Interstellar Insights: Comets, Cosmic Conferences & the Mysteries of Dark Energy

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Heidi Campo: And welcome back to another fantastic episode of,

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uh, Space Nuts. This is the

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podcast that is out of this world.

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Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

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10, 9. Ignition

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

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

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3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts

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report. It feels good.

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Heidi Campo: I'm your host for this episode, Heidi Campo, filling

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in for our beloved Andrew Dunkley, who is still, still

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on his cruise around the world. He's been having a blast.

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And joining me is professor Fred

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Watson, astronomer at large. And

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Fred, you have, um. You're traveling.

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You're in a hotel. Tell us where you're at and what you're doing.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I'm at large. That's right. Um, so I'm

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in the city of Adelaide, which is the, uh, capital city of

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South Australia. That's a state in the south of the country.

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As you might expect from the name. The name tells it like it

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is. Uh, and I'm here for the annual

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meeting of the Astronomical Society of

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Australia, which is the body that, um, all

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professional astronomers in Australia belong to. Ah,

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and I think there's about 700 of us. There won't be

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700 here, but there's quite a

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significant cohort. There was a reception last night where

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I saw quite a few old friends. So, um, that's why I'm

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here. I'm not giving a talk as, ah, such,

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except that on Wednesday,

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um, for my sins, I'm the

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chair of the steering committee of the,

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uh, education and Public outreach chapter of

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the, uh, of the society. Um, and

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they'll. They're going to have a meeting which I'll have to

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chair because I'm the chair of the committee. Um,

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so I've put together a bit of a presentation on what I think this

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chapter should be concentrating on over the next 12 months.

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What the education and public outreach section of the

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observatory should be really, um, focusing their

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minds on. They won't take any notice of me. Um, but that's

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all right. It's just, you know, me doing my bit for

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pushing, uh, education and public outreach in the

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right direction here in Australia.

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Heidi Campo: Excellent. Well, that sounds like, uh, just an

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absolute blast. I love that you're there and you're going to be able to see

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old friends. And I know what this means for us is

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that we are going to have so many great

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stories and updates after this conference.

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Professor Fred Watson: Hope so.

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Heidi Campo: You're going to be filling your brain with all the latest

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and greatest and sharing it with us. So

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that's really fun and exciting, and we do

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have a lot of really interesting Stories to talk

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about today. Um, I don't have a

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fun catchphrase. I think last week was histories,

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mysteries and discoveries. And I don't have, I don't have

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anything catchy today. We just have some great

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stories.

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But to kind of start it off, this is not really a story, but

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a little bit more of an announcement. Um,

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space shuttle is coming back,

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apparently.

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Professor Fred Watson: And it's coming to your city, uh, as

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well, which is why I thought you'd like this story,

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Heidi. Um, and it's part of the

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big beautiful bill. Uh, apparently there is

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in that bill $85 million to

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move the space shuttle Discovery, uh, from the

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Smithsonian Institution down to

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Houston, uh, where it's

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kind of going to live. Uh, I don't know

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what the Smithsonian thinks about this. I don't know whether they've

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been asked. Uh, but that's the

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idea that it's going to come back to Houston

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and, um, uh, we'll see, uh,

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what the outcome of that is. But I thought you'd be exciting

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given that that's your home city or excited given

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that that's your home city.

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Heidi Campo: Yes. Yeah. Well, and I really am. I

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live just a couple minutes away

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from Space Center. I chose our location

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specifically because we wanted to live close to all the action

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so I could jog there and go see it. So that is kind of

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exciting. Um, I really love, I love

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Space Center Houston, I love Kennedy Space Center.

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All of these places are such a

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fantastic way to just, I mean, I

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think every single one of our listeners who's

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been to one of these places feels that

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visceral pull of wow. That's when I really started falling

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in love with space. So it's exciting to have all of these things

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in one place where they can be cared for and the education

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can be there. And it's all space related.

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So that's really kind of exciting.

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But our first story today is one

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that I am very curious about. I even mentioned this to

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you before we started, um, recording,

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but we have, it looks like the third

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ever confirmed interstellar object

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coming through our solar system, which is so strange to

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me because I'm like, wait a second, there's stuff coming,

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zipping around all the time. So what is this third

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ever, like, confirmed? And what is this

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object? Tell us about this, friend.

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Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's a great question, actually, because nobody's

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really quite sure. Uh, it looks like a

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comet. Uh, and comets are different from

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asteroids in that they're made principally of ice. And when

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the ice gets near a star like the sun, uh, it

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starts to turn into a gas, uh, to water

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vapor, essentially bringing with it some of the other chemicals that are,

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uh, um, uh, embedded in the

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ice in the cold of space. Uh, so. Yes,

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but you're also right that the zipping around all the time

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around our planet, uh, the

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material that we sometimes regard as

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hazardous near Earth objects, we're now concentrating on

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those very heavily because we know that maybe one day there

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will be an impact with the Earth, and we need to do something about it. That's

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a different story. This is certainly not in that

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category. Um, but, uh, yeah,

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there are three objects which are now known

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to have come from outside the solar system.

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Uh, and what tells you, uh, that they've done

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that? And in the particular case of this new object,

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which is called 3i, which means it's the third

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interstellar object atlas, which is,

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um, an acronym for the name of the

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facility that discovered it, which is down in chile.

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Um, so 3i Atlas,

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uh, has a velocity which is

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something like

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61,000

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kilometers per second. Um,

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and that's. Am I talking

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rubbish here?

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61km per second? I'm thinking

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about kilometers per, uh, hour.

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Heidi Campo: I had to check your math.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. It's about 60 kilometers per

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second. Uh, whereas, um, things that

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are, you know, part of the solar system, and some of those,

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some of the comets that whiz in from the

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Oort Cloud, this cloud of debris that we think

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surrounds the solar system, some of them achieve quite high speeds, but it's

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never more than about 40 kilometers per second.

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Um, this thing's 50% higher than that.

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And the other clue that tells you that it's from outside

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the solar system is the shape of its path

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around the sun, the shape of its orbit. Uh, because it's

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not an orbit that's closed in the way we normally think of orbits.

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It's an open orbit. Uh, it will only go past

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the sun once. Um, you might

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be familiar with the term eccentricity,

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Heidi, which is the measure of the shape of

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an orbit. Um, so if you've got an

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orbit that's perfectly circular, it's got an eccentricity of

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zero. Uh, anything bigger than zero

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and less than one is an ellipse. Uh,

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and the number, the eccentricity number

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tells you how flattened or how squashed the ellipse is, how

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elongated it is. When you get to one, you've got a

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parabolic orbit, one that just comes

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in from infinity and heads off back to infinity after

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it's gone past the Sun. This one has an

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eccentricity of more than six. And that's a

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huge number. And it tells you that it's got

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to have come from outside the solar system. Nothing inside the

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solar system could have an eccentricity as high as that. So

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it's all about the orbital details. Um,

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it's uh, going to pass closest to the sun in

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October, so we're still seeing it on its inward

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path towards the Sun. Unlike, um, the most

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famous, the first of the, uh, interstellar objects

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that we discovered back in 2017, oumuamua,

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a Hawaiian word meaning first visitor from afar.

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Um, because it was discovered in Hawaii,

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uh, uh, on Haleakala in fact.

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Um, uh, that one was

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thought to be a few meters across.

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Uh, it's really still not certain what shape

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it was. It was thought to be like a cigar at first,

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elongated shape. But it's now perhaps thought to be

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more like a dinner plate. But we didn't discover that until it was

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actually on its way out of the solar system. It was

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only seen after it passed its closest to the sun.

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This one, three, uh, I ATLAS is

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still on its way in. And it's got a

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slightly fuzzy appearance. And that tells you that it

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is probably made of ice. And what it's doing is

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actually releasing as it gets near the Sun.

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The ice is. It's not melting, it's subliming.

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Subliming means it's turning straight from a solid to a gas,

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uh, and it's releasing some of the d that's embedded in the

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ice. And that's what's giving it that fuzzy appearance at the

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moment. But it is possible that we might start seeing

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plasma ejected, which might tell us about

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the constituents of its, uh,

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icy core. Where did it come from? We don't know.

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Um, there's some work being done that suggests

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that, uh, our nearest star system, Alpha

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Centauri, could in fact, um,

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basically ejects interstellar material,

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um, around the whole

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vicinity of the sun, not, not necessarily the

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direction that this thing's come from. We don't know whether it's come

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from Alpha Centauri or where it's, you know, where it's come

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from. Um, but it, uh,

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is certainly going to be the subject

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of intense study. The world's telescopes are already focused

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on it. I'm sure the Webb telescope will get some time

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looking at it and we might discover things that

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we really don't have any other way of finding out. You know,

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this is a sample of material that has

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come from another solar system. And so it could

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have quite different physical characteristics, quite different

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chemical makeup, uh, that's all the

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sorts of questions that ah, are arising

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about this object. So I'm sure that you and I,

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or maybe you, maybe me and that other.

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What's that other person called? Oh, Dunkley. Yeah. Um,

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maybe, maybe Andrew and I

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might talk about it if you and I don't. Because I think it

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will crop up again in the news and certainly

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beyond space. And that's horizon.

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Heidi Campo: So what is the difference? At the risk of sounding silly, I'll just ask

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this because I'm sure someone else has this question too.

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Something like Halley's Comet.

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Is that not considered then, one of these three

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objects?

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Professor Fred Watson: No, no, that belongs to the solar system. Uh,

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and that's because, uh, you know,

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it actually is in orbit around the sun. It has a

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period, an orbital period of 76 years, if I remember

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rightly. Uh, which means it's actually what's called a short

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period comet. Anything less than 200

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years I think is a short period comet. Uh, but

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this thing is different in the sense. And in fact all the

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interstellar objects are different in that they only go past

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the sun once and they've got this very strange

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orbital path which, uh.

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Heidi Campo: Objects like Callisto, so it's never coming back because

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it's one and done. Take a look at it and it's gone.

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Professor Fred Watson: That's right, exactly. And um, that's a

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characteristic of, uh, things from other solar systems.

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They whiz by and you think, what was that?

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Um, but we're. Now, the thing is, and

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there's an interesting, um, postscript

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to this story which I should mention. And that is we

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talked, uh, I think a couple of weeks ago about the Vera Rubin

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Observatory and the new telescope there that is going

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to revolutionize our discovery, uh,

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race of asteroids and things of that sort. Uh,

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that's going to find far more of these interstellar

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objects because it's so good at discovering things

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that are moving, uh, you know, through the solar system.

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Most of the things it will discover belong to the solar system. The asteroids

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that are in the asteroid belt between the

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orbits of Mars and Jupiter. And also the nearer ones,

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what we call the near Earth objects. But, um, it

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will find things that don't belong to the solar system. And so

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we might go very quickly from a sample

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of three interstellar objects to, you

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know, tens or maybe even hundreds of them that we are able

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to study.

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Heidi Campo: Yeah, because it, uh, takes its samples every three days,

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right?

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it does the whole sky every three days. It's phenomenal.

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Yeah, it's incredible.

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Generic: Roger, your lab is right Here also space nuts.

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Heidi Campo: Oh, we really are in such an incredible age of

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discovery. Everyone, everyone who is alive right now,

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I hope we recognize how incredible it is

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to live during this time because there's so much to

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discover and there's so much for us to

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like. Every single day we're learning so much more about the

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universe. And that is, um, apparent with

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our. With our next story with the New Horizons

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conducting the first ever successful

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deep space stellar navigation test.

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That sounds like we're really on the cusp of some

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exciting things.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it, actually,

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um, because, uh,

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it's a spacecraft that, um, you probably remember it was

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launched in 2006, uh, for,

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uh, an encounter with the dwarf planet

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Pluto, which took place in, if I remember

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rightly, it was July 2015, uh,

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when it flew by Pluto and revealed what an

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astonishing Pluto is. Uh, but

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since then it's been on its outward journey. It flew

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by, uh, an object called Arrokoth, uh,

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and gave us an impression of that, probably

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images of that some three or four years ago, I

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think now, and is sort of on its way. It's

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one of the five objects that will leave the solar system.

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Uh, so they will head off to,

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you know, the wide blue yonder. These objects will almost certainly

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outlast humankind and maybe even

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outlast our planet, because there's nothing to stop them when they

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head off that way. Anyway, New Horizons was

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equipped, unlike the Voyagers and the pioneers, which

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were products of the 1970s and are still on their way

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out of the solar system. New Horizons had some quite

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sophisticated technology on board and in fact

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includes effectively a telescope, um,

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which can be used to measure the

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positions of stars. That's a science

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that we call astrometry, uh, the

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measurement of star positions. And, uh,

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um, that has actually been used now

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to do, uh, as you said, a

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navigation test, a stellar navigation test,

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because it's so far from, uh,

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our planet. Um, it's about

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9.1, 9.1

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9.2 billion

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kilometers from Earth, uh, and

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effectively from the sun, because our 150 million

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kilometers from the sun is a tiny distance compared

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with 9 billion kilometers. But it's

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so far from Earth, uh, that it can now

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measure star positions that are

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significantly different from their

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positions as measured from Earth. And by significant, I mean,

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um, I don't mean they're degrees away in the

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sky. They're, you know, a few arc seconds away.

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Uh, that's a small angle of

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1,3600 of a degree. Um, but

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they're different position, they appear in different positions

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in the sky than they do from Earth. And this is the

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phenomenon that we call parallax. It's the fact that if

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you look at objects from one vantage point and then

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from another, they appear at different angles and

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that is the parallax angle. Uh,

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actually it's how our eyes work as well. That our eyes, because

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we have two eyes, they detect the parallax between them, which

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gives us the 3D view of the, of our environment.

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That still blows my mind that our Brain can

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take two separate images and make it into a 3D

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model of what we're surrounding and what's surrounding it.

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Fantastic stuff.

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Heidi Campo: What I hate about that, and as soon as I say it, all

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of our listeners are going to be so mad at me. You usually

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don't notice your nose.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.

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Heidi Campo: Until you do. And then it's like, whoa, then what is this thing? In

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my view, it's like

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usually your brain kind of overrides it. And then if you

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notice it, it's like, whoa, it's right, it's right there on my face.

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Professor Fred Watson: It is, yeah. And when you get to a certain age, there are

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hairs sprouting out of the end of it that you find very

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annoying.

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Heidi Campo: You see a whole new hair, you're talking to somebody, you're like,

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wait a second, what is that in my field of view?

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Professor Fred Watson: But you're right. So you know, the nose

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is very nearby. In fact, our brain, exactly as you said, it kind of rules

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it out. Uh, I've seen that before. I know what that is.

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That's fine. But yeah, this three dimensional

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model of, from stereoscopic vision

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is effectively what New Horizons is doing.

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It's giving us an eye on the Earth and an eye 9.5

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or 9.3 or whatever it is billion

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kilometers away. And that's big enough to make an

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appreciable angle. And so they've measured,

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uh, the distance using this technique to two,

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uh, relatively nearby stars. Proxima Centauri, which is

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part of the Alpha Centauri system we were just talking about a few minutes ago,

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4.2 light years from Earth. Um, and

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a star, uh, called wolf, uh, 359.

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It's in a catalog of stars by Herr

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Professor Wolf, I guess. Um, that's

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about seven. Nearly eight kilometers. Sorry,

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nearly eight light years away. So these are nearby

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stars. In fact, there are two nearest

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stars apart from the Sun. Uh, and it's measured their

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distances. And sure enough, the stellar parallax

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gives you the right answer. So, um, it's uh, yeah,

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we're. I think, uh, the spacecraft is,

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uh, doing a fine job of finding things to do

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while it journeys through,

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uh, well, it's approaching interstellar space.

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It's still in the solar system. Still in the outer reaches of the

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solar system, but heading to interstellar space.

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Heidi Campo: Oh, that's so cool. Uh, I just love.

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I love learning all of this stuff.

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Generic: 0G. And I feel fine. Space

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Nuts.

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Heidi Campo: Um, and our. And our. And our last

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story of the day. This is the one that

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everybody's gonna go crazy about. So

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we. These are the questions that

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we. I just think there's something that

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humans are inherently fascinated by. We're

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fascinated by the

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things that we understand the least. Sometimes

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the biggest mysteries attract people the most.

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And that is. I would, if I were to summarize

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the Space Nuts listeners. This is what they get

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obsessed with.

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So buckle up, everybody, because we are talking about,

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uh, dark energy, and we are talking

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about the story today. The headline reads,

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if dark energy is decreasing, is

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the Big Crunch back on the menu?

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So if you have not heard what the Big Crunch is

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before, Fred's going to give us a recap, and then we're

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going to be talking about how exciting this actually is.

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Professor Fred Watson: Indeed. That's right. So, um, I mean,

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it's almost like Back to the Future is this because,

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um, when I was a young astronomer back in the

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70s and 80s, uh,

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we were, you

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know, we knew since 1929 that the universe is

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expanding. That was Hubble's discovery.

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Uh, and we attribute that to

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some sort of event that took place, we

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now think, about 13.8 billion years ago, which we call the Big

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Bang, uh, because we can't think of a better word for

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it. Uh, so back

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in those days, um, we knew that was the

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case, but astronomers were fairly

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convinced, I think, that,

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um, the expansion of the universe was slowing

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down, even though they hadn't got the measurements to prove that.

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They expected the expansion of the universe to slow down

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because of the gravitational pull of everything in

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it, like galaxies and planets and stars and

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podcasts. All of that stuff's got gravity.

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Uh, and they expected that would slow down

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the expansion of the universe. And some, uh,

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astrophysicists. Cosmologists really is the correct

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term. They're the scientists who look at the history and

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evolution of the universe as a whole, uh, not just

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things in it. Some

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cosmologists thought that the slowdown might eventually

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result in a switch over from an

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expanding universe to one that's contracting because

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the gravity is starting to pull everything back together.

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Uh, and there was the

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idea that perhaps at uh, some time

443
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in the distant future there might be what came

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to be known as the Big Crunch, uh, which is everything

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smashing together again in a kind of inverse of the Big Bang. It's

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the Big Bang played backwards. And in fact, um, Brian

447
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Schmidt m one of my colleagues, whose name will crop up again in a very short

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time, uh, he used to call it the Gnab

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Gibson, uh, because it's the Big Bang backwards. So

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you Big Bang backwards.

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Heidi Campo: And that would kind of be like a rubber band then.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. The rubber band expands and then, you

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know, if you let go, it contracts. That's basically the

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mechanism for that.

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Heidi Campo: So, um, and then in theory, then would it be

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exponentially? So it's like as it starts to contract

457
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in, it starts to move faster as it comes closer back to that

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main point.

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Professor Fred Watson: That's exactly right. And it would be, you know, you can

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imagine the Big Crunch or the Nab Gib would

461
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be quite a catastrophic event, um,

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for the universe as a whole. It was thought to be

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something that would happen billions of years in the future. But

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that was all dashed in, uh,

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1998 when

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Brian Schmidt, uh, of the Australian National University,

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uh, and Saul Perlmutter in the United States,

468
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uh, they led two teams that

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discovered that the universe is not

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slowing down in its expansion. It is actually

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accelerating. Uh, and

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um, that acceleration of the universe we attribute

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to something called dark energy, which is one of the biggest mysteries,

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uh, in the whole of science. We don't know what it is, but in the

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mass energy budget of the universe, it makes up

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70% or so of the mass

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energy of the universe. So, um, that

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sort of poured the cold water

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on the Big Crunch idea, uh, until

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now because it looks

481
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as though from evidence coming from

482
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a telescope, principally from a telescope in Arizona,

483
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one very similar to our Anglo Australian telescope here in,

484
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uh, Australia. It looks as though

485
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the acceleration is slowing down.

486
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So yes, the universe is expanding. Yes,

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the expansion is still getting faster and faster.

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But it looks as though in

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the future it won't be expanding as fast. In

490
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other words, the, the acceleration itself is

491
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slowing down and it's not a constant. And that

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means that dark energy has different properties from what

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we thought it had. And that's what

494
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set off this chain of research,

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uh, by uh, the scientists, uh,

496
00:23:23.790 --> 00:23:26.630
whose work we're reporting on now. They're um, uh,

497
00:23:26.630 --> 00:23:29.120
at Cornell University and other,

498
00:23:29.490 --> 00:23:31.280
um, universities around the world.

499
00:23:32.320 --> 00:23:34.590
They've looked at the, the data

500
00:23:34.910 --> 00:23:37.390
that's come from various telescopes,

501
00:23:38.030 --> 00:23:40.590
uh, and have Actually made a model

502
00:23:41.150 --> 00:23:43.390
of a universe that

503
00:23:43.950 --> 00:23:46.670
has an accelerated expansion. The acceleration

504
00:23:46.670 --> 00:23:49.669
slows down. Eventually the expansion

505
00:23:49.669 --> 00:23:51.470
slows down and stops,

506
00:23:52.430 --> 00:23:55.350
and so there's a collapse back on itself. And

507
00:23:55.350 --> 00:23:58.190
they've modeled that to give you a universe

508
00:23:58.190 --> 00:24:01.030
which has a lifetime of 33.8

509
00:24:01.030 --> 00:24:03.280
billion years. Now, we're already

510
00:24:03.360 --> 00:24:06.120
13.8 billion years into that, so

511
00:24:06.120 --> 00:24:08.840
about 20 billion years time. They

512
00:24:08.840 --> 00:24:11.600
are suggesting that there will be a Big

513
00:24:11.600 --> 00:24:14.440
Crunch or a gnab gib. Um, and

514
00:24:14.440 --> 00:24:17.160
it comes not just from modeling the astrophysics. They've also

515
00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:18.800
looked at some of the likely

516
00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:22.400
subatomic particles that we might attribute

517
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:25.240
dark energy to. Uh, so, uh,

518
00:24:25.240 --> 00:24:28.000
it's, you know, this is very, very speculative research,

519
00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:30.800
it has to be said. Uh, and nobody,

520
00:24:31.320 --> 00:24:33.910
uh, really is yet starting to think serious,

521
00:24:33.980 --> 00:24:36.780
seriously about a Big Crunch, because that, as I said, got

522
00:24:36.780 --> 00:24:39.340
wiped back in the 1990s. But

523
00:24:39.580 --> 00:24:42.180
it could still be on the menu, exactly as that

524
00:24:42.180 --> 00:24:45.060
headline, uh, says. It could still be on the menu.

525
00:24:45.060 --> 00:24:47.730
And I'm sure as time goes on, uh,

526
00:24:47.900 --> 00:24:50.860
our understanding of just how the acceleration

527
00:24:50.860 --> 00:24:53.260
of the universe is behaving, because

528
00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:56.340
it's still a difficult observation to make

529
00:24:56.340 --> 00:24:59.340
whether the acceleration is speeding up or not. Uh, but once

530
00:24:59.340 --> 00:25:02.060
we've got more data on that, maybe models like this

531
00:25:02.480 --> 00:25:05.040
will have their feet more firmly on the ground

532
00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:07.440
and we might get some more

533
00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:10.120
insights into what the future of the universe

534
00:25:10.120 --> 00:25:12.960
is in the next 20 billion years or

535
00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:15.840
so. By then, by the way, uh, the Earth won't

536
00:25:15.840 --> 00:25:18.840
exist anymore because the sun will have turned

537
00:25:18.840 --> 00:25:21.640
into a red giant star long before that and

538
00:25:21.640 --> 00:25:24.160
probably melt the Earth. Uh, which is an

539
00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:27.160
interesting idea. Um, that's only, you

540
00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:30.120
know, that's on our near Horizon. That's only 3 or 4 billion years down

541
00:25:30.120 --> 00:25:33.120
the track. Uh, and of course, the Andromeda

542
00:25:33.120 --> 00:25:36.120
and the Milky Way will have collided. All of that will have happened. But

543
00:25:36.120 --> 00:25:38.840
maybe the ultimate end is 20 billion years

544
00:25:38.840 --> 00:25:41.560
hence, and it could be another Big Crunch.

545
00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:45.640
Heidi Campo: Well, who knows what humanity will figure out by then?

546
00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:49.960
I am convinced that we can continue

547
00:25:50.040 --> 00:25:52.920
to become masters of our planet,

548
00:25:52.920 --> 00:25:55.520
our solar system. What is it called? Is it the

549
00:25:55.520 --> 00:25:57.850
Krasnow Scale? The

550
00:25:57.930 --> 00:25:59.970
Kardashians? The Kardashev.

551
00:25:59.970 --> 00:26:02.890
Professor Fred Watson: That's right. It's, uh, Kardashev. I

552
00:26:02.890 --> 00:26:04.010
think it is Kardashev.

553
00:26:04.010 --> 00:26:06.450
Heidi Campo: Yeah, the Kardashev scale. And we are. They

554
00:26:06.450 --> 00:26:09.050
mathematically figured it out because there's three.

555
00:26:10.010 --> 00:26:13.010
I'm kind of. I'm, um, I'm talking, um, about

556
00:26:13.010 --> 00:26:16.010
things that I'm not quite confident on. But I believe there's three

557
00:26:16.490 --> 00:26:19.090
different levels of civilization, and they've

558
00:26:19.090 --> 00:26:21.930
mathematically figured out that we're not Quite a level one

559
00:26:21.930 --> 00:26:24.680
civilization yet. What are we, like a 0.7?

560
00:26:24.680 --> 00:26:25.560
Professor Fred Watson: Like we're close.

561
00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:26.600
Heidi Campo: We're almost there.

562
00:26:26.920 --> 00:26:29.710
Professor Fred Watson: It's based on the, um, energy consumption, uh,

563
00:26:29.800 --> 00:26:32.440
that Kardashev scale. It's based on how much energy

564
00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:36.040
a, uh, civilization uses. Uh, and

565
00:26:36.040 --> 00:26:38.200
that's a measure of how advanced it is.

566
00:26:38.560 --> 00:26:41.080
Um, now it needn't

567
00:26:41.080 --> 00:26:43.760
necessarily follow, I guess, because we might

568
00:26:43.760 --> 00:26:46.640
discover new ways of living that don't need the

569
00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:49.450
huge energy demands that the Kardashev's

570
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:52.410
scale thinks we will. So, uh,

571
00:26:52.800 --> 00:26:55.760
interesting stuff, but yeah, we're not, we're not quite there yet.

572
00:26:55.760 --> 00:26:56.320
You're right.

573
00:26:56.880 --> 00:26:59.240
Heidi Campo: Yeah, yeah. I think it says that a type 1

574
00:26:59.240 --> 00:27:02.160
civilization can harness the power from their planet.

575
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:05.440
A, uh, Type two civilization can harness all the power

576
00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:07.920
from their solar systems. We're talking about

577
00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:10.800
Dyson spheres around the sun and then a

578
00:27:10.800 --> 00:27:13.800
type three civilization. Um, I think they're

579
00:27:13.800 --> 00:27:15.890
masters of space time so

580
00:27:17.250 --> 00:27:18.290
they can travel.

581
00:27:18.530 --> 00:27:21.410
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I think we should just skip straight to, you know, Type

582
00:27:21.410 --> 00:27:24.330
three. We forget about the others. I think type three is where we

583
00:27:24.330 --> 00:27:24.930
want to be.

584
00:27:25.570 --> 00:27:28.370
Heidi Campo: We need you. You're the brains. You're the brains of this operation.

585
00:27:28.770 --> 00:27:31.529
Professor Fred Watson: Well, you're in dire straits

586
00:27:31.529 --> 00:27:34.410
then. Anyway. That's all

587
00:27:34.410 --> 00:27:36.450
right. We'll um, you know,

588
00:27:37.010 --> 00:27:39.930
becoming masters of space time is certainly something that

589
00:27:39.930 --> 00:27:42.910
I have on my agenda, but I haven't got anywhere near it

590
00:27:43.140 --> 00:27:43.380
yet.

591
00:27:44.740 --> 00:27:47.660
Heidi Campo: Well, until then, we'll just have to stick with the uh, sci fi

592
00:27:47.660 --> 00:27:50.420
literature out there to fulfill that, to itch that

593
00:27:50.420 --> 00:27:51.620
scratch, so to speak.

594
00:27:51.620 --> 00:27:53.620
Professor Fred Watson: That's the one. Yeah, that's the way to do it.

595
00:27:54.180 --> 00:27:56.980
Heidi Campo: Well, excellent friend. This has been a really fun conversation.

596
00:27:57.290 --> 00:28:00.060
Um, I really, really enjoyed talking to you this,

597
00:28:00.060 --> 00:28:03.060
this dark energy stuff. I know we're going to get a lot of questions rolling

598
00:28:03.060 --> 00:28:05.780
in this week about it. So if you guys ever do have questions

599
00:28:06.100 --> 00:28:09.060
on any of these episodes, any of these topics, and you

600
00:28:09.140 --> 00:28:11.980
are dying to have us follow up, please just

601
00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:14.820
jump online. It's bitesz, bitesz dot com,

602
00:28:14.820 --> 00:28:17.300
B, I, T, E, Z. And you can go to our space

603
00:28:17.300 --> 00:28:20.300
nuts, portal and email us a question. Ask

604
00:28:20.300 --> 00:28:23.140
us an audio question. We'll leave that link for you. And

605
00:28:23.140 --> 00:28:25.860
you guys, please ask away because we love to

606
00:28:25.860 --> 00:28:28.580
answer your questions every other episode. We're talking

607
00:28:28.820 --> 00:28:29.700
straight to you.

608
00:28:29.860 --> 00:28:30.660
Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great.

609
00:28:32.100 --> 00:28:35.060
Heidi Campo: All right everybody, we will see you next time

610
00:28:35.060 --> 00:28:37.940
with a Q and A episode. Till then, take

611
00:28:37.940 --> 00:28:38.360
care of.

612
00:28:38.750 --> 00:28:40.990
Professor Fred Watson: Many thanks, Heidi. And you take care too.

613
00:28:42.030 --> 00:28:45.030
Andrew Dunkley: Hello Huw in the studio. Hello Fred. Hello

614
00:28:45.030 --> 00:28:47.750
Heidi. Hope you're all well. Andrew reporting in

615
00:28:47.750 --> 00:28:50.710
from uh, the cruise ship Crown

616
00:28:50.710 --> 00:28:51.390
Princess.

617
00:28:51.960 --> 00:28:54.749
Uh, we are halfway through our world tour. I can't believe

618
00:28:54.990 --> 00:28:57.950
the time has gone so fast. Uh, since I spoke to you

619
00:28:57.950 --> 00:29:00.190
last, we have visited

620
00:29:00.190 --> 00:29:02.430
Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

621
00:29:02.910 --> 00:29:05.300
And Fred, uh, I know you will be

622
00:29:05.530 --> 00:29:08.330
particularly be keen to um, uh to hear

623
00:29:08.330 --> 00:29:11.280
that we drove past the uh,

624
00:29:11.290 --> 00:29:13.810
TD Observatory. Uh, Mount

625
00:29:13.810 --> 00:29:16.170
Teedi of course is the, the

626
00:29:16.250 --> 00:29:19.180
strata volcano that's right in the middle of Tenerife, uh,

627
00:29:19.890 --> 00:29:22.410
island. And it is one imposing

628
00:29:22.410 --> 00:29:25.210
hunk of rock. That thing, it is enormous.

629
00:29:25.460 --> 00:29:27.930
Uh, it just dominates the skyline from

630
00:29:28.090 --> 00:29:30.890
everywhere you look. Uh, but just across

631
00:29:30.890 --> 00:29:33.390
the caldera from uh, Mount

632
00:29:33.390 --> 00:29:35.980
Teedy, which I might add hasn't um,

633
00:29:35.980 --> 00:29:38.510
erupted since 1909. Didn't feel anything

634
00:29:38.670 --> 00:29:41.230
while we were there, thank goodness. But um, the

635
00:29:41.230 --> 00:29:44.110
TD Observatory and that

636
00:29:44.110 --> 00:29:47.070
is uh, quite a remarkable uh, little

637
00:29:47.220 --> 00:29:49.870
um, facility as you probably well know

638
00:29:49.870 --> 00:29:52.790
Fred. It is because of the altitude. It's up

639
00:29:52.790 --> 00:29:55.470
around 2,700 meters or something like that.

640
00:29:56.020 --> 00:29:59.010
Uh, it uh, is, is a solar observatory

641
00:29:59.090 --> 00:30:02.050
predominantly and uh, it's one of the most significant

642
00:30:02.290 --> 00:30:05.290
solar observatories in the world. But

643
00:30:05.290 --> 00:30:07.970
they also do astronomical observations.

644
00:30:08.050 --> 00:30:11.010
And as I understand it Fred, uh, this particular

645
00:30:11.330 --> 00:30:13.410
observatory is

646
00:30:13.800 --> 00:30:16.610
um, operated remotely. So I've got a

647
00:30:16.610 --> 00:30:19.170
feeling that somewhere along the line Fred, you have

648
00:30:19.240 --> 00:30:22.170
um, you've had a bit of a play around with the equipment

649
00:30:22.170 --> 00:30:25.060
at Mount Teedi, uh, on Tenerife. Uh,

650
00:30:25.740 --> 00:30:28.640
uh, I did take some photos of the observatory from across

651
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:31.560
the valley and with my long range pocket

652
00:30:31.560 --> 00:30:34.040
camera. Um, it's got several

653
00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:37.000
uh, domes and pieces of equipment all

654
00:30:37.620 --> 00:30:40.440
um, hidden inside white painted

655
00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:43.080
buildings because they need to protect them from the heat.

656
00:30:43.240 --> 00:30:46.240
And white is a uh, very reflective color

657
00:30:46.240 --> 00:30:49.000
of course, but uh, quite extraordinary.

658
00:30:49.320 --> 00:30:51.970
You climb up the mountain on a very windy, steep road

659
00:30:51.970 --> 00:30:54.970
and all of a sudden at around 2000 meters

660
00:30:54.970 --> 00:30:57.970
you break through the tree line and

661
00:30:58.130 --> 00:31:01.090
all of us and you're in what you could describe

662
00:31:01.090 --> 00:31:03.330
as a tundra desert like environment.

663
00:31:04.210 --> 00:31:06.729
And there have been so many eruptions over so many

664
00:31:06.729 --> 00:31:09.530
millennia. There's all sorts of different

665
00:31:09.530 --> 00:31:12.330
colored lava and pumice and layer

666
00:31:12.330 --> 00:31:15.170
upon layer, uh, in the cliffs you can see where the

667
00:31:15.570 --> 00:31:18.220
eruptions have happened, happened over so many, many, many, many

668
00:31:18.220 --> 00:31:21.060
years. And uh, the big 10

669
00:31:21.060 --> 00:31:24.060
mile wide caldera where there used to be a super

670
00:31:24.060 --> 00:31:27.060
volcano which is uh, no longer there,

671
00:31:27.060 --> 00:31:29.700
it collapsed and now you've got Mount

672
00:31:29.700 --> 00:31:32.500
Tedi in its place which is uh, behaving

673
00:31:32.500 --> 00:31:35.420
itself um, rather well at the moment, which is

674
00:31:35.420 --> 00:31:35.700
good.

675
00:31:35.780 --> 00:31:38.740
Anyway, we've left Tenerife behind us and we're heading

676
00:31:38.740 --> 00:31:41.400
now for Morocco. Uh,

677
00:31:41.460 --> 00:31:44.150
actually by the time I speak to you next, we'll have made several

678
00:31:44.150 --> 00:31:46.990
stops. We've, uh, we've reached the busy end of our tour,

679
00:31:47.470 --> 00:31:50.390
so, uh, looking forward to telling you all about that. Most of our

680
00:31:50.390 --> 00:31:53.310
visits between now and then will be Morocco or Spain.

681
00:31:53.550 --> 00:31:56.260
Of course, Tenerife is Spanish. Lovely, uh,

682
00:31:56.670 --> 00:31:59.550
lovely place. Very, very popular with, uh, Germans

683
00:31:59.550 --> 00:32:02.510
and English people, uh, on holidays. All right, until next

684
00:32:02.510 --> 00:32:04.750
time, Andrew Dunkley signing off. See ya.

685
00:32:05.230 --> 00:32:08.030
Generic: You've been listening to the Space Nuts podcast,

686
00:32:09.090 --> 00:32:11.890
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687
00:32:12.050 --> 00:32:14.810
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688
00:32:14.810 --> 00:32:16.610
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689
00:32:16.610 --> 00:32:19.530
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690
00:32:19.530 --> 00:32:21.570
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691
00:32:21.570 --> 00:32:22.770
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