April 24, 2025

K2 18b, Life's Potential & the Mysteries of the Hycean World

K2 18b, Life's Potential & the Mysteries of the Hycean World

Space Nuts Episode 515: K2 18b, Polar Orbits, and the Lucy Mission
In this fascinating episode of Space Nuts, host Heidi Campo takes the helm for her final week as Andrew Dunkley prepares to return. Joined by the ever-knowledgeable Professor Fred...

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Space Nuts Episode 515: K2 18b, Polar Orbits, and the Lucy Mission
In this fascinating episode of Space Nuts, host Heidi Campo takes the helm for her final week as Andrew Dunkley prepares to return. Joined by the ever-knowledgeable Professor Fred Watson, they delve into some of the most exciting recent discoveries in astronomy, including the much-discussed K2 18b, the peculiar polar orbit of a newly discovered planet, and the latest from NASA's Lucy mission.
Episode Highlights:
- K2 18b's Potential for Life: Heidi and Fred explore the latest findings on K2 18b, a planet in the habitable zone of its star that exhibits chemical signatures potentially linked to life. They discuss the significance of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyldisulfide and the challenges of confirming these findings through the James Webb Space Telescope.
- The Mystery of Polar Orbits: The duo shifts gears to discuss the surprising discovery of a planet orbiting in a polar configuration around a binary star system. Fred explains the implications of this unusual orbit and the theories surrounding its formation, raising questions about the nature of planetary systems.
- The Lucy Mission: The episode wraps up with an exciting update on NASA's Lucy mission, which aims to explore Trojan asteroids. Heidi and Fred discuss the mission's unique goals, the significance of the asteroid named after paleoanthropologist Donaldjohanson Johanson, and the intriguing connections between the mission's title and its namesake.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
If you’d like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit spacenutspodcast.com/about
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
(00:00) Welcome to Space Nuts with Heidi Campo and Fred Watson
(01:15) Discussion on K2 18b and its potential for life
(15:30) The polar orbit discovery around binary stars
(25:00) Updates on NASA's Lucy mission and its asteroid flyby
For the 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.

 

 

WEBVTT

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Welcome back to another exciting episode of Space Nuts. I

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am your temporary host and this will be my last

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week here before you get your beloved Andrew Dunkley back.

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But my name is Heidi Compo and I'm here with

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the wonderful, delightful, brilliant Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large.

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Oh Heidi, you can you can come again. It's very

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very generous introduction there, Thank you very much.

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Oh well, we're just excited to have you here, Fred.

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And yes, you are all listening to another episode of

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Space Nuts.

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Fifteen second guidance the in Channel ten nine ignition Space

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Nuts NY four three two.

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One Space Nurts as an act recorded Neil's Good and

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today on this episode of Space Nuts, we are going

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to be first and foremost talking about the conversation that

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is on everybody's mind. It's been the hot topic in

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space science lately. And no, it is not what you're thinking.

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It is actually talking about K two eighteen B the planet.

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And we are going to be talking about all of

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the news that's real versus what's kind of fake. There's

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probably a lot of misinformation out there, So Fred, let's

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start with just breaking down what's the big news about

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this planet.

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Yeah, it's big news that's been I guess a fairly

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long time coming, because this planet has captured the interest

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of astronomers and astrobiologists in particular, and they're the scientists

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who study the origin of life and whether there's life

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elsewhere in the universe. Because first of all, it's orbits

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in its home star. The planet orbits in its stars

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Goldilock zone, the Goldilock soon where it's not too hot

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and it's not too cold, but it's just right for

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liquid water to exist. The star itself K two eighteen

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is a red dwarf star, which means it's much cooler

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than our Sun until this planet orbits closer to its

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parent star than we do, but it still has the

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right temperature for liquid water to exist. And in fact,

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it's been hypothesized that this was what's called the Hycian world,

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which is a world which is covered with a liquid

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water ocean and probably a hydrogen atmosphere. We don't know

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for certain that these worlds exist, but they fit the modeling,

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and so the evidence seems to be coming from K

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to eighteen B that it's a world like this, And

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partly that's due to earlier observations which showed concentrations of

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both carbon dioxide and methane in its atmosphere. So that

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has sort of put this planet on the kind of

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hit list of astrobiologists, you know, it's made them aware

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of the fact that it's a planet that could just

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possibly harbor life. And so the group of scientists who

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have kind of hit the headlines with this story have

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used they've been using the James Web Space telescope, our

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kind of currently best tool for doing this kind of thing,

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in order to probe more deeply into the atmosphere of

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K two eighteen B, and by more deeply, I mean

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in more detail and with greater sensitivity. That James Web

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telescopes are six and a half meter diameter telescope, so

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it's got good light gathering power. But it has to

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be said, and this is the caveat at the beginning

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of all discussions of this kind, that the observations that

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these scientists are making are very very difficult ones because

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what you have to do is look at the light

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from the star. Since you don't see the planet itself,

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all you can see is the combined light of the

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star and the planet. You look at the light from

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the star, you examine it with the spectrograph. That's the

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device that breaks the light up into its rainbow of

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colors and gives us this barcode of information about what's

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in the atmosphere of the star. And then when the

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planet passes in front of the star, you've got a

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tiny additional component that comes from starlight which is passing

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through the atmosphere of the planet itself. So there's this

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tiny little ring of atmosphere that is superimposed on the

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disc of the star. We don't see any of that,

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but we know that's what's happening, and in that in

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the atmosphere, that basically puts an extra dimension into the spectrum.

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It gives you a little bit more information in the

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spectrum and you can deduce what is coming from the

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atmosphere of the planet and what's coming from the star itself.

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And so to cut to the chase, and new observations

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seem to confirm at a confidence level they say of

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ninety nine point seven percent, which is pretty confident, but

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they seem to confirm earlier observations that hinted two chemicals

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in the atmosphere of the planet K two eighteen B,

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which are usually and certainly always on Earth, they are

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generated by living organisms. The two chemicals are dimethyl sulfide

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and dimethyl disulfide, two with very similar names organic chemicals,

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carbon containing chemicals. As I said, on Earth, they come

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from living organisms. And so that is the story as

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we know it today. And of course the excitement comes

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from the fact that if those chemicals are only generated

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by living organisms on Earth, maybe the same is true

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on this so called a possible Ican world. Now to

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put a sober touch on it, it's really difficult. First

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of all, it's really difficult to make the observations, and

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there's still some people who think that might go away,

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that the dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl dire sulfide aren't really there.

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And what will happen on that front is more observations

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will be made, certainly with the James Web telescope, and

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in a few years time, we hope, with the extremely

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large telescope that European monster that's being built in the

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Northern Andes. So that's the first thing. The second thing

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is can these chemicals only be produced by life? Are

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their other explanations and a number of scientists have raised

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that as a possibility. They're saying, well, it's so hard

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to pick a biomarker, something that is an absolutely dead,

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certain piece of evidence about biology. It's very hard to

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pick things like you know, that are give you a

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rock solid case that you've got living organisms. And so

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what they're saying is, maybe there are other natural processes

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that don't involve life, abiotic as we call them, abiotic

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processes that these chemicals to exist but don't come from life.

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And one suggestion is volcanic activity of a kind that

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we're not yet familiar with. And so I loved it.

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One of the comments in one of the news articles

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you might have seen it too, Heidi, that this might

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not be vulcans but might be volcanism, which I thought

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was quite neat. So that's the story so far, and

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it's one of these stories that I think will evolve

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over time, as it has done already, and maybe we'll

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cover it on space not so one of the news breaks.

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If it does, so tell me what the timeline of

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this evolution could look like. We are building satellites that

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can give us more information, but we're really kind of

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just holding here. We're sitting here on the edge of

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our seats waiting for this information, so the satellites will

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tell us more. But with how far away this plant is,

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and I forget how far away you said it was,

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how long would it take for us to get a

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probe there to even clock soil sales?

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That's a really good question. It's distances one hundred and

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twenty four light years, So with the best available the

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fastest available spacecraft we have at present, we'd be looking

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at more than a million years to get there, as

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in the calculation I did it in my head. Actually,

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so it might be wrong, but it is at least

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a million years probably.

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So remember that part earlier when I said the brilliant,

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wonderful that's that's what we're talking about right here.

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Well, yeah, it's I'm thinking of. You know, it would

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take about sixty thousand years with a spacecraft like New Horizons,

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which for a while was the fastest human made object

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traveling through the Solar System, it would take about sixty

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thousand years to get to Alpha Centauri, the nearest of

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the stars, and that's four light years away, so you

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can do the kind of do the calcup nation.

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So that's you know, that's not happening anytime soon.

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But you know, with a lot of the new technologies

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coming out, maybe we will see the possibility.

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Of soil sampling in our lifetime. I know.

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I was just at the Texas Space Grant Consortum Design

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Showcase this past weekend and there were some really really

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cool engineering ideas being presented with nuclear propulsion and lots

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of other really cool things that were really kind of

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just on the fringe of then may may we may

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have those breakthroughs very soon.

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You're right, and I mean, in fact, breakthrough is the

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word because the Breakthrough Funding Body has set up. It's

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a foundation founded by gentlemen. If I remember right these names,

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You're in Milner. You're in Milner, who's a Russian billionaire

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who set up these foundations, one of which is called

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Breakthrough Starshot, which looks at the possibility of using light

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sales to accelerate a spacecraft to something like half the

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speed of light. And if you could do that, then

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you can get to the nearest star in well eight

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years rather than four years. Four years it takes light

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to come here. Eight years would do it? Then you

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we've got to wait four years for the signals to

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come back to show us what we've found there. But yeah,

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as you say, a lot of technologies are in the mix.

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Very briefly though, what will happen I think on the

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near timescale, more James Web telescope observations, I'm sure of

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K to eighteen B and as I said, when the

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extremely large telescope it's thirty nine point three meter diameter

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mirror comes online in twenty twenty eight, you can bet

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your life this will be one of the first targets

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that they'll turn their spectrographs onto just to see what

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else is there.

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That's all really really exciting. Fred.

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I am wondering if you could tell me and some

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of our other listeners who are just maybe curious a

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little bit about the operational side of these things. When

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we get some cool breakthroughs with this, do the researchers

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have to apply for grants with telescope time or satellite

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time to be able to look at these planets.

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Yep, that's how it works, and those those applications are

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generally speaking, you know that there will be a facility

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like the James Web and an independent entity which will

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look at the merits of the scientific proposals that have

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been put forward for observation on the James Web and

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they'll they'll basically give them their their time based on merit.

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It's quite it's almost a cutthroat process. It's very if

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you're a researcher, and I used to do this myself

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years and years ago, you have to you kind of

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got you're holding your breath when when you know this

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committee is meeting and you're holding your breath for what

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the outcome is as to whether you're going to get

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your nights of time as it used to be on

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ground based telescopes. I think they have hours of time

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on JWST. You get two or three hours and you've

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done very well. Yeah, so it is it's a pretty

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egalitarian process. It's really just based on merit generally speaking,

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rather than who can pay or anything like that.

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Yeah. I always think of the movie Contact, and I

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think it's every scientist stream to just have this wealthy

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benefactor with unlimited resources show about nowhere and give you

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unlimited telescope time.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, m a space nuts. Well, you know that is

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something that is very very exciting. But as our next

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article says, you know, there are other big surprises out there,

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and this is not the only exciting thing happening in space.

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So I wanted to kind of pivot to the next

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article that you had on the deck for today, which

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is talking about the perpendicular orbit around these pairs of stars.

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I mean, this kind of sounds almost like there's some

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black hole stuff going on.

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Maybe there is. Yeah, that's right. It's some results that

217
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have come from the European Southern Observatory, which we've indirectly

218
00:12:56.840 --> 00:13:00.720
just mentioned because they're they're the organization which putting together

219
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the extremely Large telescope at Sara Amazonas in northern Chile.

220
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About ten kilometers from that site is the site of actually,

221
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you know, it's about twenty kilometers from that site, let

222
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me get it right, is a mountain called Serah Paranal,

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which has got what is currently the sort of largest

224
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set of telescopes, and that certainly the most effective set

225
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of telescopes in the Southern hemisphere, the four telescopes of

226
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the VLT, the very Large Telescope, and that is a

227
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very powerful facility. And some results that have come from

228
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that actually carried out by researchers based at the University

229
00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:43.000
of Birmingham in the UK, and they would have had

230
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to apply for time on these telescopes, as we've just

231
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been talking about, and I know it's a very rigorous process.

232
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It's quite a difficult thing to go through. Anyway, they

233
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have been looking at an object. Of God, are we

234
00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:00.519
good at giving names to things? An object two M

235
00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:04.320
one five to one zero. Open brackets A, B, close

236
00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:07.759
brackets B. That's the name of this planet.

237
00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:12.320
But it's as kid, Oh yeah.

238
00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:18.240
Don't go there. It's it's a planet that is in

239
00:14:18.440 --> 00:14:22.519
orbits around not one star, but a pair of stars,

240
00:14:22.919 --> 00:14:26.399
and that I'm sure would be familiar to you as

241
00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:30.559
a science fiction officionado. I never know how to pronounce that.

242
00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:30.840
Is it?

243
00:14:30.919 --> 00:14:33.279
Tat tatuin tatuini?

244
00:14:34.399 --> 00:14:37.000
I think, yeah, we think we've got it. Yes, Star Wars,

245
00:14:37.159 --> 00:14:39.159
the sand the sand desert planet.

246
00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:43.519
Yeah, so a planet orbiting a pair of stars, Well,

247
00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:46.399
that's exactly what two M one five one zero, et

248
00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:50.399
cetera is doing. But the surprise that has come from

249
00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:55.120
this is the way in which it orbits is exactly

250
00:14:55.159 --> 00:14:58.600
as you said in the intro. We've got two stars

251
00:14:59.080 --> 00:15:00.919
which are in orbit to around one another. It's what

252
00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:04.279
we call a binary system, and these are very very

253
00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:08.840
common throughout our galaxy. In this case, it's two brown

254
00:15:08.919 --> 00:15:14.759
dwarf stars. Again, the stars that are cool and a

255
00:15:14.840 --> 00:15:17.200
bit like the ones we've one we've just been talking

256
00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:20.240
about with that other planet orbiting around it. So we're

257
00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:24.480
doing two planet stories this week. But this is curious

258
00:15:25.080 --> 00:15:29.720
because the planet orbits the pair of stars in a

259
00:15:29.799 --> 00:15:33.799
plane perpendicular to the plane in which they orbit. If

260
00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:36.919
I can, that might not be very clear. But the

261
00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:40.399
two stars orbit one another, that defines a plane at

262
00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:42.960
right angles to that is the plane and which the

263
00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:47.399
planet orbits. It's what we call a polar orbit. It's

264
00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:51.960
it's something that's very hard to understand. And the reason

265
00:15:52.039 --> 00:15:55.600
why is that we think that when planets form around

266
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a star, they they form in a single plane, which

267
00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:04.879
is usually the same plane as which the star is

268
00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:08.159
rotating it, in other words, the equatorial plane of the star.

269
00:16:08.519 --> 00:16:13.200
And that's just because of the mechanism in which stars form. Now,

270
00:16:13.200 --> 00:16:15.519
if you've got a binary pair of stars which were

271
00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:18.879
orbiting one another, that defines a plane which probably had

272
00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:22.120
what we call a protoplanetary disc in it where planets

273
00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:27.559
are being formed. But somehow this planet is not part

274
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of that disc, and it raises questions like has it

275
00:16:32.759 --> 00:16:37.039
been captured from another solar system that passed by this

276
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pair of stars too close, and they gravity grabbed hold

277
00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:43.960
of this planet, put it into this weird, weird orbit,

278
00:16:44.919 --> 00:16:49.559
and there it is as we find it today. I

279
00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:54.679
just one quote from one of the authors. They said,

280
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we reviewed all possible scenarios and the only one consistent

281
00:16:59.480 --> 00:17:01.600
with the data is a planet on a polar orbit

282
00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:05.279
about this binary. The discovery was serendipitous in the sense

283
00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:08.480
that our observations were not collected to seek such a

284
00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:11.720
planet or orbital configuration, and as such it's a big

285
00:17:11.799 --> 00:17:15.039
surprise overall. I think this shows to us astronomers, but

286
00:17:15.160 --> 00:17:18.039
also to the public at large what is possible in

287
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the fascinating universe we inhabit. Quite poetic. I like what

288
00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:26.200
they've said there. They'll be working on mechanisms for which

289
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this has occurred, just to try and work out what

290
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the history of this unusual system is.

291
00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:35.440
Well, it does look pretty spectacular based off of the

292
00:17:36.519 --> 00:17:39.519
I guess the artist renderings of what these orbital patterns

293
00:17:39.559 --> 00:17:42.200
would look like. And I guess, you know, this is

294
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another one of those things we'll see and it's you know,

295
00:17:45.200 --> 00:17:47.839
and it really makes me hope that we can continue

296
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to get plenty of funding for all the research that's

297
00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:53.680
going on, because while what's going on, what's really exciting

298
00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:58.680
with k K two eighteen V, that's going to take

299
00:17:58.680 --> 00:18:02.000
away from telescope time going on with this orbit pattern, right.

300
00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:09.000
Yes, yeah, yes, just so no sorry, HYDI. That is

301
00:18:09.039 --> 00:18:11.839
a really good point. You know that these resources are

302
00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:16.480
a limited there are a limited quantity. So typically on

303
00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:19.160
the telescope, I used to work on the ang Australian telescope,

304
00:18:19.240 --> 00:18:23.160
the biggest one in Australia. We were for every night

305
00:18:23.319 --> 00:18:26.319
on the telescope there were three or four different research

306
00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:29.960
groups wanting to use it. So telescope time is a

307
00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:34.319
limited resource. And if, like I was several times, you

308
00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:37.880
get washed out by bad weather, then you've just got

309
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to start again from scratch and you know, compete with

310
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the with the other other sometimes perhaps better experiments that

311
00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:49.200
people want to do, measurements that they want to make.

312
00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:54.400
So yes, a limited a limited commodity. The more telescopes

313
00:18:54.440 --> 00:18:58.079
we have, the better we can fulfill those requirements. But

314
00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:00.880
of course the more expensive it becomes, and governments who

315
00:19:01.079 --> 00:19:04.119
tend to fund these things are not that generous when

316
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:08.119
it comes to astronomical facilities compared with some of the

317
00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:10.480
more pressing demands on their public purses.

318
00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:14.559
Yeah, and that's all, you know, that's all something to consider,

319
00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:16.920
what you know, depending on every nation that you're a

320
00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:19.559
part of. I mean, space is really becoming such a

321
00:19:19.640 --> 00:19:22.000
global economy, and I know we have listeners from all

322
00:19:22.079 --> 00:19:24.640
over the world, so you know, make sure that you're

323
00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:27.000
paying attention to what's going on in your country and

324
00:19:27.160 --> 00:19:34.039
how you can support the space industry as it grows. Okay,

325
00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:34.640
we take a.

326
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Space nuts and so it's kind of funny.

327
00:19:39.160 --> 00:19:42.160
I'm looking at our our last article for today and

328
00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:46.559
it's Easter Sunday for me, and it is Monday morning

329
00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:49.440
for you. I always I still I don't. I don't

330
00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:50.799
know if I will be able to live my whole

331
00:19:50.839 --> 00:19:52.559
life and still be able to wrap my head around

332
00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:58.079
the time difference of Australians. But my article for today

333
00:19:58.319 --> 00:20:01.759
and your article for yesterday, I guess it was the

334
00:20:02.839 --> 00:20:08.279
Lucy probe flew around an asteroid and it looks like

335
00:20:08.359 --> 00:20:10.559
its name is Donald Johnson.

336
00:20:10.799 --> 00:20:11.920
Is the name of the asteroid?

337
00:20:12.440 --> 00:20:17.839
Yeah, Donald Johnson? Yeah, that's right. I really like this

338
00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:21.200
story actually because it touches lots of little quirky things.

339
00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:26.240
NASA is so great at picking names for the projects

340
00:20:26.279 --> 00:20:30.880
that they do. So what Lucy is about. And this

341
00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:35.880
is a spacecraft. It was launched back in can't remember,

342
00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:40.519
it was twenty twenty one, I think or thereabouts. It

343
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:46.480
was launched in order to probe what we call the

344
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Trojan asteroids. And these are two clusters of asteroids which

345
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are in the same orbits as Jupiter, but bunch sixty

346
00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:00.359
degrees ahead of Jupiter in its orbit and sixty degrees

347
00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:04.119
behind Jupiter in its orbit, So two lumps of asteroids.

348
00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:08.119
And they come about because of these stable gravitational points

349
00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:10.960
that I beloved actually of space nuts listeners, we get

350
00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:13.839
so many questions on these they called the Lagrange points,

351
00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:16.839
named after the mathematician who who discovered them in the

352
00:21:17.079 --> 00:21:20.319
actually in the eighteenth century discovered that they should exist,

353
00:21:21.279 --> 00:21:24.480
and they collect debris. And so Jupiter has I think

354
00:21:24.519 --> 00:21:27.640
it's seven thousand in one of those two points and

355
00:21:27.799 --> 00:21:30.480
nine thousand in the other. It's a huge number of asteroids.

356
00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:36.799
There are the equivalent on objects around other planets or

357
00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:40.759
orbiting co orbitally with other planets, but Jupiter's is the

358
00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:44.519
richest of the Trojan asteroids. And of course that's because

359
00:21:44.519 --> 00:21:47.319
it's the biggest and most massive planet, more massive than

360
00:21:47.359 --> 00:21:51.400
all the other planets put together. Now, we've never visited

361
00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:54.799
a Trojan asteroid, and it may be that they have

362
00:21:54.960 --> 00:22:00.359
a different sort of structure from the normal astras that

363
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:02.680
we find in the main asteroid belt. They might have

364
00:22:02.799 --> 00:22:09.599
different composition, different different origins, different histories that we can

365
00:22:09.720 --> 00:22:12.640
interpret from measurements of their surfaces and things of that sort.

366
00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:17.319
And so the LuSE emission is going to visit Trojan asteroids,

367
00:22:17.720 --> 00:22:22.039
not just one, but seven of them. So it's going

368
00:22:22.119 --> 00:22:23.880
to do a kind of grand tour. And in fact,

369
00:22:23.960 --> 00:22:26.680
I think it's six in one of the clouds of

370
00:22:26.759 --> 00:22:29.480
Trojans and one in the other one. I can't remember

371
00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:33.240
which way around it is trip. Yeah, it's an absolute

372
00:22:33.319 --> 00:22:37.680
road trip, that's right. But on the way they are

373
00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:42.279
flying by a main belt asteroid, and that's the one

374
00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:45.720
that we're talking about. Donald Johansson. Number five double two

375
00:22:45.799 --> 00:22:52.279
four six is its number. Now, the backstory here is

376
00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:56.720
that Lucy got its name from that three point two

377
00:22:56.839 --> 00:23:00.599
million year old fossil skeleton of wonder, if I could

378
00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:09.839
say Ostralopithecus afarenthisis Lucy. You probably won't recall well, you

379
00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:12.920
definitely won't recall because you weren't born then. But back

380
00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:17.440
in nineteen seventy four, this little hominid fossil was discovered

381
00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:22.279
in Africa, in Ethiopia in fact, and given the name

382
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:30.440
Lucy by the the basically the anthropologists and in fact

383
00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:33.920
paleo anthropologists who dug up the skeleton and found it,

384
00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:36.319
they called it Lucy. And the reason they called it

385
00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:38.920
Lucy is because the whole time that they were doing

386
00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:43.079
the dig and talking about this wonderful fossil that they'd discovered,

387
00:23:43.119 --> 00:23:46.680
that's only it's a female fossil, it's only a few

388
00:23:46.720 --> 00:23:50.400
feet tall. They were playing the Beatles Lucy in the

389
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:53.920
Sky with diamonds the whole time that they were digging

390
00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:58.839
it up, and so they basically so NASA picked up

391
00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:03.119
on this. They had a little nod to one of

392
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:09.160
the instruments that the spacecraft carries, which has a fundamental part,

393
00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:13.000
which is a disc of lab grown diamonds. So the

394
00:24:13.119 --> 00:24:18.200
spacecraft itself is carrying diamonds, so what else but to

395
00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:21.519
call it Lucy in the sky with diamonds. So that's

396
00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:26.200
a really nice touch. But I thought the clincher was

397
00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:28.359
that the asteroid that they're visiting on the way, as

398
00:24:28.400 --> 00:24:32.240
you've said, is called Donald Johansson. Donald Johansson was the

399
00:24:32.359 --> 00:24:39.319
lead earlier anthropologist on that dig to find Lucy. He

400
00:24:39.480 --> 00:24:42.680
is the person whose name is forever attached to the

401
00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:47.720
Lucy hominid, and his asteroid is sitting out there in

402
00:24:47.839 --> 00:24:50.920
space waiting for a visit by the Lucy spacecraft. I

403
00:24:50.920 --> 00:24:53.200
think it might have already happened. Actually as we're speaking,

404
00:24:53.480 --> 00:24:57.640
it was due on Sunday, I think probably Houston time.

405
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:02.400
Donald finds Lucy and then Lucy finds Donald.

406
00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:10.039
Cute little roundabout a thing of just you know, rocks

407
00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:12.599
and diamonds and all these fun little things in space.

408
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:15.920
And what a what a fun backstory. Thank you so

409
00:25:16.079 --> 00:25:17.240
much for sharing out with us.

410
00:25:17.319 --> 00:25:17.559
Fred.

411
00:25:17.920 --> 00:25:20.880
So what do you think that they're kind of expecting

412
00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:24.119
to really hoping to find.

413
00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:28.880
So it will be a flyby. So what will happen

414
00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:34.240
is we'll see lots of images. We will see the

415
00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:39.519
surface of the asteroid. I think I think lucyflies by

416
00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:45.599
something like five hundred five hundred kilometers from the asteroid,

417
00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:51.000
so it's a close approach. We'll start to see details

418
00:25:51.039 --> 00:25:54.039
of its surface. As I said, there's a spectrometer attached

419
00:25:54.079 --> 00:25:58.079
to the spacecraft. It's been characterized as a carbonaceous asteroid,

420
00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:02.319
a C type asteroid, which is a you know, one

421
00:26:02.359 --> 00:26:07.559
of interest because it's got high carbon content. What I

422
00:26:07.799 --> 00:26:11.880
was just wanting to check and I think that's not

423
00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:12.759
the case.

424
00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:15.079
Is yep.

425
00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:22.079
Donald Johansson is eighty one years old. He was born

426
00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:25.519
in Chicago, so he's still around and hopefully cheering the

427
00:26:25.559 --> 00:26:28.519
spacecraft on to the asteroid that is named by brought him.

428
00:26:28.759 --> 00:26:31.799
That's wonderful, a fun story.

429
00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:36.000
Do you have any planets or asteroids named after you?

430
00:26:37.279 --> 00:26:37.480
I do.

431
00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:42.480
Asteroid five six nine one is called Fred Watson. Yes,

432
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:45.319
it's all one word, Fred Watson, that was named in

433
00:26:45.880 --> 00:26:47.519
two thousand and three.

434
00:26:47.640 --> 00:26:51.279
I think it must be quite the handsome asteroid.

435
00:26:52.319 --> 00:26:55.359
I think it's do you know, I can tell you

436
00:26:55.440 --> 00:26:59.720
what its main characteristic is. It's totally boring because it's

437
00:26:59.839 --> 00:27:02.759
just the main belt asteroid that orbits between the orbits

438
00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:06.599
of Mars and Jupiter. When when we had news that

439
00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:09.559
that asteroid had been named after me, which I honestly

440
00:27:09.599 --> 00:27:12.640
I was blown away by. My two boys were quite

441
00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:15.759
young then, and I came home and told them they've

442
00:27:16.119 --> 00:27:18.119
they've led an asteroid after me, and they said, Dad,

443
00:27:18.200 --> 00:27:21.000
that's terrible. If it hits the Earth, it'll be your fault.

444
00:27:22.039 --> 00:27:24.720
And so they were quite you know, they were only

445
00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:27.039
young then. But it's a good point. But it never

446
00:27:27.119 --> 00:27:29.039
will it's so boring. It will never hit the Earth.

447
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:31.400
That's the well, that's going to be.

448
00:27:31.559 --> 00:27:33.240
That's going to be the asteroid that we find some

449
00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:36.519
weird alien spacecraft one that's where they've been hiding out

450
00:27:36.559 --> 00:27:37.160
this whole time.

451
00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:39.240
Then you'll go down in history.

452
00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:42.319
That's right. That would that would indeed be the case.

453
00:27:42.440 --> 00:27:45.640
Yes, all excellent, Fred.

454
00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:49.680
This has been a really fun conversation just talking about

455
00:27:49.799 --> 00:27:54.279
the most exciting discoveries, and we really got to talk

456
00:27:54.319 --> 00:27:57.920
today about, you know, how these discoveries happened, a little

457
00:27:57.960 --> 00:28:01.039
bit of the drama behind, you know, the the competition

458
00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:04.039
of getting that satellite time and that telescope time, and

459
00:28:04.119 --> 00:28:06.759
then you know, the fun, exciting I think just kind

460
00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:09.599
of the tender, personable moments of this whole industry and

461
00:28:09.680 --> 00:28:13.160
now people making discoveries and having things named after them,

462
00:28:13.279 --> 00:28:16.200
and just the tribute to people's hard work.

463
00:28:17.680 --> 00:28:22.000
That's right. It's a global endeavor. You know, all of

464
00:28:22.119 --> 00:28:25.359
this research in both space science and in astronomy and

465
00:28:25.480 --> 00:28:28.920
it's a fairly I guess, a fairly close knit bunch

466
00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:32.400
of people. And certainly there are only ten thousand astronomers

467
00:28:32.440 --> 00:28:35.720
in the world professional astronomers, which is not that many

468
00:28:35.799 --> 00:28:39.319
when you consider how many people there are. It might

469
00:28:39.359 --> 00:28:41.079
be a bit more than that now, it's probably more

470
00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:43.720
like fifteen thousand, but it's still a relatively small number.

471
00:28:44.400 --> 00:28:46.880
The space industry, of course, is a commercial industry, has

472
00:28:46.960 --> 00:28:50.880
much bigger numbers and ultimately more money. But nevertheless, the

473
00:28:50.960 --> 00:28:54.599
things that we do entwine so closely that we learn

474
00:28:54.680 --> 00:28:56.759
from each other, each community learned from the other one.

475
00:28:56.920 --> 00:28:58.559
So yeah, it's nice to be able to talk about

476
00:28:58.599 --> 00:29:02.599
the way these things happen on an episode of Space Knots.

477
00:29:03.240 --> 00:29:04.359
Yeah, it's a kind of a.

478
00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:08.720
Space community, a space family, and we're all kind of

479
00:29:08.839 --> 00:29:12.799
just a big global family. I heard a fun comment.

480
00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:14.160
Over the last week.

481
00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:18.880
Somebody said that Houston, Texas is the gateway to the galaxy,

482
00:29:19.480 --> 00:29:21.240
and it made me think, it's like, wow, you know,

483
00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:23.640
we think of like, you know, Houston, Texas is big

484
00:29:23.759 --> 00:29:26.079
space city, but it's like this is really going to

485
00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:28.799
end up just being a pit stop onto the bigger,

486
00:29:28.839 --> 00:29:29.519
bigger things.

487
00:29:29.559 --> 00:29:32.200
What did we go on to discover in the future.

488
00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:34.920
So, Fred, did you have anything else you wanted to

489
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:38.000
add or commentate on the articles we talked about today.

490
00:29:38.440 --> 00:29:41.200
Not really, I think we've covered them pretty well. But

491
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:44.839
I would like to say I think this is probably

492
00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:47.799
our last to get together for a while. It's been

493
00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:50.160
great talking to you. Actually it's not quite the last

494
00:29:50.200 --> 00:29:51.759
because we've got a Q and A session to do

495
00:29:51.880 --> 00:29:54.160
as well. But in the main sessions, thank you very

496
00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:59.279
much Hidie for your expert handling of all our topics

497
00:30:00.119 --> 00:30:01.400
lovely questions that you've asked.

498
00:30:01.920 --> 00:30:03.880
Oh well, thank you so much, Fred, I appreciate that.

499
00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:05.920
And thank you to all the listeners who wrote in

500
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:08.359
and said thank you that I'm doing a good job.

501
00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:10.599
That certainly made me feel really nice. So thank you

502
00:30:10.759 --> 00:30:13.200
to the listeners. Thank you, Fred, and you will all

503
00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:16.039
have Andrew back next week. You get me for one

504
00:30:16.119 --> 00:30:18.640
more Q and A, but then you get Andrew back

505
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:22.799
after that, So thank you so much. Until next time, everybody,

506
00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:26.799
this has been another wonderful out of this world episode

507
00:30:26.960 --> 00:30:28.400
of Space Nuts.

508
00:30:28.920 --> 00:30:33.119
Space Nuts to the Space Nuts podcast.

509
00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:40.240
Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.

510
00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:43.240
You can also stream on demand at fides dot com.

511
00:30:43.799 --> 00:30:47.160
This has been another quality podcast production from the Sights

512
00:30:47.240 --> 00:30:47.720
dot Com
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