May 5, 2025

K2-18b, Gravitons & The Comet Conundrum: A Cosmic Q&A

K2-18b, Gravitons & The Comet Conundrum: A Cosmic Q&A

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In this engaging Q&A episode of Space Nuts, host Andrew Dunkley is back alongside the ever-insightful Professor Fred Watson. Together, they tackle a range of intriguing questions from listeners, covering the potential discovery of life on exoplanet K2 18b, the mysteries of gravity and gravitons, and the latest on the Swan Comet.
Episode Highlights:
- The Buzz Around K2 18b: Andrew and Fred Watson discuss the recent excitement surrounding the detection of dimethyl sulphide on K2 18b, a potential biosignature. They delve into the implications of this discovery and the ongoing debate about the planet's habitability, while also addressing the sensationalist headlines that often accompany such findings.
- Gravity and Gravitons: A question from listener James prompts a fascinating discussion on the nature of gravity and the role of the Higgs particle versus the hypothetical graviton. Fred Watson explains the differences between these concepts and the complexities of how gravity operates at a fundamental level.
- Observing the Swan Comet: Ted from an undisclosed location shares his experiences of observing the Swan Comet, prompting a conversation about its current visibility and characteristics. Andrew and Fred Watson discuss the comet's colour, tail, and what makes it an interesting object for amateur astronomers.
- The Challenge of Fake News in Science: The episode wraps up with a thoughtful examination of how sensationalism in the media can distort scientific discoveries. Andrew and Fred Watson reflect on the responsibility of scientists and journalists alike to convey information accurately and responsibly.
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, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favourite platform.
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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) Welcome to Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Fred Watson Watson
(01:20) Discussion on the potential discovery of life on K2 18b
(15:00) Exploring gravity and the role of gravitons
(25:30) Observing the Swan Comet
(35:00) The impact of sensationalism in scientific reporting
For commercial-free versions of Space Nuts, join us on Patreon, Supercast, Apple Podcasts, or become a supporter here: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.

 

 

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Hi, there, Andrew Dunkley again the host of the Space

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Nuts podcast, and we are happy to bring you yet

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another episode. This is a Q and A episode where

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we'll be answering questions about the life that they think

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they may have found. Possibly could be Dono on K two, A,

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D and B, gravity and gravitons, the Swan comet and

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hopefully not the Swan song comet. Boom boom and fake news.

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That's all coming up in this episode of Space Nuts fifteen,

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Channel ten nine ignition Space Nuts or three two space notes.

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It sure does.

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And with me as always his professor, Fred W. Whatt's

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an astronomer at large.

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Hello Fred, Hello Andrew, Nice to see you again, must.

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See you too.

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Yes, still sort of getting back down to Earth because

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I mean two minutes with the last every day rank

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so still getting over the jet lag, but that'll that'll pass.

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Didn't get seasick, I didn't mention that before in the

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last I didn't get seasick at all. There were I

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think we only had one day where we hit some

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big swells and the captain came on and said, as

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you can see, the seas are rather.

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Busy today.

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Those waves fourteen feet fourteen feet him in four ways.

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You have board with me at the time, so not

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that you need one where I live, but yeah, it was,

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it was. It was a good ship, very nice ship,

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very good staff. Had a great time. And yeah, I

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won't go through all the things we did, but I.

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Will point out one thing, nothing to do with astronomy,

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but we've been to Las Vegas before fifteen years ago

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and we were you know, it's a sensory overload men.

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A couple of days there and you just can't wait

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to get out.

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It's just that it's just so in your face. We

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went back this time, and we didn't say it to

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each other until after we left, but we both felt

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the same that it's lost some of its mystique. And

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I put that down to the fact that a lot

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of the casinos had all sorts of.

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Things to try and get people.

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In, like the Magic Garden and dolphin pools and white

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lions and MGM Casino had lions in the casino living

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in I don't know, habitats that were built into the

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structure of the casino complex. It was really quite impressive.

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And notwithstanding what the animal rights activists probably that's all gone. Oh,

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most of that's gone. You know what they put in

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their place sports bars. You walk into a giant room

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that has umpteen televisions covering the space of a theater

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screen and just lists and lists of odds and a

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bar with ten thousand different kinds of drinks and people

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just sitting there betting on the whatever. Any sport you

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can think of. Ice hockey I think was the flavor

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of the muss while we were there. Yeah, and we

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just walked away and went.

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Gee, that's sad. It's sad.

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It's just and the one of the big casinos there

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called the Mirage is gone.

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It's just gone.

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There's just flat ground there. They've completely demolished it and

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they're going to replace it with a hard rock you've

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heard of hard rock cafe. They're going to have a

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hard rock you know. Okay, unbelievable, but yeah, anyway, that's

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beside the point. We've got some questions to get to Fred,

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and we might as well get stuck straight into it.

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I'm going to read them all today because I've been

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away and I cleared the decks. So if you've got questions,

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send them in because I have absolutely wiped the slate clean.

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If they had a question in and we didn't answer it.

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That's on me. Send me your hate mail because I'm

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starting from scratch fresh material from next Q and a

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episode onwards, So send them in via our website. So

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first one from Martin Berman Gorvyn of Potomac, Maryland. Hello,

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Space Nuts. That's what I won't do it author and

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write extraordinary us about the recent buzz surrounding the possible

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detection of life on exoplanet K to eighteen B. Specifically

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do mental SULFI did I say that right? Which could

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be a bio signature, and while acknowledging it's too early

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to draw any big conclusions, but that hasn't stopped the

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popular press. I threw that in not Martin. Martin playfully

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wonder if life is found there, might they grant asylum

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to a struggling American sci fi writer disillusioned with.

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Earth away with words he does now.

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I know, I know you covered K two A d

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n B the other day with with Heidi, but there's

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been has there been any more information about it?

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I think what's happened is it's basically caused a lot

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of serious reflection among the science community and the philosophy

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community as well, who have muscled into this with quite

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quite you know understandably as to what we're really doing here,

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what we're looking for when we when we're looking for

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evidence of alien life. And I think there are two

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aspects of this. One is, first of all, there is

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still some doubt about the actual detection of these compounds,

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these molecules, that there are.

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Two of them that have been found.

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They so the authors claim that the authors come from

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the US and the UK. Dimethyl sulfide and dimethyle die sulfide,

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those are the two which on Earth are products of

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the environment caused by phytoplantum, those little microbes.

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That live in water.

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And the authors of the paper have drawn a few

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strings here. This is a world that's actually bigger than Earth.

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It's about eight point six times the mass of the Earth,

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about two point six times the diameter of Earth. And

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the authors believe that this is something called the Heyshien

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world and the Hyshen world. It's a great word actually

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is an amalgamation of hydrogen and ocean. It's basically an

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ocean world with a hydrogen atmosphere. It's been called the

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Hyshen world. We think they exist and the authors of

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this paper think that they've got evidence to suggest that

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K two eighteen B is actually a hyphen world. Now

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there are other authors who've stepped in and said, wait

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a minute, we think it's too hot for that. We

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think it's you know, it's got volcanic activity and it's

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not a world with an ocean at all.

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So that's a moot point.

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But the detection of these of these chemicals, the DMS

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is it's called and dmds the abbreviations for them because

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it's too hard to say methyl sulfide. There are those

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detections themselves are in some doubt because there are the

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confidence level. Yes it's ninety nine point seven percent certain,

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but that's not the pretty well one hundred percent that

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science demands, and so there's still uncertainty about that.

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So that's one aspect.

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That maybe this is a mis identification of features in

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the spectrum of the atmosphere of K two eighteen B.

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But the other side of it is.

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One of two people have pointed out that these chemicals

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have been detected in the gaseous envelopes of comets.

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Now on Earth.

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Yes, they only come from biological activity, but where they're

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going to come from on a comet whose temperature is

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minus two hundred degrees celsius. It's so there's got to

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be chemical reactions that are independent of life that will

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that will actually generate these what have been called biomarkers.

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And so the question is are they biomarkers at all?

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Or is it are we just at straws. Do you

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know that one of the one of the articles I read,

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I really like the term. It was something to the

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fact that we've been hunting for needles in a haystack,

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and is this just a particularly sharp piece of hay

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that they've found, And that could be the case, very

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nicely put. And so that's where the philosophers have come

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in and said, you know, we really we have no

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idea what alien life might look like, and to sort

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of in many ways blinker ourselves so that we're only

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looking for things that have found on Earth that are

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markers of biological activity, maybe we have to be looking

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much broader, in a much broader sense. Now people have

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said this for a long time, but I think this

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particular discovery has really heightened the concentration of a philosopher's

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coming in on this. There's a very interesting article on

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the Conversation and its title is scientists claim to have

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found evidence of alien life, but biosignatures might hide more

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than they reveal. And that comes from a scientist who

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is actually a PhD candidate in the philosophy of biology

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at Sydney University. So this is philosophy rather than science.

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But it's a scientific article, and it makes the point

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that maybe what we should be looking for is not

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life as we know it, but life as we don't

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know it is, because it could be different.

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Yes, we've talked about that before that I suppose logically

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make assumptions that life elsewhere might just be like it

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is on Earth, but it might be so alien to

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us we probably wouldn't even notice it exactly what we're

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looking for.

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On the other hand, you know, the other side of

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this coin is all we can look for is biosignatures

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as we think we interpret them from Earth. So we've

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got a few interesting steps to take here. So I

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think that the K two eighteen B story has yet

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to run quite a long way. I think there'll be

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more observations of it, maybe with the James Web, but

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certainly with the the ELT when that comes on stream.

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The thirty nine meter optical.

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Telescope that will probably give us a much firmer view

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of whether dms and dmds are actually in the atmosphere.

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But the philosophy of what we're looking for, I think

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is perhaps almost the more interesting aspect of this.

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It kind of reminds me of the recent discovery that

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they announced about the atmosphere of Venus. Yes, and that

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was ultimately debunked, but I think it's been underbunked again.

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Yes it was.

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Yeah, that's right, but it's still very very controversial.

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Yeah, indeed, but again that was phosphine, wasn't it.

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It was, But once again, phosphine is only a biomarker

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under certain circumstances.

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And you know that's the thing.

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It may just there maybe natural causes of it in

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the in the atmosphere of Venus. It's the same situation.

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It was, first of all, a very perhaps adventurous identification

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of a chemical that you've found because the data really

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don't match up to it yet. That coupled with the

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fact that there may be other ways that this this

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compound can be can be formed.

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No, this is fascinating. I was just reading some of

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the headlines of the of the major outlets that have

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latched onto this story. And it goes to what Fenton

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is asking us about it that one till last because

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it's a favorite topic at the moment, so we'll we'll

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get into that. But and that Venus story pops up

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in the list of fake news stories. But it fake

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news is a terrible way to describe it. That these

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would probably genuine attempts to come up with theories and ideas,

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and some of them miss the mark. So fake news

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is I don't know who popularized that, but anyway, we'll

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carry on, Martin help me you know who it was.

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Thank you, Martin. Great to hear from you. Different, unusual,

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but always welcome. Let's take a short break from the

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show to tell you about our sponsor, Insta three sixty. Now,

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sixty store dot Insterta three sixty dot com. Now back

268
00:17:01.240 --> 00:17:07.960
to the show Murder space nets. Next question comes from James.

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We're not sure where James is, but I'm sure he

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knows where he is. This is about gravity and gravitons.

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The Higgs particle generates the field gives other particles mass.

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Gravity is a property of mass directly proportional to the

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mess of an object. In other words, why do we

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need another particle, as in a graviton to provide gravity.

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That's a good one.

276
00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:33.440
It is, Yes, it is a good one, and certainly

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the particle physicists do see these as two completely separate things.

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The Higgs particle was proposed as being something that the

279
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other particles needed back in I think it was nineteen

280
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sixty six or nineteen sixty seven by Peter Higgs at

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the University of Edinburgh, who I think he died only

282
00:17:57.559 --> 00:18:02.000
a couple of years ago if I remember rightly, and

283
00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:05.960
I mean the graviton has it's still a it's still

284
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a hypothetical particle, but but it's different from what the

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00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:16.559
Higgs does. The way to interpret the Higgs is very

286
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much as the particle that as exactly as James says,

287
00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:26.079
it generates the field that gives particles mass, and the

288
00:18:26.119 --> 00:18:31.880
field it's like a force field. The way I read

289
00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:36.880
a lovely interpretation of of of this that if you

290
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imagine some you know, something like a marble moving around

291
00:18:41.559 --> 00:18:47.079
in space, then it's it's moving freely and you you

292
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don't really have anything to sense its mass. But if

293
00:18:50.039 --> 00:18:52.799
you put it in a jar of treacle or honey,

294
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then the treacle or the honey actually mimics the Higgs

295
00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:02.960
field and it provides a resistance which is proportional to

296
00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:06.799
the mass of the particle. And so the Higgs particle,

297
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you know, this is my understanding of it. I'm not

298
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a particle physicist, and I don't think I'm explaining this

299
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particularly well, but it has a different function from what

300
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the hypothetical gravity graviton has.

301
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Which would be.

302
00:19:21.640 --> 00:19:24.720
Transmitting another field, the field of gravity that's a field

303
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as well.

304
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But.

305
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Would have different characteristics from the Higgs particle providing the gravitation.

306
00:19:34.599 --> 00:19:36.759
I suspect James is not going to be convinced by

307
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:40.160
my explanation here because his question why do we need

308
00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:43.839
another particle to provide gravity? All I'm saying is that

309
00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:47.960
gravity is a different thing from the Higgs field, and

310
00:19:48.039 --> 00:19:51.880
so we need another particle for it. But I hope

311
00:19:51.880 --> 00:19:55.160
you will take that and perhaps, James, you know, follow

312
00:19:55.240 --> 00:19:57.279
up on some of the on some of the stuff

313
00:19:57.319 --> 00:19:59.680
you can find online that really talks about the difference

314
00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:02.079
between these particles.

315
00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:03.799
Yeah.

316
00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:06.400
I was just going to say, the first thing I'd

317
00:20:06.440 --> 00:20:09.200
google will be what's the difference between the Higgs particle

318
00:20:09.240 --> 00:20:10.039
and the grubbytot?

319
00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:13.119
Done? Nut had time, But that's right.

320
00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:20.279
And Peter Higgs died last year? Was last year, yea

321
00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:24.960
April tenth, so just over yeares, Yes, much missed.

322
00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:27.319
He was a great man, Yes, indeed he was.

323
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Thank you, James. This is space Nuts. You're with Andrew

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Dunkley and Professor Fred what's an Now A word from

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Now back to the show.

370
00:23:15.559 --> 00:23:21.400
Okay, we tacked a space nuts. Next question comes from Ted.

371
00:23:21.720 --> 00:23:26.920
No known location, no known abode. It reminds me, though, Fred,

372
00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:30.799
when we know I have this. This is not a

373
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:32.920
reflection on on Ted at all. But when we were

374
00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:35.559
in Las Vegas, I was walking across the street and

375
00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:38.680
there was a homeless guy in a wheelchair on the

376
00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:40.880
opposite side, and I was walking straight towards him, and

377
00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:43.559
he had a sign and next to a bottle for

378
00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:46.319
people to put in tips. And you read the sign

379
00:23:46.559 --> 00:23:51.240
and honestly, I can't say it because it is it's

380
00:23:51.279 --> 00:23:55.400
got a nasty word in it, but it was something

381
00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:59.200
word trump and you can figure it out for yourself.

382
00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:01.599
But if you read with him, you gave him a tip.

383
00:24:01.720 --> 00:24:05.319
If you didn't, you just kept walking. So it's a

384
00:24:05.440 --> 00:24:08.839
rich man. He had quite a few, quite a few

385
00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:16.359
painfuls of change. But yeah, that's beside the point. But Ted,

386
00:24:16.519 --> 00:24:19.240
Ted wants to know. I've been observing the swan comment

387
00:24:19.319 --> 00:24:22.759
every morning for the last few days. Please discuss this.

388
00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:25.160
If you have not already done so, well, I'm going

389
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:27.440
to ask you anyway, Fred, because I was interested in it.

390
00:24:28.680 --> 00:24:29.920
What's the latest.

391
00:24:30.279 --> 00:24:34.519
Yeah, it's we haven't discussed it already, so it's it's

392
00:24:34.519 --> 00:24:38.920
a it's a timely A timely question from Ted. Great

393
00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:42.400
to hear Ted that you've been observing it, because it's

394
00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:46.200
not an easy object to observe. It's it's quite faint.

395
00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:49.400
It's certainly below a naked eye visibility. Its full name

396
00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:54.119
is C twenty twenty five F two Swans And it's

397
00:24:55.240 --> 00:25:00.160
a morning object at the moment. I haven't observed it.

398
00:25:01.279 --> 00:25:05.680
I am not a morning person because astronomers aren't generally

399
00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:08.440
unless there's an object likes one that they really want

400
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:15.240
to see. But yes, it's it's an interesting object because

401
00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:18.920
it's quite bluish in color.

402
00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:22.279
The the.

403
00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:27.200
You know, the the the observations that you can see

404
00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:33.119
made with relatively small telescopes definitely give it a bluish tinge.

405
00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:40.039
It's it's got a tail that is very very thin.

406
00:25:40.160 --> 00:25:42.519
I haven't seen images of its tail, but I believe

407
00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:46.480
it's it's very very thin, and it's roughly a degree

408
00:25:46.720 --> 00:25:51.160
or so long. But good on Ted for observing it.

409
00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:56.920
It's it's probably fading, although not apparently fading as fast

410
00:25:57.000 --> 00:25:59.039
as some observers have expected.

411
00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:02.599
Yeah, there are some articles are describing it as green,

412
00:26:02.759 --> 00:26:10.759
but different objects being different colors. Yes, from Johnny sent

413
00:26:10.839 --> 00:26:15.039
me some images the other day of what was probably

414
00:26:15.079 --> 00:26:19.599
a metea or a meat or scraping our our what

415
00:26:19.640 --> 00:26:24.880
do you call it atmosphere, and it was green, bright green,

416
00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:28.599
But they're not always color.

417
00:26:29.079 --> 00:26:29.319
Yeah.

418
00:26:29.480 --> 00:26:34.359
So that's from the oxygen in the upper atmosphere that

419
00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:37.160
you get from a fireball or a meteor. And yeah,

420
00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:40.839
I think blue comes if I remember there. I've probably

421
00:26:40.839 --> 00:26:44.400
got this wrong. Carbon monoxide in a comet that might

422
00:26:44.440 --> 00:26:47.759
be the green. I can't remember, but the color is

423
00:26:47.880 --> 00:26:52.160
essentially it means it's telling you something about the gases

424
00:26:52.200 --> 00:26:54.960
that make up the or the frozen gases that make

425
00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:57.480
up the comet, because that's what they are, the balls

426
00:26:57.480 --> 00:26:58.559
of frozen gas.

427
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:03.920
Green comets primarily due to a molecule called diatomic carbon.

428
00:27:04.440 --> 00:27:05.279
Yes, that's right.

429
00:27:06.119 --> 00:27:10.200
And the emission of blue light is it just says

430
00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:13.519
ionized gases such as carbon monoxide.

431
00:27:13.640 --> 00:27:17.599
Yeah, so at least I've got that one right. Who

432
00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:18.400
are you doing? Well?

433
00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:22.359
Yeah, but I haven't seen the comic, but thank you

434
00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:24.920
very much for raising it with Space And it was

435
00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:26.640
just nice to have a mention of it too.

436
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:27.960
We've had We've had.

437
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:30.440
Quite a glut of comets lately, haven't Yeah, it's not

438
00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:34.359
been bad, that's right, and especially there's big ones that

439
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:38.640
threaten us. But anyway, we'll not go there. Thank you, Ted,

440
00:27:38.839 --> 00:27:42.319
Lovely to hear from you. Finally, we're going to discuss

441
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:46.519
something that has been brought up by Fenton in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

442
00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:50.000
I've been an enthusiastic follow of your podcast for several

443
00:27:50.079 --> 00:27:53.160
years and have no doubt about the quality of your knowledge.

444
00:27:54.359 --> 00:27:58.160
I was laughing at myself then analysis and conclusions which

445
00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:01.559
you reached during the discussions, even when you infer I

446
00:28:01.640 --> 00:28:05.799
don't know he's talking about you there. I just came

447
00:28:05.839 --> 00:28:08.960
across the following lay person article, which voices an opinion

448
00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:13.039
on sensational results which make it into the popular press.

449
00:28:13.400 --> 00:28:17.720
Several examples pertain to astronomy and astrophysics. Is it worth

450
00:28:17.799 --> 00:28:22.599
commenting on this phenomenon in your podcasts that comes from Fenton?

451
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:26.839
Thank you, Fenton. Fenton's a regular lovely to hear from you.

452
00:28:28.359 --> 00:28:33.200
This is something Johnty Horner talked about while he filled

453
00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:35.920
in for you a couple of months ago, and he

454
00:28:36.119 --> 00:28:40.039
was very, very scathing on the way the popular press

455
00:28:40.200 --> 00:28:44.119
misinterprets or just goes for the sensationalist headline. And I

456
00:28:44.119 --> 00:28:47.680
think we've seen it a bit with the Life on

457
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:51.119
the other planet that we talked about earlier K two

458
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:53.880
eighteen B. There's been a bit of that going on.

459
00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:57.839
A lot of them have actually been very good and said, look,

460
00:28:57.920 --> 00:29:00.799
we don't know. This is what science so hoping and

461
00:29:00.839 --> 00:29:04.680
thinking and studying, but it's not confirmed. But others have

462
00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:07.960
gone all life on another planet boom, end of story,

463
00:29:08.119 --> 00:29:11.160
not true, or they probably put it in the last paragraph.

464
00:29:12.079 --> 00:29:17.039
That happens a lot unfortunately, Fred, I know, I know

465
00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:23.200
where Johnty stands. I'm sure your thoughts are probably similar.

466
00:29:23.400 --> 00:29:28.359
They're they're similar, that's right. It's partly, you know, a scientist.

467
00:29:28.640 --> 00:29:33.319
In many ways, it's partly our own fault because we

468
00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:38.000
do tend to couch things in maybes and perhaps and possibilities,

469
00:29:38.599 --> 00:29:40.640
and of course that's what the media pick up on.

470
00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:52.640
It's it is hard to avoid that. I think we

471
00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:53.440
have to be careful that.

472
00:29:53.519 --> 00:29:55.839
I mean that the the you know, the story we

473
00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:59.880
discussed a few minutes ago about K two eighteen B.

474
00:30:01.559 --> 00:30:05.000
A quote from the lead author of the paper was

475
00:30:05.119 --> 00:30:12.599
that he says that the most obvious interpretation of the

476
00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:20.839
discovery is that the planet K two eighteen B is

477
00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:26.799
a heishen world teeming with life. And that's throwing you know,

478
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:32.640
it's just throwing a grenade into the media because they'll

479
00:30:32.680 --> 00:30:35.400
pick up on that, and that's the headline, teaming with life.

480
00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:41.160
But we've got absolutely no evidence for that. Even if

481
00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:48.880
the observations of these chemicals is confirmed, it's still not

482
00:30:49.119 --> 00:30:52.519
proof of living organisms. And so to say it's teeming

483
00:30:52.559 --> 00:30:55.039
with life, I mean, he didn't say it's teeming with life.

484
00:30:55.079 --> 00:30:59.240
He said the simplest interpretation of what they've found is

485
00:30:59.279 --> 00:31:01.960
that that's the case, but that does not mean it

486
00:31:02.039 --> 00:31:04.920
is the case. And yes, the media pick up on that.

487
00:31:05.319 --> 00:31:09.079
And I'm also reminded as well as the sorts of

488
00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:12.240
discoveries like the phosphenem venus and all of the other things.

489
00:31:13.880 --> 00:31:16.400
It seems to be happening less often now, but for

490
00:31:16.480 --> 00:31:20.480
a while, every almost every month, we got a picture

491
00:31:20.519 --> 00:31:25.920
of a doorway on Mars, or you know, a tire

492
00:31:26.039 --> 00:31:29.119
on Mars, a track tire. There was one which was

493
00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:34.720
bowler hat on Mars. So somebody who's been abducted all

494
00:31:34.759 --> 00:31:38.680
of that which we now know is this phenomenon called paradolia,

495
00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:41.160
where we look at things and say, oh, that looks

496
00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:42.960
like a bowler hat or that looks like a tire.

497
00:31:43.680 --> 00:31:45.440
Humanize everything, we humanize it.

498
00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:49.400
Yes, that's a great generator of fake news.

499
00:31:50.599 --> 00:31:55.440
What Yeah, the article that Fenton Center, so I had

500
00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:57.720
a look at and it's got a few examples of

501
00:31:58.119 --> 00:32:01.960
fake news. And as someone who worked in the media

502
00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:05.319
for forty years, I'm very much aware of how some

503
00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:10.200
journalists operate. Not all, but some don't have the integrity

504
00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:15.400
to just stick with the fact they want clickbait I

505
00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:19.319
think is the modern term for it. And the writer

506
00:32:19.400 --> 00:32:26.440
of this article, a very astute gives examples of what

507
00:32:27.079 --> 00:32:32.240
turned out to be untrue situations, citing twenty forteen, astronomers

508
00:32:32.279 --> 00:32:34.880
announce a whopper of a discovery primordial waves from the

509
00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:37.480
earliest moments of the Big Bang. The South Pole telescope

510
00:32:37.519 --> 00:32:40.920
results validated a long standing but still shaky hypothesis of

511
00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:41.920
cosmic inflation.

512
00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:44.000
Turned out to be yes.

513
00:32:45.119 --> 00:32:48.000
And there's a couple of stories like that Tabby's star

514
00:32:48.119 --> 00:32:54.000
in twenty fifteen with its strange light pattern, and the

515
00:32:54.039 --> 00:32:57.440
popular press latched onto the possibility that it was surrounded

516
00:32:57.440 --> 00:33:01.640
by a megastructure built by aliens fear that's right. Yeah,

517
00:33:01.640 --> 00:33:05.200
it was bust again. And so it goes on, and

518
00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:08.079
they actually cite the Venus story that we've talked about

519
00:33:08.119 --> 00:33:10.559
a couple of times already. But as we said, it

520
00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:14.880
was debunked. But now they're undebunking at but it's still

521
00:33:15.640 --> 00:33:18.720
got a big question mark over it. And I did

522
00:33:18.799 --> 00:33:20.799
a bit of research myself, Fred to see if I

523
00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:24.200
could find any other stories that popped up that turned

524
00:33:24.240 --> 00:33:27.640
out to be wrong. Twenty sixteen, a paper in the

525
00:33:27.680 --> 00:33:32.160
Astrophysical Journal Letters suggested that galaxy d DF forty four

526
00:33:32.359 --> 00:33:35.440
was highly unusual, containing an exceptionally high amount of dark

527
00:33:35.480 --> 00:33:40.519
matter at least ninety eight percent. They did some follow

528
00:33:40.599 --> 00:33:42.720
up studies and found out that it had a normal

529
00:33:42.759 --> 00:33:47.079
amount of dark matter because it was a low mass

530
00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:53.240
dwarf galaxy. Yeah, and so it goes on. Look, I

531
00:33:53.279 --> 00:33:56.720
know that a lot of the time this sensationalism is

532
00:33:56.839 --> 00:34:01.359
driven by journalists trying to make a headline, and that's

533
00:34:01.480 --> 00:34:03.880
that's what it comes down to. A lot of these

534
00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:07.000
papers are published, and the writer of the article that

535
00:34:07.079 --> 00:34:09.960
Fenton refers to said it openly. There's a lot of

536
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:15.239
pressure on scientists and astronomers and physicists and people in

537
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:20.280
the science fraternity to get published, and sometimes they'll push

538
00:34:20.360 --> 00:34:24.360
the boundaries to get that paper out there and get

539
00:34:24.360 --> 00:34:27.639
the headline and the popular press. We'll hone in on

540
00:34:27.960 --> 00:34:31.639
we have found life like a fly to a flame.

541
00:34:32.440 --> 00:34:36.519
And that's that's really that. That is the problem. But

542
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:40.559
I'd like to say that most people are astute enough

543
00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:44.079
to read beyond the opening paragraph and get to the

544
00:34:44.119 --> 00:34:48.920
part where they actually tell you the truth be in

545
00:34:48.960 --> 00:34:49.679
there somewhere.

546
00:34:50.079 --> 00:34:52.960
Ye, yes, that's right, it is. Yeah, it's nearly always

547
00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:56.480
in there somewhere. No, I agree with that. So it

548
00:34:56.519 --> 00:34:58.440
sounds as John Ty said the same thing as what

549
00:34:58.480 --> 00:34:59.119
I would have said.

550
00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:04.559
Yes, he was sitting on a wheelchair with a sign.

551
00:35:04.800 --> 00:35:05.039
And.

552
00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:07.679
Yes's show you what.

553
00:35:10.199 --> 00:35:13.599
Kind of looked like him though never mind, But yeah, Fenton,

554
00:35:13.639 --> 00:35:18.320
you're right, it is something that exists. Is it something

555
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:23.480
to worry about? Oh gosh, maybe a bit. But I

556
00:35:23.599 --> 00:35:27.800
think overall the science fraternity has got enough integrity and

557
00:35:28.079 --> 00:35:32.000
certainly an abundance of intelligence to get past it and

558
00:35:32.039 --> 00:35:32.960
stick to the facts.

559
00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:34.840
That's that's how I read it.

560
00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:39.320
Yeah, I think that's pretty well all we can say

561
00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:39.639
about it.

562
00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:40.360
What do you reckon for it.

563
00:35:41.320 --> 00:35:46.920
Yeah, there's you know, there's an almost endless list of things.

564
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:51.239
You know, the Apollo astronauts never went to the moon,

565
00:35:51.320 --> 00:35:53.880
another piece of fake news, all of that kind of thing.

566
00:35:55.079 --> 00:35:59.360
It's so it's sort of borders into conspiracy theory some

567
00:35:59.400 --> 00:36:02.320
of the times. Well, it feeds into the same sort

568
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:05.440
of psychology that lets people believe conspiracies.

569
00:36:06.039 --> 00:36:06.280
Yeah.

570
00:36:06.719 --> 00:36:10.079
Ye, people who are always looking for something to believe in,

571
00:36:10.119 --> 00:36:13.400
and quite often they're easily duped.

572
00:36:14.519 --> 00:36:15.760
And that happens.

573
00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:18.840
And yes, the media needs to take a long hard

574
00:36:18.840 --> 00:36:22.159
look at itself and to use the Australian colloquialism, give

575
00:36:22.199 --> 00:36:26.880
themselves an upper cut and that might solve it bad things.

576
00:36:26.559 --> 00:36:29.840
So yeah, if you don't know what introspection means, it's

577
00:36:29.880 --> 00:36:31.719
time you took a long, hard look at yourself.

578
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:35.559
That's sorry, I could resist.

579
00:36:35.239 --> 00:36:39.679
Now, all right, thank you Fenton. That's a great topic

580
00:36:39.679 --> 00:36:41.519
for debate and I hope we get to talk about

581
00:36:41.559 --> 00:36:43.599
it again because it won't stop.

582
00:36:43.880 --> 00:36:46.480
It just won't stop anyway.

583
00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:50.360
All good and thanks to all our contributors. Don't forget

584
00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:53.039
to contribute yourself. If you have questions for us, send

585
00:36:53.039 --> 00:36:56.559
them to us via our website. Space Nuts Podcast dot com,

586
00:36:56.599 --> 00:37:00.599
Space Nuts dot Io. A few turn up on Facebook,

587
00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:03.480
Messenger and things like that, and when I remember to look,

588
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:06.239
I will dig them up. But your best to go

589
00:37:06.320 --> 00:37:09.000
through our website audio or text will take them both.

590
00:37:10.280 --> 00:37:12.239
Or you can send us a carrier pigeon if you

591
00:37:12.280 --> 00:37:17.280
can find one that hasn't become extinct. And that brings

592
00:37:17.360 --> 00:37:18.079
us to the end.

593
00:37:18.119 --> 00:37:23.079
Fred, thank you very much, great pleasure, Andrew, and we

594
00:37:23.119 --> 00:37:24.079
will do it again soon.

595
00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:27.119
I hope yes, maybe next week or the week after

596
00:37:27.400 --> 00:37:32.840
or something like that, whenever we can get together. Bred Watson,

597
00:37:32.920 --> 00:37:35.159
Astronomer at Large and thanks to hear in the studio,

598
00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:36.760
though he couldn't be with us today he is too

599
00:37:36.760 --> 00:37:39.599
busy generating fake news. Got back to his old career

600
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:43.840
like that, and from me Andrew, thanks to your company.

601
00:37:44.320 --> 00:37:46.719
See you on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.

602
00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:50.679
To the Space Nuts podcast.

603
00:37:52.280 --> 00:37:57.440
Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or your favorite

604
00:37:57.440 --> 00:37:58.360
podcast player.

605
00:37:58.559 --> 00:37:59.400
You can also.

606
00:37:59.199 --> 00:38:02.199
Stream onto ma and at bites dot com. This has

607
00:38:02.239 --> 00:38:07.280
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