Jan. 27, 2025

Origins of Life, Mars Missions & Cosmic Measurements: #490 - Q&A Edition

Origins of Life, Mars Missions & Cosmic Measurements: #490 - Q&A Edition

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Space Nuts Episode 490: Origins of Life, Mars Missions, and...

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Space Nuts Episode 490: Origins of Life, Mars Missions, and Cosmic Distances
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner in this enlightening Q&A episode of Space Nuts, where they tackle some of your most pressing cosmic queries. From the origins of life on Earth to the challenges of traveling to Mars, and how we accurately measure distances in space, this episode is brimming with intriguing discussions that will expand your understanding of the universe.
Episode Highlights:
- Origins of Life: Christian shares his exciting research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exploring the origins of life and its implications for other planetary bodies. Andrew and Jonti discuss the significance of these findings and how they relate to the conditions necessary for life to emerge.
- Traveling to Mars: Rennie asks about the potential pitfalls of a Mars mission. Discover the realities of traversing the asteroid belt and the safety measures in place to ensure a successful journey to the Red Planet.
- Measuring Cosmic Distances: Lawrence raises a thought-provoking question about how astronomers judge distances in space, especially with the effects of gravitational lensing. Andrew and Jonti explain the distance ladder method used to measure astronomical distances and the challenges involved.
- Future of the James Webb Space Telescope: Lee inquires about the possibility of building additional James Webb Space Telescopes. Andrew and Jonti discuss the complexities of space telescope production and the exciting prospects for future astronomical missions.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your 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 https://www.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 - Introduction to the episode and questions
02:15 - Discussion on the origins of life and Christian's research
10:30 - Challenges of traveling to Mars and the asteroid belt
18:00 - How astronomers measure distances in space
26:45 - Future of the James Webb Space Telescope
30:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement
✍️ Episode References
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
https://www.pnas.org/
Astrobiology Research
https://www.astrobiology.com/
James Webb Space Telescope
https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support.

 

 

WEBVTT

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Hi there, thanks for joining us. This is a Q

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and a edition of Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley,

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so good to have your company. Coming up, we are

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going to answer a question from Christian about the origins

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of life. We talked about that sort of in the

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last episode. Well, there's a question on the table from

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the audience. Rennie wants to know about the pitfalls of

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traveling to Mars. Aside from being next to Elon Musk,

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there are other things to consider. Lawrence is asking how

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we judge distances in space, and Lee wants to know

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about whether or not there's a possibility in the future

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of James web Space Telescopes two and three. That's all

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coming up on this edition of Space Nuts fifteen, Channel

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ten nine Ignition Space Nuts or three two Space Nuts

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as can I reported Neil Goods and in the stead

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of Professor Fred Watson, we are again joined by Johnty Horner,

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Professor of Astrophysics. Hi, Johnny, Hey, how are you going?

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I am well, good to see you again. We have

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got plenty of questions to answer.

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They're all text questions today.

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I didn't get the audio questions in time, but we'll

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save them up for future episodes, and we might as

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well get straight into it, shall we.

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All Right, Happy New Year.

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I've been listening to your podcast regularly for over five

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years now. Well you know, some people go to prison.

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You did that, and it's been a source of inspiration

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for me. In fact, it partly motivated the work I

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currently do, which is why I wanted to share some

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exciting news with you. We've finally published our findings in

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the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Our study

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explores the origins of life and argues for its significant

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implications not only for Earth, but for other planetary's across

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the universe. I'd be thrilled to hear your thoughts on it.

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Freds mentioned my colleague Juan Manuel Garcia Ruez's earlier work

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a few times on the podcast. Recently, we embarked on

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an exciting new project collaborating with the XOMRS science team

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at the European Space Agency. It's an incredibly stimulating area

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of research and I hope it piques your interest. And

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that comes from Christian And forgive me if I mispronounce

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your surname Christian Gene Wine or Gene Wayne. I hope

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you know I'm close, but I'm kind of gobsmacked that

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listening to us kind of partially inspired this work. That's

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I never thought I would see the day where something

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we did could lead to something like that. Not directly,

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but obviously you know a few things we've said has

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got somebody thinking, which is what we hope to would Well.

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Absolutely, it's fabulous, and yeah, congratulations to yourself and Fred

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by proxy for motivating him inspiring. I think that's fabulous

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and that's one of the real values of this kind

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of work before we dive into the awesome paper here.

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One of the important things with podcasts like this, with

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TV shows, with astronomy outreach in general or astrobiology outreach,

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is you don't know where it's going to end, but

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people get inspired. And I wouldn't be here if it

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wasn't for Patrick Moore doing the Sky at Night back

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when I was a kid. Yeah, and it's fabulous to

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see that impact and that, you know, just yeah, genuinely

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huge Hudosa and Fred for having such fabulous podcasts and

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clearly going out and inspiring people. So that's fabulous and

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it's lovely to hear this story. Now. The article itself

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is on PNAS, which is, as it says, the Proceedings

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of the National Academy of Sciences. The challenge with that,

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and certainly I quite happily recommend people have a look

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at the paper. But one of the challenges when you're

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publishing a journalist prestigious is that is that papers have

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to be very short and concise, which sometimes makes them

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harder to dive into. And I think the authors here

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have done a very good job of dealing with that.

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But it is a slightly challenging read if you're not

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banging the discipline. But I've had really through it and

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it's a fabulous piece of work and really really interesting.

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So what they've done is building on a really fabulous

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history called the Miliuri experiments. But this was the idea

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that people are fascinated with how life got started, and

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way back in time there was this experiment done which

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essentially attempted to bottle the atmosphere that the early Earth

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had and then pass electricity through it, essentially simulating lightning

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and UV exposure on that early atmosphere, and it showed

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that you could get some kind of pre bout chemicals

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forming from a very simple atmosphere in those kind of conditions,

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so it became very much a touchstone of early astrobiology.

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Went out of fashion for a while because people argued

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that the early Earth wasn't like like that, but recent

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study have shown that those kind of conditions probably were

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around were important. This work then kind of builds on that.

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They've done a similar experiment with a much more modern

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and much more new once set up and looked at

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the results in a lot more detail than could have

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been done all that time ago. And what's really interesting is,

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again with a really simple setup, they get quite a

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complex stew of different ingredients forming. You get this layer

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of stuff floating on top of the water essentially, but

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they've dug into that and what they've found that is

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that in that water relayer there is this what they

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almost describe as proto cells, these globules that are quite small,

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that are spheres with a membrane that are possibly hollow

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inside that could be you know, prebiotic chemical factories essentially,

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the places where chemistry can happen in really interesting ways.

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That's really interesting, and they're talking about these biomorphic proto cells.

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Now that's positive and negatives to this. So one of

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the negatives from this research is that when people look

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for evidence of the earliest life on Earth, or in future,

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when they're looking for evidence of the earliest life on Mars,

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what are the things they look for of these kind

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of pro to our cells, things that are a precursor

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to the cells of life we know. And the argument

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has always been that these are separate to the formation

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of the compounds, and therefore they could be seen as

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a discrete bit of evidence of the origin of life.

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And what this work is saying is that these can

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actually be something that forms concramically, that's the phrase is

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in the title, forms at the same time as those

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preboutic chemicals. So finding these globules is not necessarily evidence

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that life has begun, but rather that the conditions needed

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for life were there. So it's maybe saying when you

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look back at the historical record, this is not a

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definitive sign of life necessarily, but Mays said, be a

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sign that of the conditions for life to then develop

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in the future. So that's a little bit sad. But

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on the flip side, what it's showing is that these

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conditions where you can start to get the conditions needed

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for life to start could be quite widely distributed because

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this was fair as simple. These are the kind of

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conditions you could get on planets across the cosmos with

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similar conditions to the Earth. So the other outcome from

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this is that this thing that sets the scene for

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the emergence of life could be more common than people think.

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That places where you've got oceans and atmospheres like this

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could get these proto cells, these globules, the actors, accelerators,

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incubators for advanced chemistry that could be more common through

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the cosmos, and therefore the scope for finding life out

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there could be greater than we thought. So it's a

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really interesting piece of work, and I think the way

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that the balance of positive and the native outcomes is

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really quite cool. Now it is quite a complex paper

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to read because of the nature of having to be

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condensed for this very prestigious journal, but the results are

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fabulous and if you do get on Twitter and have

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a look at it, the entire presentation is available online

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and some of their figures are beautiful. Some of the

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images that they've got showing the globules and the microscopic structures,

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they've got a really beautiful and it's the kind of

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thing that you almost wish that back when Uri and

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Miller were doing their experiment originally, we could have had

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that same quality of imagery and results to go back

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and look at. So I think it's an absolutely fabulous

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piece of work, and I'm really interested to see where

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it goes next and how people react and interact with it.

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In other words, what research does expawn next. Are we

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actually going to get to the point where we get

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a distinct idea of where life began? And also what

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the difference between life and not life is? Is still

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not really a hard and fast definition of when something

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is life and when it isn't, which always makes my

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head hurt. I'm an astronomer, I'm not a biologist, and

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I remember one of the early astrobiology conferences I went

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to talking about life and somebody mentioned viruses and all

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the biologists said, oh, no, viruses aren't alive. And that's

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totally contrary to my understanding as a layperson, you know,

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as a generalist, as an astronomer. I was gobsmaked. But

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apparently my mass biological definitions, the virus is not alive.

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I don't understand how that works. Now it's again back

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to that old carrot about. You've actually got a spectrum

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from definitely not life to definitely is life, and we

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have to put the dividing line somewhere, but I don't

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know that there's a consensus on that yet, And that

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kind of feeds into this as well, and that this

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kind of work might help people figure out that process

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and therefore help them put a line on This is

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where we consider it to be a live versus not essentially.

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So.

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Yeah, fabulous work, and even better, I guess even more

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inspirational given the links to the podcast in the past.

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I think that's fabulous.

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Yeah, I'm chaffed. I'm really kind of in tread most

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of the talking idea. But I have always argued that

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the recipe for life exists everywhere. You've just got to

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have it all put together properly and have the right

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oven to make it happen. And I've always believed that

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when you look at how life flourishes on Earth, how

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a weed can find the slightest crack and grow, I mean,

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it stands to reason that life could flourish anywhere in

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the universe if the conditions are right. Because we have

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learned that the building blocks of life all the bits

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and bobs that we need to establish life exist. They're

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flying around the universe as we speak, so it's not.

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A giant leap to consider that.

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You know, if it hits something that's exactly right, boom,

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you've got life somewhere else. I don't doubt it exists. Now,

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it might not be life as we know it. And

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as you said, what is life anyway? That the same

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question that the great George Harrison asked, And yeah, there

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is no real definition of what constitutes life.

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How do you you know when I was.

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A kid, I had a pet rock it could have

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been alive.

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You don't.

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Yeah, where do you draw the line?

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Especially real es set out there as well, So it's

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not like you're limited in space. We've got incredible volume

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of space and incredible depth of time. And what's always

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shruck me as interesting is the division between those who

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believe that life won't be out there and those who will.

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And I saw this one. I'm one of the members

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of the Committee of the Astrobiologist side of Great Britain,

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even though I left the country fifteen years ago now,

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but there's an active astrobiology community there and I first

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sat and going to conferences with them more than twenty

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years ago now, and astrobiology conferences are wonderful things. Bex.

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They's so multidisciplinary, so you've got learning in areas that

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you wouldn't normally encounter where you learn something. You've also

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got kind of sociological learning of the way that different

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disciplines present. You know, different disciplines have different color schemes

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which I'd never thought of. You know, I've been to

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talks by geologists that were pink text on a pale

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blue background, which made my eyes bleed. But you know,

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you get theseferences there. But one of the things that

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struck me early on was that the people involved in

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astra biology from the biology side were nearly all very

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young researchers, really passionate and excited, but because the senior

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biologists were convinced that life was impossible, and they thought

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that the search f life elsewhere was a fool's errand

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that you just couldn't have life. Now, if you think

225
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that the Earth is the only place in the universe

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of life, which you know, we've got a sample of one,

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so that is still possible, then you have to assume

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that life is so incredibly impossible that wear a flick.

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If you make life even slightly more probable than that,

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even if it is not impossible but just vanishingly improbable,

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vict there is so much realistic bect There are so

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many planets around so many stars, in so many galaxies.

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Even if life is vanishingly improbable, it must be everywhere.

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It just might not be close enough for us to find.

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And that divide is really stark. And it's a philosophical

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one because we have no evidence either way, and it

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becomes almost a belief structure. People believe that we must

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be all on our people convinced that we're not, and

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the only way we'll find out is by looking and

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by doing this kind of work. And I would love

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to think that within our lifetimes we'll know the.

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Answer when one can only hope. Yes, if you would

243
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like to find that paper, it's at p NAS dot

244
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org PNS dot or that didn't sound good, and yeah,

245
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it's it's.

246
00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:34.759
It's a long title, but it is really a concomitant

247
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formation of proto cells and prebotic compounds on replausible early

248
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Earth atmosphere where you are.

249
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And yeah, it's not a long read, but it is. Yeah,

250
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it can make your brain hurt. But most scientific papers

251
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tend to do that. But yeah, and thanks Christian for

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letting us know and telling us that we had a

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tiny part to play in the development of your work.

254
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That that really excites me. And I'll make sure Fred's

255
00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:03.919
areware and he might want to talk about that when

256
00:14:03.919 --> 00:14:08.919
he gets back to our next question. This one comes

257
00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:12.080
from who is it? It's from Rennie, who is in

258
00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:19.240
southern sunny West Hills, California. Rennie tends to ask very short,

259
00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:20.480
sharp questions.

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00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:22.519
On a mission to Mars. Would a spaceship.

261
00:14:22.039 --> 00:14:25.600
Traverse through the asteroid belt or would it travel above

262
00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:26.879
or below the belt?

263
00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:31.799
Yes, really good question. Now, the astro belt, as everybody

264
00:14:32.159 --> 00:14:35.000
imagines it, is between the obbits of Mars and Jupiter,

265
00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:37.960
So when we're going to Mars, we're still closer to

266
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the sunner than the astraid belt is, so you're not

267
00:14:39.799 --> 00:14:44.519
really going to be traversing the belt anyway. However, Mars

268
00:14:44.919 --> 00:14:47.840
is such a tiny, puny planet with fairly weeak gravity

269
00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:50.360
and sorry Mars, but it's true, but the inter readge

270
00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:53.840
of the astra belt basically almost of lapsed with Mars's orbit,

271
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and asteroids do cross Marser's orbit all the time. Mars

272
00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:00.919
therefore gets hit more often than we do. Fortunately, space

273
00:15:01.039 --> 00:15:04.960
is really, really, really big, and there's a experiment you

274
00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:08.000
can do that demonstrates this. So if you've watched great

275
00:15:08.039 --> 00:15:11.200
movies like Star Wars, you've got asteroid belts in there

276
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as a refuge for the brave, heroic enemies of society

277
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and being chased by the baddies. They're flying to the

278
00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:19.759
astroid belt and they have to dodge and we've to

279
00:15:19.799 --> 00:15:23.200
get through, and of course the baddies fail terribly, crash

280
00:15:23.240 --> 00:15:25.120
into things, and wee chair because at heart we're all

281
00:15:25.159 --> 00:15:29.120
horrible individuals. But that's what happens. So the kind of

282
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cultural tick from that is that we imagine asteroid belts

283
00:15:31.559 --> 00:15:35.080
has been incredibly densely packed with material. Now, if the

284
00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:37.879
Ashtoi Belt was like that, you could go out tonight

285
00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:40.320
or any night of the year and look up and

286
00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:43.159
the plane of the Soul system would have a band

287
00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:48.799
quite broad of the sky from horizon to horizon where

288
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you see no stars, where you cannot see due to

289
00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:54.039
when you cannot see Saturn because there's an asteroid in

290
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the way, because every line of sight would hit an

291
00:15:55.720 --> 00:15:58.440
asteroid and that would be glowing grayish because it'd be

292
00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:02.039
reflecting some light back to us. That'd be how the

293
00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:05.399
sky looks. The reality is that you don't see the

294
00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:09.639
asteroid belt. You need a telescope or binoculars to see

295
00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:13.320
individual asteroids. But to have an asteroid pass in front

296
00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:15.360
of a star and block its light to have an

297
00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:19.519
occultation is a sufficiently unusual event that astronomers will travel

298
00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:22.120
across the world to set up in the shadow of

299
00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:24.840
the asteroid to get data that tells you how big

300
00:16:24.840 --> 00:16:26.519
it is, what its shape is, by the shape of

301
00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:29.519
that shadow as it moves across the Earth. What that

302
00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:33.080
tells you is that space is mostly empty. The fact

303
00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:35.200
that it is so rare that one of these asteroids

304
00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:38.440
lines up with a star is telling you that essentially

305
00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:40.759
you're going to be fairly safe traveling through the asteroid belt.

306
00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:43.240
When you talk about there being more than a million

307
00:16:43.279 --> 00:16:46.480
objects bigger than a klometer across, you think space must

308
00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:50.120
be packed. But the actuality that belt is so sparsely

309
00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:52.240
populated these days that if you were ever to be

310
00:16:52.279 --> 00:16:54.759
stood on the surface of an asteroid and you weren't

311
00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:56.559
having to worry about how you get home or what

312
00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:58.440
you're going to breathe, if you're stood on the surf

313
00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:01.120
of that asteroid. Very few few other asteroids will be

314
00:17:01.159 --> 00:17:03.639
near enough to see with you an added eye. Space

315
00:17:03.799 --> 00:17:07.160
is that big. The way that you can evidence that,

316
00:17:07.240 --> 00:17:09.119
I guess is the fact we've sent all these missions

317
00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:11.200
to the outer planets and not one has come a cropper.

318
00:17:11.799 --> 00:17:14.519
But also when those missions want to visit an asteroid

319
00:17:14.519 --> 00:17:16.519
for a bit of added value, they've got to be

320
00:17:16.680 --> 00:17:19.119
very careful in picking their trajectory to get near enough

321
00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:22.319
to see something. Big. Space is pretty big. So in

322
00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:25.039
terms of this question, for a mission to Mars, there

323
00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:27.079
is debris in the inner Solar System that you'd want

324
00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:29.119
to be aware of, but you can basically just pick

325
00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:31.799
your path and go. The odds of you intersecting an

326
00:17:31.799 --> 00:17:35.680
asteroid are pretty much non existent, very very small smaller

327
00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:38.319
debris maybe, but the big you get, the less stuff

328
00:17:38.359 --> 00:17:42.160
there is. Even going to the outer Solar System, you

329
00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:44.640
just go through. You don't need to go above or below,

330
00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:47.319
which is fortunate. See obits of the asteroids are quite

331
00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:49.839
puffed up. You'll get up to thirty or even forty

332
00:17:49.880 --> 00:17:52.480
five degree tilts before the asteroid belt starts to when,

333
00:17:53.480 --> 00:17:55.240
and so that means you'd have to go very very

334
00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:57.160
high to get up and then get back down again.

335
00:17:57.319 --> 00:17:58.720
A lot easier to go straight through.

336
00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:03.000
Yeah, yeah, And as you said, nothing's hit one yet

337
00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:06.359
that we've sent out there, so yeah, there's plenty of

338
00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:09.319
room to move through. And as you said, space is big.

339
00:18:09.359 --> 00:18:10.920
You might think it's a long way down the street

340
00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:14.160
to the chemist to quote a famous book, but.

341
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Yes, space is huge.

342
00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:19.559
Thanks Rennie. Great to hear from you. This is Space

343
00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:21.079
Nuts with Andrew Dunkley.

344
00:18:20.960 --> 00:18:22.200
And John D. Horner.

345
00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:26.920
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won't be disappointed. Now back to the show.

378
00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:31.839
Space nuts.

379
00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:34.200
Well, it's not Professor Fred Watson at the moment, it's

380
00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:38.400
Professor Johnty Hornefred's away and that means the mice can

381
00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:43.119
play Johnty. Let's go to our next question. Hi you chaps,

382
00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:46.920
Lawrence from London, England. Here, I have a question about

383
00:20:47.039 --> 00:20:50.799
how we map the night sky and judge distances accurately. Specifically,

384
00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:54.440
how can we make any kind of objective claim regarding

385
00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:58.359
the distance and positions of particular stars or planets when

386
00:20:58.440 --> 00:21:03.359
we know effects like gravitational lensing can actively disconnect what

387
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:06.640
we see with what is actually out there. It seems

388
00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:10.400
that without any sort of unaffected control against which we

389
00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:15.440
make these judgments, it's not all some giant, if not educated,

390
00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:20.359
guessing game. Apologies if I've missed something incredibly obvious here.

391
00:21:20.519 --> 00:21:24.000
Love the pod, listen to it every day and to

392
00:21:24.079 --> 00:21:27.240
and from work, and congratulations Thread on the big step

393
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:30.559
in your career. You're an inspiration to all. Jeez, chaps,

394
00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:32.319
all the best. That's another one I'll have to send

395
00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:37.519
a Fred, But yes, yeah, measuring.

396
00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:39.039
Things in space, how do we get it right? How

397
00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:39.519
do we.

398
00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:45.400
Compensate for gravitational lensing. I think we've had similar questions

399
00:21:45.400 --> 00:21:47.599
in the past. It's always good to revisit these things.

400
00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:50.400
Absolutely, and it's a good question, and we actually cover

401
00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:52.759
a lot of this when we teach asterronomy. So I've

402
00:21:52.759 --> 00:21:55.359
taught this, I've gone through it, and it is true

403
00:21:55.400 --> 00:22:00.160
that the distances you get are not perfectly precise. Yes,

404
00:22:00.839 --> 00:22:04.880
so we can't say that an object four million light

405
00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:08.240
years away is exactly four million. There'll be an uncertainty

406
00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:11.200
with that. But the way that we've got the distances

407
00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:15.680
worked out is a series of different runs on a ladder.

408
00:22:15.720 --> 00:22:18.880
That's the why it's often described the distance ladder. And

409
00:22:18.920 --> 00:22:21.720
there are different techniques we can use that find objects

410
00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:25.519
that are more easy to spot but are rarer so

411
00:22:25.799 --> 00:22:29.200
within our solar system, it took a long time, but

412
00:22:29.279 --> 00:22:33.160
people got the distances worked out. There were clever experiments

413
00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:35.480
that went on all the way back to the sixteen

414
00:22:35.559 --> 00:22:37.720
hundreds and even earlier trying to estimate the scale of

415
00:22:37.720 --> 00:22:42.640
the solar system. Famously ol Aroma back in the sixteen seventies,

416
00:22:42.680 --> 00:22:46.240
I believe it was did some cool experiments trying to

417
00:22:46.279 --> 00:22:50.079
measure the speed of light looking at the eclipses of

418
00:22:50.079 --> 00:22:52.400
the moons of Jupiter, and in order to measure the

419
00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:55.599
speed of light, he had to have an understanding of

420
00:22:55.640 --> 00:22:58.200
the scale of the universe, or at least a scale

421
00:22:58.240 --> 00:23:01.359
locally in the Solar System in order to make that happen.

422
00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:05.039
And that scale the distance of the planets from the

423
00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:08.559
Sun had got relatively well established by then, fans to

424
00:23:08.599 --> 00:23:12.920
clever observations using trigonometry and using little bits of things

425
00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:15.799
like trigonometric paddle acts. Now pedalas is going to become

426
00:23:15.880 --> 00:23:19.720
quite important. So within the Solar System, once you've got

427
00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:22.880
your ruler worked out, if you know the orbital period

428
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:26.519
of an object, you know it's semi major axis, which

429
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:30.240
is the scale of its orbit. We also, by observing

430
00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:33.720
from different locations, can get quite a good immediate measurement

431
00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:36.000
of the distance, even to things we've only just discovered.

432
00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:38.599
If you observe from two different sides of the planet,

433
00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:40.240
you'll see the thing move a little bit against the

434
00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:43.960
background thousand that gives you a distance. Now that technique,

435
00:23:44.079 --> 00:23:46.599
that idea of paddle ants comes in really important to

436
00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:49.559
measure the distance to the nearest stars, and this is

437
00:23:49.559 --> 00:23:52.480
what people were doing by the early eighteen hundreds. You've

438
00:23:52.519 --> 00:23:54.920
got people like you have three diric vessel were doing

439
00:23:54.960 --> 00:23:59.960
this way before the days of optical observe of photographic observing.

440
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:02.000
Should I say this is all optical with the eye,

441
00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:06.200
but they were taking very precise measurements of stars against

442
00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:08.880
the background stars using the biggest telescopes of the day.

443
00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:13.440
And they use this technique culture inometric parallaxs. Now, if

444
00:24:13.480 --> 00:24:15.599
you're driving while listening to the podcast, don't do this,

445
00:24:15.640 --> 00:24:17.319
But if you' sat somewhere safe, you can do this

446
00:24:17.319 --> 00:24:19.960
as an experiment. Actually, see how it works. So if

447
00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:21.720
you put your finger up in front of your face

448
00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:24.200
and close your right eye and look where your finger

449
00:24:24.279 --> 00:24:26.640
is against the background. Then open your right eye and

450
00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:29.920
close the left, you'll see your finger move against the background. Yeah,

451
00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:32.759
close your fingers to your face, the bigger the movement.

452
00:24:33.960 --> 00:24:36.519
So that's trigarometric paddle acts. And it's part of how

453
00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:39.119
our brains help us do things like catchable that's surroun

454
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:42.400
to us. We get a sense of depth perception. Now,

455
00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:44.799
what I want you to imagine is that without killing

456
00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:46.920
you or causing you pain, I'm able to separate your

457
00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:49.319
eyes and instead of them being a couple of inches apart,

458
00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:53.119
make them three hundred million kilometers apart, so I'm putting

459
00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:54.640
them on one side of the s of it rather

460
00:24:54.680 --> 00:24:57.519
sudden then the other. That gives you a much bigger baseline.

461
00:24:57.519 --> 00:25:00.920
And that baseline is enough that by stars, when you

462
00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:03.559
look at them through a telescope, will appay to move

463
00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:05.559
against the background stars in just the same way that

464
00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:07.559
your finger does when you look from the left either

465
00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:10.319
right eye. So that gives us a way to measure

466
00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:12.759
the distance to those stars. So long as we know

467
00:25:12.799 --> 00:25:15.559
the distance that the Earth has moved, that's a distance

468
00:25:15.559 --> 00:25:16.799
of the Earth from the Sun. So if we know

469
00:25:16.839 --> 00:25:19.400
the size of the baseline, we know the angle that

470
00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:23.240
the stars moving through. Fairly simple trigonometry allows you to

471
00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:26.640
calculate the distance, and that gives us a distance to

472
00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:28.920
the nearest stars. And the better your telescope, the better

473
00:25:28.920 --> 00:25:32.039
your facility, the more accurately you can measure that, which

474
00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:34.759
is why the GEY emission at the minute is so incredible.

475
00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:37.759
The Gey emission is this spacecraft floating around out there

476
00:25:37.759 --> 00:25:41.599
in space with an incredibly precise camera that is, among

477
00:25:41.640 --> 00:25:44.640
many other things, measuring the parallats and the proper motion

478
00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:48.640
of about two billion with a b two billion stars.

479
00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:53.400
That's depending on the number us a half a percent

480
00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:56.400
to one percent of all stars in our galaxy will

481
00:25:56.440 --> 00:25:59.039
be able to have their distance measured by this spacecraft.

482
00:26:00.119 --> 00:26:03.079
But eventually things get so far away that you can't

483
00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:05.440
use padallax anymore. They just moved too little for you

484
00:26:05.480 --> 00:26:08.440
to measure it. How then do you get the distance

485
00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:11.200
to the next subject. Well, you go back to the

486
00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:14.599
early nineteen hundreds, and you had a great astronomer, I

487
00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:18.519
think it was Henrietta Levitt who did this fabulous, fabulous

488
00:26:18.559 --> 00:26:22.480
work as one of the calculators, one of the astronomers

489
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:25.720
at a great American observatory, and she was looking at

490
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:28.799
photographic plates of the large Magelanic Cloud, which is one

491
00:26:28.839 --> 00:26:32.240
of our satellite galaxies, and studying them. And what she

492
00:26:32.319 --> 00:26:35.279
realized was that there was a group of variable stars

493
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:38.759
which we call the Seafeed variables after Delta Cephi, which

494
00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:41.680
is the brightest one in the sky, that were all

495
00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:46.279
varying periodically. They were getting brighter and fainter. But the

496
00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:48.960
stars that were the same brightness that were varying this

497
00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:51.400
way also varied with the same period. Now, because all

498
00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:54.079
these stars were in the same galaxy a long way away,

499
00:26:54.519 --> 00:26:57.480
they were essentially at the same distance. The size of

500
00:26:57.480 --> 00:27:00.359
that galaxy compared to its distance is quite small. Stars

501
00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:03.240
she's studying in that field of view in that galaxy

502
00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:07.559
were effectively the same distance. The stars that looked fainter

503
00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:11.079
actually were fainter, and the stars that looked brighter actually

504
00:27:11.160 --> 00:27:14.440
were intrinsically brighter. And what she found was that there

505
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:17.440
was a relationship between the period of these oscillations and

506
00:27:17.480 --> 00:27:21.039
the brightness, which is brilliant. What that means is if

507
00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:24.160
you see a star oscillating in this way and you

508
00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:27.960
measure its period, you know intrinsically how bright it is,

509
00:27:29.480 --> 00:27:31.160
and you know how bright it is in the sky,

510
00:27:31.720 --> 00:27:33.720
So that allows you to work out its distance as

511
00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:36.559
an equation we can use which allows you to compare

512
00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:40.039
the true brightness and the observed brightness. So that gives

513
00:27:40.039 --> 00:27:42.680
you an independent measure of distance that tells you which

514
00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:45.119
of these stars are closer or further away across the sky.

515
00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:48.400
But you need to calibrate that. You can say that

516
00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:50.680
one star is closer than another, but until you know

517
00:27:50.720 --> 00:27:53.799
the distance of one of the stars, that's not really useful.

518
00:27:54.440 --> 00:27:57.839
But fortunately, the very closest of these sephored variable stars

519
00:27:58.279 --> 00:28:00.960
are close enough to also measure the distance with paddle aps,

520
00:28:01.599 --> 00:28:05.559
so that gives you a way to quantify a scale. Now,

521
00:28:05.559 --> 00:28:07.359
these are quite bright steles, so you can even see

522
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:10.279
them in nearby galaxies, So that gives you another wrung

523
00:28:10.319 --> 00:28:13.240
on the distance ladder. And you can see these seals,

524
00:28:13.279 --> 00:28:16.039
you can spot them. You can measure their variability, which

525
00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:18.720
tells you how luminous are, how intrinsically bright they are,

526
00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:21.359
And you can measure how bright they appear and use

527
00:28:21.400 --> 00:28:23.599
that to get the distance, and that gets you out

528
00:28:23.640 --> 00:28:26.720
a bit further. But then again they get too fent

529
00:28:26.839 --> 00:28:29.200
you can't see them. But there are some types of

530
00:28:29.240 --> 00:28:33.000
super and over explosion that it turns out, are very

531
00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:35.799
very regular in their peak luminosity, how much light they

532
00:28:35.880 --> 00:28:38.400
give off. So if you see a super and over

533
00:28:38.519 --> 00:28:40.640
behave in a certain way can identify it's one of

534
00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:43.920
these kind of supernovay. Then that tells you you know

535
00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:46.319
exactly how luminous it got. And once again you can

536
00:28:46.359 --> 00:28:49.480
measure the brightness as we see it. Put the two

537
00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:52.519
together to get the distance. With those, we can use

538
00:28:52.519 --> 00:28:56.160
the see fed variables to set the standard. These standard candles,

539
00:28:56.599 --> 00:28:58.680
you can get the distance of us super and ova

540
00:28:58.720 --> 00:29:02.200
and that gives you a distance scale. So there are

541
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:05.400
other ladders, other rungs on this ladder, but that's the

542
00:29:05.480 --> 00:29:09.359
essential way it works. Now, it's not perfect. There are

543
00:29:09.480 --> 00:29:12.640
uncertainties that accumulate as you go further and further away.

544
00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:16.319
So the more distant something is from us, the larger

545
00:29:16.359 --> 00:29:19.920
the uncertainty on its distance will be. So for objects

546
00:29:19.960 --> 00:29:22.359
in the Solar System, we know the distances with incredible

547
00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:25.160
accuracy nowadays, particularly for the objects we've studied really well.

548
00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:29.039
The nearest stars. Again, we know that very very accurately,

549
00:29:29.119 --> 00:29:32.319
but not as precisely as we know the distance to

550
00:29:32.359 --> 00:29:35.079
the objects in the Solar System. And the further you go,

551
00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:37.880
the bigger the uncertainty, the bigger the error gets on

552
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:41.079
the measurement compared to the measurement itself. Now, all of

553
00:29:41.119 --> 00:29:45.319
these things like gravitational lensing and stuff like that interfere

554
00:29:45.400 --> 00:29:49.480
for some objects in some locations, but they're not the

555
00:29:49.599 --> 00:29:51.359
end of the world because they're a small subset of

556
00:29:51.400 --> 00:29:53.720
the objects and they are a small effect on the

557
00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:56.000
total of it. So if you've got and this is

558
00:29:56.039 --> 00:29:58.440
getting a bit further from my personal area of expertise,

559
00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:00.759
but if you've got a distant galaxy is lensed by

560
00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:04.839
fall ground object. The distance along the different light paths

561
00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:07.039
is still going to be very similar to it coming direct.

562
00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:09.839
You're only deviating by a couple of degrees off that

563
00:30:09.920 --> 00:30:12.480
line and then getting bent back. So even if that

564
00:30:12.559 --> 00:30:15.519
lights had to travel a little bit further, the uncertainty

565
00:30:15.559 --> 00:30:19.039
is still within all the other uncertainties there. So that's

566
00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:21.200
a part of the story as well, and we can

567
00:30:21.240 --> 00:30:23.680
observe these things now. One of the nice things is

568
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:26.799
for some of the really extremely distant things that are lensed,

569
00:30:27.599 --> 00:30:30.039
that lensing gives us a brighter image than we will

570
00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:32.839
get if the thing in the foreground wasn't there, which

571
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:35.519
has allowed people to observe this sup and ova in

572
00:30:35.559 --> 00:30:39.359
them to help give an independent confirmation of their extreme distances.

573
00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:42.680
You've also had a couple of quirkycasions, I believe, where

574
00:30:42.680 --> 00:30:46.359
you've got these fragmented lensed images, these beautiful things you

575
00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:48.640
see in some of the astra photos from things like Hubble,

576
00:30:49.079 --> 00:30:51.279
where you've got a distant galaxy with a lens in

577
00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:54.079
the foreground and you've got multiple images of the same galaxy.

578
00:30:54.880 --> 00:30:57.240
And I believe that san to be corrected on this

579
00:30:57.440 --> 00:30:59.680
that there has been a case at least once where

580
00:30:59.680 --> 00:31:02.599
AVA has been seen in the different fragments of the

581
00:31:02.680 --> 00:31:05.200
lens coming at slightly different times because of light paths

582
00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:08.799
of different lens. So we can even see the differences

583
00:31:08.920 --> 00:31:12.279
in the distance for the different images because of the

584
00:31:12.720 --> 00:31:15.279
asymmetry and the lens fact that it's not perfectly then

585
00:31:15.319 --> 00:31:18.039
to essentially, so there's a lot we can dig into there,

586
00:31:18.119 --> 00:31:20.599
and if you want to know more about it, it's searching,

587
00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:23.599
you know, the kind of galactic distance scale, the you know,

588
00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:26.799
the distance ladder, looking at the seafeed variables, and the

589
00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:30.799
story of the incredible scientists in the early nineteen hundred,

590
00:31:30.920 --> 00:31:34.240
the women who worked there and in this remarkable science

591
00:31:34.359 --> 00:31:36.279
is well worth looking into. Us while you've got people

592
00:31:36.279 --> 00:31:39.440
like Henriette to Leavitt, Annie John Cammon who did similar

593
00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:41.759
work at the same institute at the time, these kind

594
00:31:41.799 --> 00:31:45.920
of overlooked heroes of astronomy that did absolutely astonishing work

595
00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:48.880
and led to this knowledge that we have now.

596
00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:54.039
Wow, theger Lawrence, I bet you didn't expect any answer,

597
00:31:54.079 --> 00:31:57.240
But you've got plenty to work with. So if you

598
00:31:57.279 --> 00:31:59.440
go do your homework and get back to us when

599
00:31:59.480 --> 00:32:06.319
you've got when you've got another follow up question. But yeah, yeah,

600
00:32:06.359 --> 00:32:09.480
I mean it's a great explanation, and there's a lot

601
00:32:09.480 --> 00:32:12.240
more to it than meets the eye bombob.

602
00:32:15.039 --> 00:32:17.559
Murder Your Love through Space Nets.

603
00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:24.599
One final question, and this one comes from Lee. I'm

604
00:32:24.640 --> 00:32:27.400
listening to the episode discussing the nine to one subscription

605
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:32.079
rate for the James Web Space Telescope's time. I understand

606
00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:37.000
that JWST costs a few dollars, but surely most of

607
00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:42.160
the cost was in tooling, contracting, et cetera. Wouldn't NASA

608
00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:45.880
have contract options to build additional systems, such as in

609
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:48.960
the event of a launch failure. Since the tooling and

610
00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:52.480
such is already made and the science value is so high,

611
00:32:53.079 --> 00:32:57.440
would they ever consider consider building James Web Space Telescopes

612
00:32:57.480 --> 00:33:00.599
two and three. Just seems logical to buy in box.

613
00:33:01.119 --> 00:33:04.400
Keep up the good work, sheees Lee. I think when

614
00:33:04.559 --> 00:33:08.480
Fred and I were first talking about James Webb, we

615
00:33:08.839 --> 00:33:10.559
talked about the fact that they had to get this

616
00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:13.400
absolutely right first go, because there was no going back

617
00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:16.839
if they made a mistake. So that may well help

618
00:33:17.160 --> 00:33:21.680
answer the question from Lee. But your thoughts, Johnny, there

619
00:33:21.720 --> 00:33:23.279
aren't any plans.

620
00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:25.720
At the minute for j WSC mark two, mark three.

621
00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:30.480
It's interesting when you go back to Hubble that the

622
00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:34.319
US military has spare hubbles lying around, so there's great,

623
00:33:34.519 --> 00:33:36.880
great observatory coming online in a few years time when

624
00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:40.440
it gets launched. Nancy gresh Roman Telescope, I think it

625
00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:44.079
is that has its origin in the fact that hubble

626
00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:46.559
space telescopes in our old technology for the military, So

627
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:50.000
that'sn't gone approached apparently, And told by the way, we've

628
00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:53.559
got three four spare hubbles lying around, could you use them?

629
00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:56.119
And the ones that the military were using obviously point

630
00:33:56.119 --> 00:33:58.200
in a different direction because they look down rather than

631
00:33:58.279 --> 00:34:02.759
looking up. I don't think that's the same story with JEDUST.

632
00:34:03.359 --> 00:34:05.000
And part of the issue here as well is the

633
00:34:05.039 --> 00:34:09.639
development time. JWSC famously launched about twenty years after it

634
00:34:09.719 --> 00:34:12.960
was initially scheduled to and the first discussions of first

635
00:34:12.960 --> 00:34:16.159
planning for JEDSC was actually in the nineteen eighties and

636
00:34:16.199 --> 00:34:18.760
it took until twenty twenty one for it to get launched.

637
00:34:19.480 --> 00:34:22.039
That's really challenging, and there is nothing in the pipeline

638
00:34:22.079 --> 00:34:24.599
to do it now. The idea of having the production

639
00:34:24.760 --> 00:34:29.280
line is something that has become relevant for smaller telescopes.

640
00:34:29.760 --> 00:34:33.079
We at UNISQ have this fabulous observatory amount Kin observatory

641
00:34:33.079 --> 00:34:36.800
where we've got a dedicated facility for finding and characterising

642
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:39.920
planets around other starts, and we're able to do that

643
00:34:40.039 --> 00:34:43.719
on a university scale budget with our collaborators because for

644
00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:46.920
smaller telescopes, there are now companies who produce these things

645
00:34:46.920 --> 00:34:49.199
on a production line, and we're having essentially the muddel

646
00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:53.920
t forward revolution in telescopes, where for small telescopes people

647
00:34:53.960 --> 00:34:57.079
and by small telescopes here i'm talking telescopes with mirrors

648
00:34:57.119 --> 00:35:00.159
at seventy centimeters or amet cross so they're still a

649
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:03.320
lot bigger than they typical backyard scale, but they're small

650
00:35:03.400 --> 00:35:07.079
compared to jws or compared to the Vera Rubin observatory,

651
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:11.360
things like that. And there is sufficient demand from the military,

652
00:35:11.440 --> 00:35:15.239
from commercial interests, from astronomers, and from amateur astronomers that

653
00:35:15.320 --> 00:35:18.519
it's now sufficiently profitable for companies to do these things

654
00:35:18.519 --> 00:35:21.519
on a production line. And what that's led to is

655
00:35:21.559 --> 00:35:23.280
a drop in the cost of these telescopes of an

656
00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:28.079
order of magnitude, which lets us build these bespoke observatories

657
00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:30.440
that are tasked with a single task to do a

658
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:35.000
single thing. The problem is that that production line thing

659
00:35:35.719 --> 00:35:38.199
is okay if telescopes that are seventy centimeters or a

660
00:35:38.280 --> 00:35:41.559
meter across. It's not telescopes at the cutting edge of

661
00:35:41.599 --> 00:35:45.199
the biggest in the world, the most complex in the world.

662
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:50.480
These are relatively simple telescopes. There is no motivation as

663
00:35:50.519 --> 00:35:53.079
far as I can tell. It's not a good financial

664
00:35:53.079 --> 00:35:54.800
thing to say we're going to build a production line

665
00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:57.880
for jwsts because there's just not the market for them.

666
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:00.880
The cost is so high the use case. I'd love

667
00:36:00.920 --> 00:36:02.400
there to be nine out there, but I would lay

668
00:36:02.760 --> 00:36:05.360
if there were nine j wsds, they would still be

669
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:07.440
over subscribed by nine to one. Because there's just so

670
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:10.599
much science that we want to get done. The focus

671
00:36:10.679 --> 00:36:13.239
is on the next generation of telescopes. There's a Vera

672
00:36:13.320 --> 00:36:16.000
Rubin Observatory coming online in the next year or two

673
00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:19.480
that'll see fest light that will revolutionize astronomy. I'm really

674
00:36:19.519 --> 00:36:22.719
excited about that. And that's ground based, but that's an

675
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:27.079
eight point three meter diameter primary mirror, but an incredibly

676
00:36:27.159 --> 00:36:30.920
incredibly fast photographic lens, so it'll have it's like having

677
00:36:30.960 --> 00:36:32.800
a really fast lens on your camera, but it'd been

678
00:36:32.840 --> 00:36:36.079
eight point three meters across. That will let people serve

679
00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:40.039
there the entire sky once a week down to magnitude twenty,

680
00:36:40.079 --> 00:36:42.519
which is about a billion times fenter than the human

681
00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:46.000
eye can see every single week, and that's predicted to

682
00:36:46.119 --> 00:36:47.880
increase the number of objects we know in the Solar

683
00:36:47.920 --> 00:36:50.039
system my factor of ten to one hundred times within

684
00:36:50.079 --> 00:36:52.440
a year to do similar things for the rest of

685
00:36:52.480 --> 00:36:56.400
astronomy and things like that. Things like the games Web,

686
00:36:56.400 --> 00:36:59.320
which are really at the cutting edge of what we

687
00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:01.599
can do, tend to be one off because they are

688
00:37:01.639 --> 00:37:05.159
incredibly expensive if they require huge amounts of technology innovation

689
00:37:05.760 --> 00:37:08.519
to make happen, But they are also such an incredibly

690
00:37:08.559 --> 00:37:10.440
long lead time that by the time it's up there,

691
00:37:10.480 --> 00:37:13.119
people planning the next big things. And we're joking for

692
00:37:13.159 --> 00:37:16.199
space observatories about telescopes that want launch and silver late

693
00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:19.239
twenty thirty is early twenty forties. Now, nothing that I'm

694
00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:22.280
aware of is a direct analog for gems Web. It's

695
00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:24.280
probably worth having an a side here, and I like

696
00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:27.039
to talk about this. Do you sometimes get people saying,

697
00:37:27.119 --> 00:37:28.960
why do we spend so much money on this? Why

698
00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:32.559
do the US governments continue to give billions to NASSA

699
00:37:33.320 --> 00:37:35.679
and Shrudn't we spend that money on things like curing cancer?

700
00:37:35.719 --> 00:37:42.440
You know, yes, really the question semi regularly for me.

701
00:37:43.920 --> 00:37:47.119
What we as scientists always overlook is the fact that

702
00:37:47.159 --> 00:37:49.599
the motivations of governments to fund these things are not

703
00:37:49.639 --> 00:37:52.519
really the science. We always want to get asked that question. So,

704
00:37:52.679 --> 00:37:54.440
but it's awesome and we want to learn stuff and

705
00:37:54.480 --> 00:37:57.840
we're so passionate. And that's a really valid answer if

706
00:37:57.840 --> 00:38:01.559
you share that passion, But if you don't, it'sless. What's

707
00:38:01.599 --> 00:38:04.960
actually going on with NASA and with other governments around

708
00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:06.760
the world that are pumping huge amounts of money into

709
00:38:06.800 --> 00:38:08.480
this is that they're aware of the return that they'll

710
00:38:08.480 --> 00:38:13.039
get on their investment. To build James Web was ridiculous expensive.

711
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:16.119
I think it's approaching ten billion US dollars. That's billion

712
00:38:16.159 --> 00:38:20.159
with a B. Again, that's a lot for government to invest,

713
00:38:20.239 --> 00:38:22.159
especially when you think, yeah, should we be investing in

714
00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:24.960
cure in cancer. But to do that, you're looking at

715
00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:28.320
solving technology problems that have never been solved, building cameras

716
00:38:28.320 --> 00:38:31.519
to make measurements with a precision that's never been achieved,

717
00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:37.159
and that drives a huge amount of technological innovation for

718
00:38:37.480 --> 00:38:39.960
the government funding NASA. The great majority of the people

719
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:42.760
aren't at all interested in the science, but what they're

720
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:46.039
aware of is that historically, since it formed without fail

721
00:38:46.159 --> 00:38:48.920
year on year, NASA has had return on investment of

722
00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:51.480
at least ten to one. So for every dollar that

723
00:38:51.599 --> 00:38:54.679
is invested, the return to the economy is more than

724
00:38:54.719 --> 00:38:57.159
ten dollars. And there is no other business that I'm

725
00:38:57.199 --> 00:38:59.719
aware of that has that return on investments. So commercially

726
00:38:59.719 --> 00:39:02.840
it may it's a lot of sense, but also for

727
00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:06.199
things like curing cancer. If you're a doctor who wants

728
00:39:06.239 --> 00:39:10.239
to cure cancer and you want to be able to

729
00:39:10.280 --> 00:39:12.599
study the human body, you're going to need better cameras,

730
00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:16.559
better detection tools, better software. But you're a doctor, you're

731
00:39:16.559 --> 00:39:18.880
saving lives. You can't say I'm going to let my

732
00:39:18.880 --> 00:39:20.840
patients die because I'm going to go spend five years

733
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:24.480
developing a new tool that's not going to happen. But

734
00:39:24.559 --> 00:39:29.039
the tools that are developed for these astronomical things, for instruments,

735
00:39:29.039 --> 00:39:33.440
for facilities, for space observatories then find use in other areas.

736
00:39:33.559 --> 00:39:35.760
You know, I've got, you know, my pocket based fruit

737
00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:39.880
based device, my phone or other brands are obviously available,

738
00:39:40.119 --> 00:39:42.639
has a camera in it that when you take photos,

739
00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:45.559
they're awesome, and all the phone brands likely but the

740
00:39:45.559 --> 00:39:47.360
camera itself is terrible. You know, you look at the

741
00:39:47.360 --> 00:39:49.920
phone side on and you've got a tiny little light

742
00:39:49.960 --> 00:39:54.440
path to a sensor with mass produced lenses. The images

743
00:39:54.480 --> 00:39:58.920
that these phones make are actually absolutely god awful. They're

744
00:39:59.039 --> 00:40:03.559
terrible images because the optics is terrible, because it's cheap, reproducibile,

745
00:40:03.800 --> 00:40:08.599
very small, But they're god awful in a very predictable way.

746
00:40:08.760 --> 00:40:10.719
All the optics have the same flows from one f

747
00:40:10.800 --> 00:40:13.760
one to the next, which means in the camera software

748
00:40:14.360 --> 00:40:17.519
all of those flaws can be reverse managed out, so

749
00:40:17.559 --> 00:40:20.639
you go from a blurry kind of you know, a

750
00:40:20.719 --> 00:40:23.840
whole of mirrors type experience to a beautiful image because

751
00:40:23.880 --> 00:40:28.119
it's reproducibly bad. The detector in that phone, the software

752
00:40:28.119 --> 00:40:30.719
that's used for that image processing, all of that stuff

753
00:40:30.719 --> 00:40:33.119
that we text self and granted in our pocket has

754
00:40:33.119 --> 00:40:36.199
come from astronomy research, from the image processing and the

755
00:40:36.239 --> 00:40:39.760
imaging that's done by astronomers. And that's really why governments

756
00:40:39.800 --> 00:40:41.280
invest in this. For you and I am for the

757
00:40:41.519 --> 00:40:44.280
bulk of the audience. We just we're just in it

758
00:40:44.320 --> 00:40:47.800
for the research and the excitement of the discoveries. But

759
00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:50.360
for the people in powers, they see the benefits that

760
00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:54.159
this brings that are clearly very different to the scientific outcomes,

761
00:40:54.199 --> 00:40:57.559
and that's why it gets funded. And when you're passionate

762
00:40:57.599 --> 00:41:00.000
about something, when you care, you don't think about that narrative.

763
00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:03.719
You just talk about the excitement and the wonder, which

764
00:41:03.760 --> 00:41:07.159
is preaching to the converted, but the skeptical person down

765
00:41:07.199 --> 00:41:09.079
the pub who wants to know where the tax dollars

766
00:41:09.119 --> 00:41:11.000
are going in a time when we've got across the

767
00:41:11.039 --> 00:41:14.400
living crisis, telling them about the wonder of science isn't

768
00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:16.880
going to win them over. No, telling them about the

769
00:41:16.920 --> 00:41:19.599
other benefits they'll under sun And I think it's really

770
00:41:19.599 --> 00:41:22.880
impot to have those discussions, even if they're not the

771
00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:25.360
wonder that we all want to espowels, and it's good

772
00:41:25.400 --> 00:41:27.480
to have the reality of the other benefits as well.

773
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:32.159
Indeed, yeah, well said the go lee. Probably not a

774
00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:34.960
James Webb space telescope two and three, but I can

775
00:41:35.039 --> 00:41:39.599
tell you for sure, And Johnny hinted at this over

776
00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:44.679
the next Gosh will between now and twenty fifty one

777
00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:50.519
and beyond, there are plans to launch twenty two twenty

778
00:41:50.599 --> 00:41:55.840
three space telescopes, so there won't be James Webb. I'll

779
00:41:55.880 --> 00:41:58.719
all have different tasks. One of them will be studying

780
00:41:58.719 --> 00:42:03.880
gravitational waves. Others will be looking at gamma rays that

781
00:42:03.880 --> 00:42:06.079
the lips on, but they're.

782
00:42:06.079 --> 00:42:09.119
Sorry, other's exo planets as well in their result yet,

783
00:42:09.239 --> 00:42:13.079
and it's games. Webbits are very multi use tool, so

784
00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:15.480
it's good for everything, but you quite often get more

785
00:42:15.519 --> 00:42:18.920
mileage by making a cheaper tool that's good for one thing. Yeah,

786
00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:20.760
and a lot of the facilities are designed for a

787
00:42:20.760 --> 00:42:22.199
specific task. Yeah.

788
00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:25.400
So in the coming few decades here twenty two to

789
00:42:25.400 --> 00:42:29.239
twenty three at least, space telescopes are going to be launched,

790
00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:32.840
So it's it's not something that's stopped at James web

791
00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:33.719
By any means.

792
00:42:33.960 --> 00:42:36.920
What I might quickly on that topic is actually hop

793
00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:39.440
off one soapbox and climb up on another one, Okay,

794
00:42:40.280 --> 00:42:43.760
which is the challenge involved in this. So you say,

795
00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:45.840
you know, next twenty years we're talking about maybe another

796
00:42:45.880 --> 00:42:47.840
twenty or thirty space telescopes to be on, so we

797
00:42:47.880 --> 00:42:51.159
might get a bit more than that. In actuality, one

798
00:42:51.159 --> 00:42:54.599
of the things that salent proponents will often argue to

799
00:42:54.599 --> 00:42:56.519
astronomers when a Sean must say, oh no, this sky's

800
00:42:56.519 --> 00:42:58.320
getting ruined and it's going to be damaging for grand

801
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:03.119
best optical observatories all well, grand based observatories are absolutely anyway.

802
00:43:03.440 --> 00:43:05.760
Elon Musk can just launch all your telescopes to space

803
00:43:05.840 --> 00:43:08.920
and that's problem solved. And it just doesn't work that way.

804
00:43:08.920 --> 00:43:11.480
I mean, I did some reading around when this debate

805
00:43:11.599 --> 00:43:15.800
kicked up again. There are more than ten thousand professional

806
00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:19.880
ground based astronomical telescopes on Earth that are doing research

807
00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:23.000
that rollover subscribed. The smallest of them are things like

808
00:43:23.039 --> 00:43:25.079
up at our observatory at Mount Kent. At Mount Kent,

809
00:43:25.199 --> 00:43:28.159
we've got more than a dozen telescopes all actively on

810
00:43:28.199 --> 00:43:32.159
sky every night doing really good research. And the smallest

811
00:43:32.199 --> 00:43:35.000
of them are our seventy centimeter telescopes. We're involved in

812
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:38.280
a space mission called Twinkle. Twinkle is looking at putting

813
00:43:38.280 --> 00:43:40.480
a seventy centimeter telescope in orbit to do in for

814
00:43:40.519 --> 00:43:44.000
red observing, and it's kind of crowdsourcing it and building

815
00:43:44.039 --> 00:43:46.159
it off the shelf. It's a new model of telescopes,

816
00:43:46.599 --> 00:43:51.639
which makes it hugely cheaper. That will cost seventy million dollars.

817
00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:55.960
Our seventy centimeter telescope on the ground cost us a

818
00:43:56.039 --> 00:43:59.199
quarter of a million dollars. There is just not the

819
00:43:59.239 --> 00:44:01.480
money to rep what we've got on the ground. In

820
00:44:01.519 --> 00:44:04.599
the space there is also not the capacity to launch

821
00:44:04.639 --> 00:44:07.239
a really top end stuff. You know, the very Rubin

822
00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:09.599
Observatory is going to be an eight point three meter

823
00:44:09.719 --> 00:44:13.480
mirror with a five point three meter secondary, crazy huge thing.

824
00:44:14.159 --> 00:44:16.079
The biggest telescope is a building at the minute have

825
00:44:16.199 --> 00:44:19.119
nearly forty meter diameter mirrors. There's just no way you

826
00:44:19.159 --> 00:44:23.320
could launch them though. Unfortunately it's a bit specious to

827
00:44:23.360 --> 00:44:25.320
come back and say we don't need to protect the

828
00:44:25.440 --> 00:44:27.480
nightscab because you can just launch all the big telescopes

829
00:44:27.599 --> 00:44:30.480
space we can't afford to. Unfortunately, No, we eat the

830
00:44:30.519 --> 00:44:32.320
ground best stuff as well, and the grand best stuff

831
00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:36.840
does amazing work. Indeed, it does this very well.

832
00:44:36.880 --> 00:44:40.239
Said again and Lee, thanks for the question. It's certainly

833
00:44:40.920 --> 00:44:46.400
sparked Johnty into action. But yeah, thanks for getting in

834
00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:49.599
touch with this, Lee, Lawrence, Rennie and Christian who made

835
00:44:49.679 --> 00:44:55.159
up our panel today with our text questions, thanks as

836
00:44:55.239 --> 00:44:57.599
always to you. And if you've got questions for us,

837
00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:00.360
don't forget to send them in via our web site

838
00:45:00.400 --> 00:45:02.880
because that's the best way to get them through to us.

839
00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:06.119
Whether they're text or audio, we take them all. If

840
00:45:06.159 --> 00:45:08.320
you want to put a question on a paper aeroplane

841
00:45:08.320 --> 00:45:10.440
and just throw it. It might get to us, you

842
00:45:10.599 --> 00:45:14.760
never know. And Johnty as always, thanks so much. We'll

843
00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:16.519
catch up with you again.

844
00:45:16.519 --> 00:45:18.880
Next time, looking forward to it. Thanks for having me,

845
00:45:18.920 --> 00:45:20.480
and you know, Cleose Goings to everyone.

846
00:45:21.239 --> 00:45:26.000
John ty Horner, Professor of astrophysics, sitting in for Fred

847
00:45:26.159 --> 00:45:28.960
on Space Nuts at the moment. And thanks to Hu

848
00:45:29.039 --> 00:45:31.000
in the studio, although he couldn't be with us today

849
00:45:31.039 --> 00:45:34.519
because he's actually waiting in line for his turn to

850
00:45:34.599 --> 00:45:38.239
use the James Webspace telescope. And from me Andrew Dunkley,

851
00:45:38.519 --> 00:45:40.039
thanks to your company. We'll catch you on the next

852
00:45:40.079 --> 00:45:41.239
episode of Space Nuts.

853
00:45:41.280 --> 00:45:48.159
Bye bye Nuts to the Space Nuts podcast available at

854
00:45:48.199 --> 00:45:53.760
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You

855
00:45:53.800 --> 00:45:57.079
can also stream on demand at bides dot com. This

856
00:45:57.199 --> 00:46:02.400
has been another quality podcast production from no It's dot com.
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