.839
similar looking system. You've got a very big moon compared

588
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:29.720
to the planet really close in, so it doesn't look

589
00:30:29.799 --> 00:30:32.359
like a capture scenario. And that led to a lot

590
00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:35.400
of models through the nineties coming out with a story

591
00:30:35.400 --> 00:30:39.400
that Pluto and Karen and also the little moons Nixon, Hydra,

592
00:30:39.960 --> 00:30:44.359
Cabaret and sticks and they formed in a giant collision

593
00:30:44.440 --> 00:30:46.240
just the same as our moon formed around the Earth.

594
00:30:46.519 --> 00:30:49.400
There was a big splash, and you get this satellite

595
00:30:49.400 --> 00:30:51.480
system with one big one and a few little bits,

596
00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:55.599
and that works really well. That is a perfectly valid explanation.

597
00:30:55.720 --> 00:30:58.079
But the new model is slightly different, and it only

598
00:30:58.119 --> 00:31:00.880
really works because when you're that far from the Sun,

599
00:31:00.920 --> 00:31:03.480
the speed's are lower, so that means you can get

600
00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:06.920
gentler collisions. Everything goes around slower the further you are

601
00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:09.799
from the Sun. And so this new modeling has said,

602
00:31:10.279 --> 00:31:12.119
let's have a look at whether you need it to

603
00:31:12.119 --> 00:31:15.799
be a catastrophic collision. Run a load of simulations essentially

604
00:31:15.839 --> 00:31:18.640
to see what are the scenarios you can get. And

605
00:31:19.119 --> 00:31:22.279
they included in this fact that Pluto and Karen will

606
00:31:22.319 --> 00:31:25.680
be physically strong objects. They're not blobs of liquid water.

607
00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:28.880
They're solid material that has an inherent strength to it.

608
00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:31.799
And they found a set of scenarios within that where

609
00:31:31.799 --> 00:31:34.960
you can get a gentle enough collision that Pluto on

610
00:31:35.039 --> 00:31:39.240
the thing hitting it that becomes caron collide and semimerge,

611
00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:41.279
giving you an object a bit like a snowman with

612
00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:44.720
a small bulge and a big bulge but never fully emerge.

613
00:31:44.799 --> 00:31:48.400
But that collision dissipates energy. You have a collision that

614
00:31:48.559 --> 00:31:52.359
like absorbs and they bounce off each other, but the

615
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:55.400
speed has been slowed down because the collision happened. Essentially,

616
00:31:55.480 --> 00:31:59.279
you've got cushioning for want of a better word. That

617
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:02.640
means that Karen doesn't move away from Pluto quickly enough

618
00:32:03.319 --> 00:32:06.240
to escape, but instead gets tracked. So you get this

619
00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:09.359
collisional capture, and that can set up the system as

620
00:32:09.400 --> 00:32:11.079
it looks in a bit of the debris that goes

621
00:32:11.119 --> 00:32:14.319
offward form those are the moons, and it seems equally

622
00:32:14.359 --> 00:32:18.960
valid to the more catastrophic collision version. But what I

623
00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:22.359
really like about it is there's a very clear prediction

624
00:32:22.440 --> 00:32:24.880
you can make from this, which is that if you

625
00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:28.039
have the catastrophic collision type model like the Earth and Moon,

626
00:32:28.559 --> 00:32:30.960
then Pluto and Karen will essentially be made of the

627
00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:34.920
same stuff. They'll be compositionally identical, maybe with a little

628
00:32:34.920 --> 00:32:37.240
bit of a difference because of the differentiation of Pluto.

629
00:32:37.319 --> 00:32:39.359
You might get Karen being a little bit under dense

630
00:32:39.400 --> 00:32:42.920
and Pluto being denser. With this model, you've got two

631
00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:48.160
discrete objects that formed separately and remained fairly discreete. There

632
00:32:48.160 --> 00:32:51.799
remain separate objects with a little bit of mixing, which

633
00:32:51.839 --> 00:32:54.920
means that if there were any compositional differences when they're formed,

634
00:32:55.079 --> 00:32:57.960
they should still have them. Now, we can't test this

635
00:32:58.039 --> 00:32:59.640
at them, and we need to go there and land

636
00:32:59.680 --> 00:33:02.240
on them and drill them and do sample. But it's

637
00:33:02.279 --> 00:33:04.240
another of those examples we talked about it with the

638
00:33:04.240 --> 00:33:08.519
cosmology earlier on where theories make predictions that allow you

639
00:33:08.599 --> 00:33:10.839
to test them and rule between them. And the big

640
00:33:10.839 --> 00:33:14.160
test of this compared to the other model is the compositions.

641
00:33:14.200 --> 00:33:16.559
It's the density, it's the stuff that we can in

642
00:33:16.640 --> 00:33:20.599
theory in the future check and it's really important because

643
00:33:20.599 --> 00:33:23.799
one of the big problems with our understanding of the

644
00:33:23.799 --> 00:33:26.359
objects beyond nature and the transsept union objects, of which

645
00:33:26.400 --> 00:33:28.920
Pluto is just one of the biggest, is that there's

646
00:33:28.920 --> 00:33:31.319
actually quite a few of these binaries that have very

647
00:33:31.359 --> 00:33:34.559
similar masses out there, so this might not be an

648
00:33:34.599 --> 00:33:37.680
isolated event. And the better we can understand those mechanics,

649
00:33:37.680 --> 00:33:41.240
the better a handle we have on planet formation, moon formation,

650
00:33:41.319 --> 00:33:44.519
and also these smaller objects. So it's really fascinating and

651
00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:48.759
for me, it's one that is setting up future investigations,

652
00:33:49.200 --> 00:33:52.400
probably sets the scene for new horizons match mark two

653
00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:55.079
in twenty years, thirty year sam and the technology is

654
00:33:55.119 --> 00:33:57.240
a bit better where we can actually go there and

655
00:33:57.279 --> 00:33:59.680
put a lander down and do some sampling and actually

656
00:33:59.720 --> 00:34:02.079
test this exciting. Yeah, it's so.

657
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:04.640
It was more of a scrape rather than a crash,

658
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:07.559
similar to the way my wife parks a car.

659
00:34:10.039 --> 00:34:11.159
But this was really quick.

660
00:34:11.199 --> 00:34:13.400
When you talk about the age of the Solar System,

661
00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:16.639
the age of the universe, with you know, millions billions

662
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:19.599
of years, this was a really quick encounter. It's like

663
00:34:20.599 --> 00:34:25.039
ten to fifteen hours of contact and then they were apart.

664
00:34:25.079 --> 00:34:25.320
Again.

665
00:34:25.760 --> 00:34:26.960
That's why they're calling it a kiss.

666
00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:31.360
I suppose it is. And I mean that timescale sounds

667
00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:34.280
surprisingly short, but in the scheme of an impact, that's

668
00:34:34.280 --> 00:34:37.679
actually surprisingly long because if you think about the collision

669
00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:40.360
between the Earth and the Moon, if the moon's coming in, well,

670
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:44.039
if fear's coming in at the slowest possible speed, you

671
00:34:44.079 --> 00:34:47.400
can come in and hit the Earth without being gravitationally bound.

672
00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:50.679
It's traveling at ten kilometers a second. The Earth is

673
00:34:51.079 --> 00:34:55.119
twelve thousand kilometers across, so that's twelve hundred seconds for

674
00:34:55.199 --> 00:34:56.960
the Moon for the thea to go from one side

675
00:34:56.960 --> 00:34:59.960
of the Earth to the other. Twelve thousand seconds is

676
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:05.400
what two hundred minutes in a bit hours. Pluto is

677
00:35:05.480 --> 00:35:07.960
much smaller than the Earth, so ten hours here is

678
00:35:07.960 --> 00:35:11.199
indicative of that slower speed. The only way you can

679
00:35:11.199 --> 00:35:13.920
stay in contact for ten hours is been moving much slower,

680
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:16.000
and you just couldn't do that speed in the inner

681
00:35:16.039 --> 00:35:18.800
Solar system. So it's a long speed for a collision,

682
00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:20.719
but it's a short time in terms of the edge

683
00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:22.800
of the Solar system.

684
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:26.639
That's fascinating any thoughts for it, only.

685
00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:30.639
That you know, sometimes we probably would have had collisions

686
00:35:30.639 --> 00:35:35.800
between objects which are even more gentle, so that without

687
00:35:35.800 --> 00:35:38.239
demolishing each other, they do stick together. And I'm thinking

688
00:35:38.239 --> 00:35:42.920
of Aracoth, the object that was observed by New Horizons

689
00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:47.119
after the Pluto encounter in twenty fifteen. Arakov is not

690
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:53.519
actually two blobs. It's two pancakes stuck together edgewise. And

691
00:35:53.559 --> 00:35:57.000
so maybe that was a kiss that turned into a

692
00:35:57.079 --> 00:35:59.840
rather longer embrace, because it's clearly still like.

693
00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:03.159
And there's quite a few examples of that through the

694
00:36:03.159 --> 00:36:07.440
Celsius eat. How another one which the Japanese sent hiboust

695
00:36:08.119 --> 00:36:10.639
that's not what's called a contact by mean, there's quite

696
00:36:10.639 --> 00:36:13.239
a few of them around where things have spiraled in,

697
00:36:13.320 --> 00:36:15.440
but they've done it so gently that they're just balanced

698
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:18.639
against each other. And these objects are small enough that

699
00:36:18.719 --> 00:36:23.000
their mutual attraction isn't strong enough to overcome their physical strength.

700
00:36:23.079 --> 00:36:25.599
So if you put the Earth and Venus in physical

701
00:36:25.599 --> 00:36:28.159
contact with each other, we wouldn't be recording this podcast.

702
00:36:28.599 --> 00:36:31.639
But they eventually kind of smushed together. Yeah, but if

703
00:36:31.639 --> 00:36:34.480
they're small enough, the physical strengths enough to resist, and

704
00:36:34.519 --> 00:36:35.880
you get these contact bindaries.

705
00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:39.559
Fascinating, all right, If you'd like to read about that story,

706
00:36:39.920 --> 00:36:43.679
you can also find that on space dot Com. We're

707
00:36:43.719 --> 00:36:47.000
just a bit of finish, but we probably have enough

708
00:36:47.039 --> 00:36:49.800
time to just go very quickly over what will be

709
00:36:49.880 --> 00:36:54.039
the best of the best things to see astronomically speaking

710
00:36:54.079 --> 00:36:58.360
in twenty twenty five. Any thoughts, Go for.

711
00:36:58.360 --> 00:37:00.880
It, John Ty, I'll do this. I'll do space launchers,

712
00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:01.960
you do the astronomy.

713
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:05.719
There's a few things that are good to watch now.

714
00:37:05.719 --> 00:37:07.840
Always like the things that you can look at without

715
00:37:07.880 --> 00:37:11.639
needing specialist equipment. So things like eclipses and meetia showers.

716
00:37:11.679 --> 00:37:15.239
This year is absolutely terrible for eclipses of the Sun.

717
00:37:15.400 --> 00:37:18.400
There's two very very poor partial eclipses, one of which

718
00:37:18.400 --> 00:37:21.079
you'll only see if you're in far northeastern Canada, the

719
00:37:21.119 --> 00:37:23.199
other for which you need to go to Antarctica, and

720
00:37:23.199 --> 00:37:26.039
they're going to be unimpressive anyway. But we've got two

721
00:37:26.119 --> 00:37:29.719
really good total lunar eclipses, the first of which comes

722
00:37:29.719 --> 00:37:33.159
at the end of March, mid March, actually fourteenth of March,

723
00:37:33.599 --> 00:37:35.239
and that's going to be really good for people in

724
00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:37.760
the Americas. You're going to get a proper blood moon,

725
00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:40.599
as has become kind of common parlance, back in the

726
00:37:40.599 --> 00:37:42.679
middle of the night you see the full eclipse. For

727
00:37:42.760 --> 00:37:45.000
us here in Australia, we get a really good one

728
00:37:45.239 --> 00:37:48.760
unfortunately before dawn, so yeah, grumble grumble about that. But

729
00:37:48.840 --> 00:37:51.519
that's on the eighth of September, and that'll be a

730
00:37:51.559 --> 00:37:53.440
really good one with more than an hour and a

731
00:37:53.480 --> 00:37:55.840
half of totality, so the moon will be blood red

732
00:37:55.840 --> 00:37:57.559
for an hour and a half, which is kind of cool.

733
00:37:58.239 --> 00:38:02.239
We've also got meatia active as always we've got for

734
00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:05.119
us here in the Southern Hemisphere. The eat aquarians are

735
00:38:05.159 --> 00:38:08.199
our second best shower of the year. Northern hemisphere gets

736
00:38:08.199 --> 00:38:10.679
better ones, but for a zet aquarieds are our second

737
00:38:10.760 --> 00:38:14.000
best and they're good, particularly in the first week of May,

738
00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:17.199
and again they're get up before dawn to see them, unfortunately,

739
00:38:17.199 --> 00:38:19.519
but it's good time to go camping as the weather

740
00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:22.840
cools down in our autumn. The Geminids in December are

741
00:38:22.880 --> 00:38:25.400
the best shower of the year every year. They're awesome.

742
00:38:25.639 --> 00:38:28.599
I love them. They're brilliant from the Northern hemisphere, but

743
00:38:28.599 --> 00:38:31.679
they're also good for the southern hemispheres. Northern hemisphere gets

744
00:38:31.679 --> 00:38:34.360
them a bit better. They peak on the thirteenth and

745
00:38:34.440 --> 00:38:36.920
fourteenth of December. This year, the moon's out of the way,

746
00:38:37.239 --> 00:38:39.400
so it's perfect and like last year where the blind

747
00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:40.639
site was in the way and we had all this

748
00:38:40.760 --> 00:38:44.400
natural light pollution and it was a bit disappointing. Yeah,

749
00:38:44.519 --> 00:38:46.639
this year they'll be really good. So they're really my

750
00:38:46.760 --> 00:38:48.719
highlights and a lovely way to finish the year with

751
00:38:48.719 --> 00:38:49.320
the geminis.

752
00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:51.280
Excellent, Rija Marty.

753
00:38:51.599 --> 00:38:55.280
They're my birthday meteors because they peak on my birthday.

754
00:38:56.480 --> 00:39:00.079
Now drifting off, Yeah, just you know, the things to

755
00:39:00.119 --> 00:39:03.119
watch for this year are going to be star it's

756
00:39:03.280 --> 00:39:08.000
going to be Starship Starship, Starship Starship. We are expecting

757
00:39:08.039 --> 00:39:12.599
the seventh test launch of Starship anytime now, possibly tomorrow,

758
00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:15.320
compared with where we're recording at the moment, so by

759
00:39:15.320 --> 00:39:17.840
the time this recording goes to air, it might have

760
00:39:17.960 --> 00:39:21.559
happened the seventh test flight, which will once again, we hope,

761
00:39:21.559 --> 00:39:27.000
bring the Falcon Super Heavy back to its chopstick landing

762
00:39:27.559 --> 00:39:31.079
down there at Bockachica and the other space I like

763
00:39:31.159 --> 00:39:34.800
to look out for, perhaps is the eventual return of

764
00:39:35.239 --> 00:39:38.679
Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore, who've been stuck up on

765
00:39:38.760 --> 00:39:43.360
the International Space Station since June last year, because I

766
00:39:43.400 --> 00:39:47.599
think their return has now been pushed another month further

767
00:39:47.639 --> 00:39:49.920
down the track. I think it's no earlier than the

768
00:39:49.920 --> 00:39:53.199
twenty fifth of March was the last thing I read, which,

769
00:39:53.280 --> 00:39:56.079
considering they expected to be at the International Space Station

770
00:39:56.159 --> 00:39:58.559
for a week, is pretty good going.

771
00:39:58.599 --> 00:40:00.599
Really. Ye that's the thing.

772
00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:02.679
You never know what you're in for when you get

773
00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:06.400
up the International Space Station. But yeah, I'm sure he'll

774
00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:08.280
be really happy to get home eventually.

775
00:40:09.559 --> 00:40:10.000
All Right.

776
00:40:10.119 --> 00:40:12.480
That just about wraps it up for this edition of

777
00:40:12.519 --> 00:40:15.599
Space Nuts. Don't forget to visit us online at our website,

778
00:40:15.639 --> 00:40:18.679
Space Nuts podcast dot com or space Nuts dot io.

779
00:40:18.800 --> 00:40:21.800
Don't forget our shop. We've got to post Christmas sale.

780
00:40:21.840 --> 00:40:25.440
Everything's the same price as it was before Christmas, so yes,

781
00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:29.119
have a look at that, and don't forget our social

782
00:40:29.159 --> 00:40:33.679
media platforms as well. And our thanks to Professor Fred Watson,

783
00:40:33.719 --> 00:40:36.639
who will be around for one more episode, not just

784
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:38.440
this one. We'll do the Q and A episode with

785
00:40:38.559 --> 00:40:43.239
him soon, but then he'll be off up round Finnland

786
00:40:43.280 --> 00:40:47.199
here or somewhere like that, and Johnny will be sitting

787
00:40:47.199 --> 00:40:50.199
in his chair for a few weeks. So Professor Fred

788
00:40:50.239 --> 00:40:53.800
Watson and Professor Johnny Horner, thank you so much as always.

789
00:40:53.679 --> 00:40:54.239
Great pleasure.

790
00:40:54.280 --> 00:40:56.519
Andrew, keep up the good work.

791
00:40:57.360 --> 00:40:57.880
I never have.

792
00:40:58.320 --> 00:41:01.719
All right, thank you. We'll catch you on the next episode.

793
00:41:01.920 --> 00:41:04.480
This is Space Nuts and from me Andrew Dunkley. Oh,

794
00:41:04.719 --> 00:41:06.920
by the way, Hugh in the studio is here today.

795
00:41:06.960 --> 00:41:08.920
Hello here, What where have you been for the last

796
00:41:08.920 --> 00:41:11.000
six months? It's good to have you along and guess

797
00:41:11.039 --> 00:41:14.239
what he did? Nothing and from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks

798
00:41:14.239 --> 00:41:15.760
for your company. We'll see you on the very next

799
00:41:15.760 --> 00:41:17.000
episode of Space Nuts.

800
00:41:17.039 --> 00:41:17.199
Bye.

801
00:41:17.239 --> 00:41:22.159
Byepacenuts. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast.

802
00:41:23.199 --> 00:41:29.239
Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.

803
00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:32.519
You can also stream on demand at guides dot com.

804
00:41:32.760 --> 00:41:38.159
This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.
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