Little Red Dots, Astronomer Royal & Life on Mars

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Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another episode of Space

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Nuts, the podcast that is out

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of this world. And I am your host for

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this show. My name is Heidi Campo. I'm filling

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in for Andrew Dunkley.

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Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

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10, 9. Ignition

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sequence start.

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Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.

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Generic: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,

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

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nuts astronauts report it feels good.

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Heidi Campo: And joining us today, matching we are

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both in black turtlenecks in case you guys are wondering,

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but is the uh, wonderful professor Fred

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Watson, astronomer at large. How are you doing

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today, Fred?

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Professor Fred Watson: I'm very good. I'm uh, basking in

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my black turtleneck. Yeah, it's, it's kind of my

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preferred um, garment is this,

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um, because it is so easy to put

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them off and take them off, no ironing.

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But they kind of get a bit too

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cozy when summer comes. So I have to

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shed my turtlenecks in some Sorry

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turtlenecks in summertime,

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uh, and go back to more conventional attire. So anyway,

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let's um, let's um, relish uh,

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the thought that we're both from the same garment.

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So keep going.

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Heidi Campo: Well, something that is uh, not a black

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turtleneck but is the black of space

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can roll into our first story of the day.

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And we do have a lot of really good stories for you today. If you're

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new joining us, we have two episodes every

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week. One of them is the wonderful Fred

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tells, uh, us all about the amazing new science

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that's happening in space. A lot of discoveries,

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there's amazing things happening all the time. And Fred

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tells us all about it. And then the other episode that we do

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every week as the listener questions. So you can write

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in your own question questions and Fred will answer

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them. And so yes, the black of space

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is what we are starting off with. And not just the black

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of space, but what's in it. And there's a mystery. Our

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first story is talking about the little red dots.

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And this mystery might finally

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be solved.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, this is, it's a great story because it's got lots of

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twists and turns. Um, and one of the things I really

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like about it is that one of the co

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authors of this story is

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professor, ah, Avi Loeb, um, who

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is the uh, well, basically

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director of Harvard Smithsonian uh, Center

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for Astrophysics. His name usually crops

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up. Heidi, as you will remember,

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uh, in contexts like

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uh, speculating that

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interstellar comets and asteroids are uh,

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in fact uh, essentially alien spaceships,

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he opens our mind to these

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issues. Um, and uh,

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clearly a man with an extremely

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fertile mind. Uh, because this is

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one of the stories that is about a puzzle

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in the early universe. And sure enough,

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uh, R.V. loeb is one of the, uh, one

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of the, basically one of the co authors.

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Uh, so um, we have a uh,

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situation where the James Webb

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telescope has revealed a large number

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of uh, what astronomers call little red

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dots. Uh and they are,

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they're galaxies. Uh,

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but they are and we're seeing them so

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far back in time because of the

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look back time. The James Webb is capable of looking

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back something like 12 billion years,

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uh, almost to the dark ages before the

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first galaxies existed. Um, and so these red

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dots appear red. Uh, that's partly because they're

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red shifted the light of them has been traveling

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for so long that the expansion of the universe has stretched

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the light waves and turned them from brilliant white

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into red. Uh, because of the.

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Yes, because of the redshift and the expansion of the universe.

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So um, uh,

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the galaxies we're talking about actually do date from that

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period, perhaps 12.8 or thereabouts

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billion years ago when the universe itself was still in

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its infancy. Uh, and they're tiny,

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they're small, which is why they're called little red dots.

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But the curious thing about

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them is that they are unusually bright.

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Uh, they're

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very faint because we see them so far away. But

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intrinsically they are unusually uh,

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bright. And uh,

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that is a problem for

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the astronomers who observe them.

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Uh, why are they brighter than

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you'd expect? Uh, well. And why

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are they red? Uh, one of the suggestions is

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it's more than just the redshift

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that they might be shrouded in

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dust. That's one possibility because

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as light passes through dust it gets reddened.

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Uh and that could account for that.

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But because they're bright, uh, it

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suggests that they're not shrouded in dust. There must be

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some other reason. Um, and

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you know, uh,

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uh, there's several other conundrums

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uh, that relate to this issue.

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Uh, and so what these authors have

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done is looked at

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um, perhaps the way that galaxies form in

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the first place. And we believe that this,

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the early universe had a kind of

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scaffolding, uh if you can put it that

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way, of dark matter, the

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mysterious stuff that we cannot detect other than

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by its gravitational pull. Uh, we call that the

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cosmic web, this scaffolding. Uh, and we think

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it's where galaxies form because the

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dark matter itself had this almost foam like

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structure. Um, and the dark matter

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acted as a kind of kernel, a seed

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for the, the hydrogen of the universe

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because that's what the universe was mostly made of back then,

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apart from dark matter, the hydrogen of the universe, um,

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sort of congealed, if I can put it that way, gravitationally

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along these, uh, structural lines in

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the cosmic web. Uh, and uh,

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basically that's how the galaxies formed. But what

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they're suggesting is that, um,

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the galaxies formed within what we

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call dark matter halos, the

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halo around a galaxy. That is the dark

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matter structure. And those halos may

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well have been rotating.

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And it turns out that if you,

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uh, form a galaxy inside a

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rotating halo that is spinning

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relatively slowly, what it does

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is it compresses everything

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in the middle. The, the um, press

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release that I've read actually draws the

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analogy, uh, sorry, analogy of

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a fairground swing ride where you've got a,

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you know, a fairground roundabout

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carousel, uh, with chairs on

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it that swing outwards as the carousel

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rotates. Uh, the faster it goes, the more

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the, uh, carousel chairs swing outwards.

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And so what they're saying is if you've got a, you know,

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the uh, analogy is that if you've got

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spinning halo, then the faster

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it spins, the more space you've got

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for the stars to form within it. But the

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slower it spins, uh, the less

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in the, you know, the carousel, uh,

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analog. The, um,

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chairs are inwards. And for the

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story of the dark matter halos, it means that the

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slower they spin, the more compressed the region

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of space within them is. And

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so it takes the. It keeps the

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stars much more closely tied up

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together, the stars that are forming within the galaxy.

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And that is what they say is

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a possible mechanism for giving you these really

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compact little red dots. Um,

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I'll quote from this. Uh, the researchers

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discovered that the little red dots likely formed in dark

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matter halos. Spinning so slowly,

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they represent less than 1% of all

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halos in the universe. Their slow

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spin halos would naturally create

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extremely compact galaxies. In a

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hypothesis that elegantly explains several

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mysteries about the little red dots, and I'm quoting

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there from Mark Thompson's article in

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Universe Today. Um,

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so, yes, uh, it looks as though these

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little red dots that have so far been one of the

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big mysteries, uh, uncovered by the James Webb Space

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Telescope. It looks as though, uh, here's a step,

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uh, in the right direction to try and prove,

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uh, uh, what the reason for

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this is that they are, um,

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as the same article describes, wonderful

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natural time capsules. And

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perhaps, uh, there's a possibility that they might tell

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us more as we study them in greater detail. They might tell

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us more about this time in the

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universe when the first galaxies were forming.

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Uh, the end of what we call the Dark Ages.

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Really interesting time that we don't really

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understand all that well at present. So

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I, uh, think it's a step in the right direction, Heidi.

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Heidi Campo: Yeah, but I mean, well, that's why I love James Webb

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Telescope. It's really, you know, it's such

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a feat of engineering and it's

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discovering. Like, I feel like every,

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almost every week we could have a story with James Webb

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and going on with it, and that's

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really, really remarkable.

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Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.

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Heidi Campo: And speaking of remarkable, there has been,

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um, another, Another amazing story

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about, um, kind of a breakthrough.

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But before we say that, I, uh,

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forgot to make a very special announcement.

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And Fred knows what it is, Andrew knows what it

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is, Huw knows what it is. But do you guys

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know that because of you,

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we have been ranked the seventh

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astronomy podcast? And Fred,

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that was worldwide.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. It's um, in the top 50.

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So we're number seven in the top 50 of

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astronomy podcasts. Yeah, I'd forgotten that.

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Heidi Campo: I know I should have said it first thing. Um,

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so I just, I was thinking of amazing, incredible things and

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I was like, we should bring that up. So thank you so much, so much

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everybody for listening and telling your friends and

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telling your co workers and telling your pets and dogs and

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your in laws to listen to the

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nuttiest space podcast that there is.

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So thank you guys, really, we really appreciate that.

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We should do, um, maybe Fred, we should do like a

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special listener episode where we, I

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don't know, maybe just we jazz it up a

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little bit as a little thank you to everyone for putting us on that

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list.

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But our next story is also an incredible

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breakthrough. Um, for the very, very

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first time ever, we have the first

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female Astronomer Royal. And that is

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Michelle Docherty. And that

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is quite the accomplishment.

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Professor Fred Watson: Oh yes, it's a great story. Um,

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um, and congratulations to Michelle Doherty,

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um, uh, a, uh, scientist

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of great note. Um, she

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is somebody who has made,

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uh, basically astronomical, uh, advances across

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quite a large number of fields of

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study. She's um, actually

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principally, um, a planetary scientist

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and works on some of the NASA

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spacecraft missions, uh, and is

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very interested in going back to Saturn,

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uh, with robotic spacecraft. She was, um,

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principal, uh, investigator for the

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magnetometer, which was on the Cassini mission,

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which I always think is one of the most

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accomplished, uh, um,

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remote, uh, sensing missions ever

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mounted. Uh, NASA and ESA combined

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on that, uh, mission. Sadly, 2017

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marked the end of it. But we learned so much about the planet Saturn,

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uh, and its moons and its rings, uh,

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that we're still analyzing the data. And Michelle

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is also principal Investigator of the

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magnetometer instrument for the JUICE

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mission, the European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy

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Moons Explorer.

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So lots of um, amazing

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accolades uh, for Michelle, Uh,

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um, just to put her achievement

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in context, um, she is the 16th

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Astronomer Royal in the United Kingdom.

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Uh, this is a post that ah had its first

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astronomer royal in 1675 when John

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Flamsteed was appointed by King Charles

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II was the astronomer Royal who was going to

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sort out the problem of longitude which was that then

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the big issue. And he did, he did quite a good job with

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it. There's lots of stories about Flamsteed, but

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since then There have been 16 Astronomers Royal.

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Um, until 1972 the

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Astronomy Royal was also the

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uh, director of the Royal Observatory at

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Greenwich and that was founded by

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Charles II in 1675. Uh, I

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worked there twice in fact. Um,

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uh it was at a little tiny

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village called Hersmondsu in Sussex. It had

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moved away from Greenwich which is a suburb of the

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city of London. No chance of doing astronomical

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observations there. They moved to Sussex after the Second

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World War. I worked there for a while in the early 70s,

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uh and then I went back there in the ninet work

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uh when, by which time it had moved to Cambridge, uh

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in eastern England. Um but until

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1972 the director was also the Astronomer Royal.

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After 1972 the two positions were

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separated. The Director of the Royal Observatory was

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not necessarily the Astronomer Royal. Uh the most

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recent Astronomer Royal and the person who

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Michel succeeds is um,

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well he was Sir Martin Rees. He's now Lord Rees of the

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Ludlow, um, uh, gentleman,

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uh, based in Cambridge. Uh, I've met him

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a number of times. Uh, you certainly wouldn't remember me

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but I've come across him in my career.

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Uh, he uh, has been a strong royal for

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basically 30 years since 1995,

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uh and has now stepped down and replace.

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And his replacement is the first, as you said,

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the first female Astronomer Royal in its more than

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300 year history. Um,

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uh, north of the border between England and

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Scotland, uh, however they are

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ahead of the game because uh, Scotland also

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has an Astronomer Royal.

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Heidi Campo: Oh, okay.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, uh, known as the

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland. In fact one of them,

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uh, I think he's two astronomers Royal Ago

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was my PhD supervisor

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Professor Malcolm Longhouse. I had an Astronomer Royal

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um for my supervisor. It was a

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terrifying experience I can tell you, uh,

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Heidi, uh, because his brain was the size of a

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planet and mine wasn't. But anyway that's all right. We

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got him Fine. He's still going strong. He's in Cambridge now, no

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longer Astronomer Royal. But, um, has he

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helped shape you.

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Heidi Campo: Into the Titan that you are today?

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Professor Fred Watson: Oh, that's a very nice way of putting it. And I'll take that

334
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and wear it with pride. Thank you very much, Heidi.

335
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But, um, the current

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astronomer for Scotland is Catherine

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Hayman's, uh, and she's been a strong

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00:16:16.030 --> 00:16:18.710
moral for Scotland for, I think about

339
00:16:19.030 --> 00:16:21.990
four years now. So Scotland was in

340
00:16:21.990 --> 00:16:24.710
the lead, uh, when it came to female Astronomers

341
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Royal. The other reason, um,

342
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that I love this story is because,

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um, when I was at school still,

344
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I aspired to be the Astronomer Royal.

345
00:16:37.660 --> 00:16:40.380
And it didn't happen. It didn't happen. But

346
00:16:40.780 --> 00:16:43.580
there was a kind of equivalent in

347
00:16:43.580 --> 00:16:46.500
Australia for a few years, the astronomer

348
00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:49.420
at large. And that was me. That is the job I held

349
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until the end of last year. So it was a sort of

350
00:16:52.540 --> 00:16:55.500
quasi Astronomer Royal that I finally got to.

351
00:16:55.740 --> 00:16:58.400
But not the Astronomer Royal as such. But, um,

352
00:16:58.540 --> 00:17:00.940
it's very nice. I had quite a lot to do with

353
00:17:01.100 --> 00:17:04.100
Catherine Heyman's, uh, the Astronomer Royal to Scotland.

354
00:17:04.100 --> 00:17:07.100
We've communicated quite a bit. She gave a fantastic lecture

355
00:17:07.340 --> 00:17:10.039
for us a few years ago on online during COVID

356
00:17:10.620 --> 00:17:13.119
Um, and so, um, yes, the idea of an

357
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Astronomer Royal and a new one, uh, is

358
00:17:15.959 --> 00:17:18.919
great, and I think it's brilliant news all

359
00:17:18.919 --> 00:17:21.559
around. Maybe, Heidi, one day you could

360
00:17:21.559 --> 00:17:24.439
aspire to be the Astronomer Royal. I'm not sure whether you have to be a

361
00:17:24.439 --> 00:17:25.719
British citizen anymore.

362
00:17:26.100 --> 00:17:29.039
Heidi Campo: Uh, I think. Well, right now we're thinking

363
00:17:29.039 --> 00:17:31.879
about having a double Master's degree. So I'll just.

364
00:17:31.879 --> 00:17:34.679
I'll take these, uh, things one at one at a

365
00:17:34.679 --> 00:17:34.919
time.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, good on you. That's great too. Great stuff.

367
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Heidi Campo: Just a lot of work.

368
00:17:44.490 --> 00:17:45.530
Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.

369
00:17:45.690 --> 00:17:48.690
Heidi Campo: But, um, I, I have no clever segue for our

370
00:17:48.690 --> 00:17:51.410
next story. So I'll just start telling you guys about

371
00:17:51.410 --> 00:17:54.370
it. And it is quite exciting. I

372
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know everyone gets, um, pretty

373
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excited. I know I certainly do when we talk about the possibility

374
00:18:00.250 --> 00:18:02.960
of the life on other planets.

375
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But, um, signs of life

376
00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:08.520
on Mars can be detected using this

377
00:18:08.600 --> 00:18:11.560
new test that Fred is going to tell

378
00:18:11.560 --> 00:18:12.760
us all about.

379
00:18:14.760 --> 00:18:17.320
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, this, um, is

380
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a really interesting story. I mean, you know,

381
00:18:20.840 --> 00:18:22.680
this is on the topic basically of

382
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biomarkers, uh, which we've talked about

383
00:18:25.600 --> 00:18:28.440
before. And biomarkers are things that tell you

384
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that there are life processes going on. Uh,

385
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and so, for example,

386
00:18:34.470 --> 00:18:37.460
um, when we look, uh, at the atmospheres

387
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of planets around other stars,

388
00:18:39.700 --> 00:18:42.620
extrasolar planets or exoplanets, uh, we

389
00:18:42.620 --> 00:18:45.500
look for chemicals in the atmosphere that Might be only

390
00:18:45.500 --> 00:18:48.470
produced by living organisms. Um,

391
00:18:48.550 --> 00:18:51.540
um. And you know, if you

392
00:18:51.540 --> 00:18:54.460
find that and you sure it can only be produced

393
00:18:54.460 --> 00:18:57.220
by living organisms, then it's a sign of life, it's a

394
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biomarker. It's very controversial as

395
00:19:00.010 --> 00:19:02.820
we've discussed, because there's uh,

396
00:19:03.050 --> 00:19:05.610
you know, there's always a question

397
00:19:06.010 --> 00:19:08.690
as to whether there could be a purely chemical origin

398
00:19:08.690 --> 00:19:11.290
for life in the atmosphere,

399
00:19:11.770 --> 00:19:14.730
for these chemicals in the atmosphere of another planet. That's

400
00:19:14.730 --> 00:19:17.610
an aside here, uh, because what we're talking about

401
00:19:17.690 --> 00:19:19.850
now is how you might analyze,

402
00:19:20.370 --> 00:19:23.130
uh, the um, structures

403
00:19:23.370 --> 00:19:26.250
of molecules, uh, that you

404
00:19:26.250 --> 00:19:29.190
find not in the atmospheres of, of exoplanets, but

405
00:19:29.190 --> 00:19:32.190
on the surface of a planet like Mars. And it

406
00:19:32.190 --> 00:19:35.190
turns out, uh, that some work that's again

407
00:19:35.190 --> 00:19:38.110
been done in the United Kingdom. Um, there

408
00:19:38.110 --> 00:19:40.830
is uh, an instrument which

409
00:19:40.830 --> 00:19:43.750
is commonly used on Mars rovers. In

410
00:19:43.750 --> 00:19:46.190
fact, I think every Mars rover,

411
00:19:46.710 --> 00:19:49.550
uh, since the Viking landers

412
00:19:49.870 --> 00:19:52.830
or every Mars lander since the Viking landers have had one

413
00:19:52.830 --> 00:19:55.430
of these things. It's called a gas chromatograph Mass

414
00:19:55.430 --> 00:19:58.250
Spectrometer, usually abbreviated to

415
00:19:58.780 --> 00:20:01.130
uh, gcms. Gas

416
00:20:01.130 --> 00:20:04.090
chromatograph Mass Spectrometer. It's a lot easier to say

417
00:20:04.090 --> 00:20:06.970
gcms, they've uh, all got one of these

418
00:20:06.970 --> 00:20:08.490
things. Um, but

419
00:20:09.740 --> 00:20:12.529
um, the suggestion that's come from Imperial College in

420
00:20:12.529 --> 00:20:14.090
London is that

421
00:20:15.530 --> 00:20:18.170
we're missing a trick that there is

422
00:20:18.330 --> 00:20:20.890
something within living organisms

423
00:20:21.370 --> 00:20:24.200
that people haven't really thought of, but

424
00:20:24.200 --> 00:20:26.760
that it could be detected by this GC

425
00:20:26.760 --> 00:20:29.680
Ms. Uh, and um, what it

426
00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:32.520
is, uh, it's a chemical bond

427
00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:35.080
within the

428
00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:38.120
molecules of cell membranes. Living

429
00:20:38.200 --> 00:20:40.920
cell membranes, which I think, uh, are made

430
00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:43.360
of lipids and things of that sort. I'm not a

431
00:20:43.360 --> 00:20:46.120
biologist, so I'm always groping around

432
00:20:46.120 --> 00:20:49.000
here. But the membranes of living

433
00:20:49.860 --> 00:20:52.420
cells have these molecules within them

434
00:20:52.820 --> 00:20:55.780
that apparently give a signal

435
00:20:56.020 --> 00:20:58.580
when analyzed by the gcms.

436
00:20:58.660 --> 00:20:59.460
Heidi Campo: Oh, wow.

437
00:21:00.260 --> 00:21:02.900
Professor Fred Watson: That, that dies away when these

438
00:21:03.140 --> 00:21:06.040
creatures are no longer alive. Uh,

439
00:21:06.100 --> 00:21:08.900
so the signal disappears after an

440
00:21:08.900 --> 00:21:11.700
organism has died. The, it's the chemical

441
00:21:11.700 --> 00:21:14.180
bonds that the, the GCMS is

442
00:21:14.340 --> 00:21:17.110
detecting. And those bonds are ah,

443
00:21:17.300 --> 00:21:19.450
actually um, they, they

444
00:21:19.450 --> 00:21:22.440
disintegrate, uh, on death. Uh,

445
00:21:22.440 --> 00:21:25.010
they're called, um. The bonds themselves are called,

446
00:21:25.300 --> 00:21:27.970
uh. Well, the molecules in which these

447
00:21:27.970 --> 00:21:30.810
bonds are found are called intact polar lipids or

448
00:21:30.810 --> 00:21:33.770
IPLs. Uh, and IPLs

449
00:21:33.770 --> 00:21:36.610
show up uh, when they're analyzed by one of these

450
00:21:36.610 --> 00:21:38.930
GCs, GCMS instruments.

451
00:21:39.640 --> 00:21:41.970
Uh, but they disappear when that

452
00:21:42.340 --> 00:21:44.770
um, m. Microorganism dies.

453
00:21:45.280 --> 00:21:48.080
So here you've got a really cluey

454
00:21:48.080 --> 00:21:50.960
and pretty neat test for

455
00:21:51.480 --> 00:21:54.240
um, you know, for Living organisms that

456
00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:57.160
could actually be deployed now because

457
00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:00.000
they're on Mars already. Uh, I

458
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:02.720
don't know whether, um, this paper has

459
00:22:03.280 --> 00:22:05.920
basically set all the NASA mission

460
00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:08.640
scientists who are looking after Curiosity and

461
00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:11.560
perseverance, uh, into a, you

462
00:22:11.560 --> 00:22:14.400
know, into a panic of making sure that

463
00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:17.400
they use these instruments to analyze the molecules that

464
00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:20.360
they've already got. They've got samples of uh, the

465
00:22:20.360 --> 00:22:23.240
rocks and it could be that there might

466
00:22:23.240 --> 00:22:26.040
be living microbes within those rocks that could be detected

467
00:22:26.040 --> 00:22:28.960
by this. So my counsel is watch

468
00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:31.780
this space. Uh, the, uh,

469
00:22:31.780 --> 00:22:33.840
science paper is uh,

470
00:22:34.320 --> 00:22:37.240
entitled uh, Intact Polar Lipids as

471
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:39.280
Organic Biomarkers of Viable

472
00:22:39.360 --> 00:22:42.120
Extraterrestrial Life. And it's in uh, the

473
00:22:42.120 --> 00:22:45.080
journal called Space Exploration. That's the place to

474
00:22:45.080 --> 00:22:48.080
find it. It's a, uh, really interesting idea. And

475
00:22:48.080 --> 00:22:50.160
who knows where it might lead, Heidi?

476
00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:53.560
Heidi Campo: Who knows indeed. But one thing

477
00:22:53.560 --> 00:22:55.520
we do know is that

478
00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:58.880
Musk's mega rockets

479
00:22:59.360 --> 00:23:02.120
keep exploding. This is

480
00:23:02.120 --> 00:23:04.160
the one thing. He's such a

481
00:23:05.050 --> 00:23:08.010
Musk. And SpaceX, whether you love

482
00:23:08.010 --> 00:23:10.610
him, whether you hate him, is an interesting

483
00:23:10.610 --> 00:23:12.810
character on the board and

484
00:23:13.370 --> 00:23:15.290
they keep pushing the envelope. But

485
00:23:16.360 --> 00:23:19.250
uh, there's these new tests that Fred's gonna tell

486
00:23:19.250 --> 00:23:19.770
us about.

487
00:23:20.570 --> 00:23:22.810
Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's right. In fact, um, by the time

488
00:23:23.420 --> 00:23:26.370
uh, this episode goes to air, it might already have happened.

489
00:23:26.370 --> 00:23:29.210
But this is the 10th launch of the starship.

490
00:23:29.750 --> 00:23:31.690
Uh, and I think, um.

491
00:23:32.510 --> 00:23:35.470
Well, you, you know, I'm not going to go through the catalog,

492
00:23:35.470 --> 00:23:38.190
but they've, they've been less than successful,

493
00:23:38.510 --> 00:23:41.190
some of them. The first, I think the first one was

494
00:23:41.190 --> 00:23:43.470
brilliant because the uh, it

495
00:23:43.470 --> 00:23:46.390
demonstrated that the booster, which is the Falcon super

496
00:23:46.390 --> 00:23:49.310
heavy booster, uh, could be captured

497
00:23:49.310 --> 00:23:50.270
by this,

498
00:23:50.530 --> 00:23:53.030
um, uh, it's called a

499
00:23:53.030 --> 00:23:55.950
chopstick mechanism. I think it's like a pair of chopsticks

500
00:23:55.950 --> 00:23:58.840
sticking out from a tower which catches hold of the,

501
00:23:59.320 --> 00:24:01.800
the, the vehicle as it lands. That was

502
00:24:01.800 --> 00:24:02.440
dramatic.

503
00:24:02.520 --> 00:24:05.360
Heidi Campo: I think that's, it's unbelievable. I think that's almost, almost

504
00:24:05.360 --> 00:24:08.240
like Nobel Prize worthy. Like that is, I think one of the

505
00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:10.760
best feats of engineering in this.

506
00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:11.440
Professor Fred Watson: Yep.

507
00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:12.840
Heidi Campo: In this decade for sure.

508
00:24:13.080 --> 00:24:16.080
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. In, in an era where we've just got used to the

509
00:24:16.080 --> 00:24:18.920
boosters returning. And that's because Musk pioneered

510
00:24:18.920 --> 00:24:21.760
that with SpaceX back in 2015. I think the

511
00:24:21.760 --> 00:24:24.600
first, uh, successful booster landing took

512
00:24:24.600 --> 00:24:27.000
place the first time ever. Uh, but yeah, this

513
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:30.280
gigantic thing, you know, it's a huge, huge

514
00:24:30.280 --> 00:24:33.280
rocket. The whole thing stands much taller than a Saturn

515
00:24:33.280 --> 00:24:36.200
V from the Apollo era. Um, but

516
00:24:36.200 --> 00:24:39.200
the booster itself is a good part of that. And that

517
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:42.200
has seems to, they seem to have that kind of

518
00:24:42.200 --> 00:24:44.960
reasonably well under control. But it's the starship

519
00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:47.680
itself, the thing that rides on top of that,

520
00:24:48.060 --> 00:24:51.040
uh, which has kept exploding. Uh, and

521
00:24:51.090 --> 00:24:53.550
um, or what's it called, It's a rapid

522
00:24:53.550 --> 00:24:56.250
unscheduled disintegration. Uh,

523
00:24:56.550 --> 00:24:58.310
rapid unscheduled disassembly.

524
00:24:58.470 --> 00:25:01.470
Heidi Campo: That's the, uh, controversial view. I think

525
00:25:01.470 --> 00:25:04.430
it's kind of cheeky though. It's, you know, it's

526
00:25:04.430 --> 00:25:07.430
a little optimistic. It's a little cheeky. It's like, hey, you know what? We're

527
00:25:07.430 --> 00:25:08.470
going to keep working on it.

528
00:25:09.030 --> 00:25:11.070
Professor Fred Watson: You gotta, you gotta, you can afford to do that.

529
00:25:11.070 --> 00:25:11.790
Heidi Campo: He can't afford.

530
00:25:11.790 --> 00:25:14.750
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, you do. But it, but his whole ethos

531
00:25:14.750 --> 00:25:17.590
is, uh, you know, try test fast

532
00:25:17.590 --> 00:25:20.570
and learn fast. Uh, and um, you

533
00:25:20.570 --> 00:25:23.410
know, so it, and you can do that

534
00:25:23.410 --> 00:25:26.410
without all the protocols that would have to be in place if this was

535
00:25:26.410 --> 00:25:29.290
NASA, uh, actually running this rather than a

536
00:25:29.290 --> 00:25:29.930
private company.

537
00:25:30.330 --> 00:25:33.130
So, um, hats off to Musk for

538
00:25:33.290 --> 00:25:35.610
number 10 in this sequence of launches.

539
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:38.930
Um, um, by the time this goes to air, ah, we might know what has

540
00:25:38.930 --> 00:25:41.930
happened. We don't at the moment, but we look forward

541
00:25:41.930 --> 00:25:43.770
to the event with great interest.

542
00:25:44.250 --> 00:25:46.420
Heidi Campo: Well, I'm hoping it's successful, um,

543
00:25:47.610 --> 00:25:50.170
for all the engineers sake, for everyone on that team. I.

544
00:25:50.570 --> 00:25:53.410
It's got to be so heartbreaking to pour your heart and

545
00:25:53.410 --> 00:25:56.370
soul into a project and just not only to

546
00:25:56.370 --> 00:25:59.330
have it blow up, it blows up on TV and then everyone writes an

547
00:25:59.330 --> 00:26:02.290
article about it. It's like, oh man, it's like if I

548
00:26:02.290 --> 00:26:05.290
get a bad grade, nobody knows. But if they

549
00:26:05.770 --> 00:26:08.690
make a mistake, it's a dramatic explosion in the

550
00:26:08.690 --> 00:26:11.650
air that everyone in the world has their eyes on.

551
00:26:11.650 --> 00:26:14.620
So I hope it goes well. Um, thoughts and prayers

552
00:26:14.620 --> 00:26:17.500
to the, uh, science team, the engineering team,

553
00:26:17.500 --> 00:26:18.860
and hoping for their success.

554
00:26:20.060 --> 00:26:22.460
Professor Fred Watson: Yep. Uh, hear, hear. I'll,

555
00:26:23.100 --> 00:26:25.820
I'll agree with that. For all the same

556
00:26:25.820 --> 00:26:28.260
reasons. It's one thing that we want to see

557
00:26:28.260 --> 00:26:31.060
succeeding. In fact, starship itself is an

558
00:26:31.060 --> 00:26:34.000
integral part of the Artemis mission, uh,

559
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:36.580
because the starship, you know, the

560
00:26:36.580 --> 00:26:39.500
crew, um, component of that is

561
00:26:39.500 --> 00:26:42.210
what is going to take astronauts down to the

562
00:26:42.210 --> 00:26:45.130
lunar surface by 2027. So

563
00:26:45.130 --> 00:26:47.370
they've got to get it right within the next couple of years.

564
00:26:48.570 --> 00:26:51.530
Heidi Campo: What do you think? Do you think we stick with 2027 or do you think

565
00:26:51.530 --> 00:26:54.450
it's going to get pushed out? I

566
00:26:54.450 --> 00:26:57.370
think it's going to get pushed out. I, I want to believe,

567
00:26:57.690 --> 00:27:00.450
but the, uh, it's like one of those old

568
00:27:00.450 --> 00:27:02.730
Magic 8 balls. It's like, signs don't look good.

569
00:27:04.250 --> 00:27:07.050
Um, I've Had a little bit more of experience now working

570
00:27:07.050 --> 00:27:09.970
adjacent to NASA. I do not. I want to be clear on

571
00:27:09.970 --> 00:27:12.830
air that I don't work at NASA, but I work in

572
00:27:12.830 --> 00:27:15.670
partnership with them with some of my graduate assistant work.

573
00:27:15.710 --> 00:27:18.510
Um, but it's really just. And like you

574
00:27:18.510 --> 00:27:21.430
said, Fred, it's. It's the loopholes. Or not the loopholes,

575
00:27:21.430 --> 00:27:23.990
it's the, um, hoops that you have to jump through. There's so much.

576
00:27:24.310 --> 00:27:27.230
There's a lot of red tape. There's so many

577
00:27:27.230 --> 00:27:30.190
layers of safety that NASA has to go through that

578
00:27:30.190 --> 00:27:33.030
just makes them run a little bit slower. So it's.

579
00:27:33.110 --> 00:27:36.030
Yeah, things aren't happening as fast as the

580
00:27:36.030 --> 00:27:38.710
public would want. Um, they're not pumping out

581
00:27:38.710 --> 00:27:41.190
progress the same way Disney's pumping out Marvel movies.

582
00:27:42.830 --> 00:27:43.710
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right.

583
00:27:44.830 --> 00:27:47.790
Heidi Campo: Well, this has been a great episode. We got through four whole

584
00:27:47.790 --> 00:27:50.540
articles. A, uh, big thank you to our listeners and uh,

585
00:27:50.750 --> 00:27:53.750
some speculation of the future. So we were quite efficient

586
00:27:53.750 --> 00:27:55.150
in our use of time today.

587
00:27:56.510 --> 00:27:57.790
Professor Fred Watson: That's why we're number seven.

588
00:27:58.590 --> 00:28:01.550
Heidi Campo: That's it right there. Best podcast out there.

589
00:28:01.550 --> 00:28:02.270
Tell your friends.

590
00:28:03.070 --> 00:28:04.430
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, absolutely.

591
00:28:04.590 --> 00:28:07.510
Heidi Campo: Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening

592
00:28:07.510 --> 00:28:09.500
to the Number six seven

593
00:28:09.820 --> 00:28:12.100
podcast. Uh, number seven

594
00:28:12.100 --> 00:28:14.660
astronomy podcast. Wow. If we were the number seven

595
00:28:14.660 --> 00:28:17.500
podcast, you probably see a fancier

596
00:28:17.660 --> 00:28:20.380
background, uh, and headset. Um,

597
00:28:20.700 --> 00:28:23.580
but no, thank you so much to our listeners. You guys really

598
00:28:23.580 --> 00:28:26.220
are fantastic. And please keep writing in your

599
00:28:26.220 --> 00:28:29.220
questions. Do audio questions. Um, we

600
00:28:29.220 --> 00:28:32.100
really want to hear from you. You guys are half the

601
00:28:32.100 --> 00:28:32.380
show.

602
00:28:33.100 --> 00:28:36.080
Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. And uh, some might

603
00:28:36.080 --> 00:28:37.440
say the best half of the show.

604
00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:41.240
Heidi Campo: All right, everybody, well, we'll catch you next time for that

605
00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:44.000
very, very, uh, own Q and A episode.

606
00:28:44.160 --> 00:28:46.080
Till next time, have a great

607
00:28:47.120 --> 00:28:49.360
space, space exploration

608
00:28:49.600 --> 00:28:52.400
discovery and see you next

609
00:28:52.400 --> 00:28:52.720
time.

610
00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:56.160
Andrew Dunkley: Hello Heidi. Hello Fred. Hello, Huw. In

611
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:56.680
the studio.

612
00:28:56.680 --> 00:28:59.520
Andrew, again with another world cruise

613
00:28:59.520 --> 00:29:02.410
update from the Crown Princess. Since I spoke

614
00:29:02.410 --> 00:29:05.210
to you last, we have, uh, done some

615
00:29:05.210 --> 00:29:08.210
amazing stuff. Uh, we visited Iceland and

616
00:29:08.290 --> 00:29:11.170
Greenland. Um, yeah,

617
00:29:11.250 --> 00:29:14.250
fantastic. Iceland was amazing. Uh, we did

618
00:29:14.250 --> 00:29:17.250
a day trip out to a, um, a

619
00:29:17.250 --> 00:29:19.730
place where the European

620
00:29:19.810 --> 00:29:22.770
Euro, uh, the. Now let me think if I can

621
00:29:22.770 --> 00:29:25.410
get this right. The Euro

622
00:29:25.650 --> 00:29:28.340
Asian tectonic plate

623
00:29:28.580 --> 00:29:31.460
crashes into the American tectonic plate

624
00:29:31.620 --> 00:29:34.500
and there's actually a rift valley right there

625
00:29:34.500 --> 00:29:37.420
that you can literally walk along in

626
00:29:37.420 --> 00:29:40.170
one part and see how the, uh,

627
00:29:40.580 --> 00:29:43.370
the European side's been thrust upwards. Uh,

628
00:29:43.540 --> 00:29:46.020
the American plate goes down underneath

629
00:29:46.500 --> 00:29:49.020
and they do have earthquakes there semi

630
00:29:49.020 --> 00:29:51.900
regularly, but, uh, thankfully not while we were there. But what an

631
00:29:51.900 --> 00:29:54.580
amazing, amazing site. Saw some

632
00:29:54.980 --> 00:29:57.860
incredible sites in Iceland. I was actually quite

633
00:29:57.860 --> 00:30:00.820
surprised how green it Was. I didn't. I was expecting

634
00:30:01.140 --> 00:30:04.060
just rock and, and volcanic outcrops

635
00:30:04.060 --> 00:30:06.900
and I'm sure that's there. But where we went was actually

636
00:30:06.900 --> 00:30:09.500
green. They were, there were, there were farms, there were

637
00:30:09.500 --> 00:30:11.980
paddocks, there were horses and sheep

638
00:30:11.980 --> 00:30:14.940
grazing. Um, not at all

639
00:30:14.940 --> 00:30:17.700
what I expected but uh, fantastic day and

640
00:30:17.700 --> 00:30:20.610
we were there for the uh, pretty Pride Festival in

641
00:30:20.610 --> 00:30:23.530
Reykjavik. So we, we hang around, hung around the city for a

642
00:30:23.530 --> 00:30:26.290
little while after our tour and just absorbed the atmosphere.

643
00:30:26.610 --> 00:30:29.610
Quite, quite amazing. Just thousands upon thousands of

644
00:30:29.610 --> 00:30:32.570
people. They reckon there were about a hundred thousand people there the day we

645
00:30:32.570 --> 00:30:35.410
were there and our, our ship was in port so we added a few

646
00:30:35.410 --> 00:30:38.210
thousand to the mix. Uh, that was Iceland.

647
00:30:38.610 --> 00:30:41.490
Loved uh, it. Then we trotted across to

648
00:30:41.490 --> 00:30:44.330
Greenland and uh, our ah, captain decided

649
00:30:44.330 --> 00:30:46.940
at the last minute to take us on a little

650
00:30:47.160 --> 00:30:49.940
uh, tour up um,

651
00:30:49.940 --> 00:30:52.780
up the uh, uh um sound

652
00:30:52.860 --> 00:30:55.660
known as Prince Christiansund.

653
00:30:56.380 --> 00:30:59.300
And it um, was a day of

654
00:30:59.300 --> 00:31:02.060
just cruising up the sound looking

655
00:31:02.060 --> 00:31:04.940
at uh, multiple glaciers up close,

656
00:31:05.420 --> 00:31:07.740
icebergs everywhere, just this

657
00:31:07.740 --> 00:31:10.420
beautiful untouched landscape

658
00:31:10.420 --> 00:31:13.270
that very few people get to see. So we were

659
00:31:13.270 --> 00:31:16.030
thrilled to do that. Then we landed in

660
00:31:16.030 --> 00:31:18.830
Iceland at uh, Nanortolik and

661
00:31:18.830 --> 00:31:21.710
spent the day there, went out on a boat to look at more

662
00:31:21.710 --> 00:31:24.390
icebergs. But this time we got up close and

663
00:31:24.390 --> 00:31:26.310
personal and they were

664
00:31:26.950 --> 00:31:29.870
huge. Like twice

665
00:31:29.870 --> 00:31:32.830
as big as double story homes in some cases. They

666
00:31:32.830 --> 00:31:35.670
were just. And they were just floating there. We got

667
00:31:35.670 --> 00:31:38.580
so close to the. We didn't quite get close enough to touch them but

668
00:31:38.580 --> 00:31:40.860
you could see the colours and the cracks and the.

669
00:31:41.500 --> 00:31:44.220
And the shapes of the ice. They were amazing.

670
00:31:44.940 --> 00:31:47.660
And uh, a lovely little town, only a thousand people.

671
00:31:47.660 --> 00:31:50.500
Greenland is about one third the size of

672
00:31:50.500 --> 00:31:53.300
Australia with a population of less than 50,000 and

673
00:31:53.300 --> 00:31:55.980
it's under um, the Danish, Danish

674
00:31:55.980 --> 00:31:58.700
monarchy. So uh, it's a sort of a crossover

675
00:31:58.700 --> 00:32:01.660
between uh, America and Europe really because

676
00:32:01.940 --> 00:32:04.050
uh, it is considered part of the American

677
00:32:05.020 --> 00:32:07.730
um, side of the Atlantic. But it's a European

678
00:32:07.810 --> 00:32:10.770
country self governed under Danish,

679
00:32:11.010 --> 00:32:14.000
the Danish Monarchy. It's very weird, um,

680
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:16.850
kind of like Australia but um. Yeah, that was

681
00:32:16.850 --> 00:32:19.490
interesting. And then uh, yesterday we went to

682
00:32:19.800 --> 00:32:22.650
um. I can't think of the name of it. What's. What was

683
00:32:22.650 --> 00:32:24.050
that place called yesterday?

684
00:32:27.160 --> 00:32:29.610
Uh, it's about triple uh the size of

685
00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:32.920
Nanortolik. But um. Yeah, and all these colourful

686
00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:35.800
little houses. I did post some photos on

687
00:32:35.800 --> 00:32:38.680
the Space Nuts Facebook page if you want to have a look of the

688
00:32:38.680 --> 00:32:41.640
icebergs and the, and the little houses. I don't know how they live in

689
00:32:41.640 --> 00:32:44.400
them. It was uh. It's summer here at the moment

690
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:47.160
and the temperature was 6 degrees and it

691
00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:50.160
was freezing for the two or three days

692
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:53.120
we were, um, around Greenland. Iceland wasn't

693
00:32:53.120 --> 00:32:55.970
so warm either, I must say. But we're

694
00:32:55.970 --> 00:32:58.890
heading south west now and our next stop will be

695
00:32:58.890 --> 00:33:01.610
Halifax and the temperature will be about,

696
00:33:02.170 --> 00:33:05.170
I, uh, don't know, uh, five times warmer, I'm

697
00:33:05.170 --> 00:33:08.050
told. So that's it for now. Uh, only a couple of

698
00:33:08.050 --> 00:33:10.650
weeks to go and we'll, uh, be back in Australia.

699
00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:14.290
Um, I should just point out we sold our house

700
00:33:14.290 --> 00:33:17.130
while we're on board and we're moving into a new place that we haven't seen

701
00:33:17.130 --> 00:33:20.010
yet. So I don't know what the Internet will be like when we get back.

702
00:33:20.090 --> 00:33:23.060
I might have to delay my return to SpaceX nuts for

703
00:33:23.060 --> 00:33:26.020
a week or two, but we'll just see how it goes for now, that's all.

704
00:33:26.180 --> 00:33:29.000
Take care. Bye. Bye. Uh,

705
00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:31.620
you'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast,

706
00:33:33.220 --> 00:33:36.020
available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

707
00:33:36.180 --> 00:33:38.939
iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast

708
00:33:38.939 --> 00:33:40.660
player. You can also stream on

709
00:33:40.660 --> 00:33:42.340
demand@bytes.com.

710
00:33:42.660 --> 00:33:45.340
Professor Fred Watson: This has been another quality podcast production

711
00:33:45.340 --> 00:33:46.950
from bytes.com. um.