Jan. 20, 2025

Primordial Black Holes, Ancient Galaxies & The Ultimate Lagrange Point: #488 - Q&A Edition

Primordial Black Holes, Ancient Galaxies & The Ultimate Lagrange Point: #488 - Q&A Edition

Space Nuts Episode 488: Cosmic Curiosities - Primordial Black Holes, Ancient Galaxies, and the Ultimate Lagrange Point
Join Andrew Dunkley, Professor Fred Watson, and Professor Jonti Horner as they tackle intriguing questions from our listeners in...

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Space Nuts Episode 488: Cosmic Curiosities - Primordial Black Holes, Ancient Galaxies, and the Ultimate Lagrange Point
Join Andrew Dunkley, Professor Fred Watson, and Professor Jonti Horner as they tackle intriguing questions from our listeners in this Q&A edition of Space Nuts. Dive into the mysteries of the universe with thought-provoking discussions on primordial black holes, ancient galaxies, and the concept of the ultimate Lagrange point.
Episode Highlights:
- Primordial Black Holes: Rusty from Donnybrook throws a cosmic curveball about the impact of a primordial black hole entering our solar system. Explore the fascinating scenarios and potential consequences with Fred and Jonti as they delve into gravitational dynamics and celestial mechanics.
- Ancient Galaxies: Marcel questions the age of the universe as the James Webb Space Telescope continues to uncover older galaxies. Fred and Jonti unravel the complexities of cosmic timelines and the implications for our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.
- The Ultimate Lagrange Point: Buddy from Oregon ponders whether the center of a galaxy could be the ultimate Lagrange point. Discover the intricacies of gravitational balance and stability as Jonti explains the concept of Lagrange points and their cosmic significance.
- Expansion of the Universe: Michael from Illinois raises questions about the accelerating expansion of the universe and its effects on our solar system. Fred and Jonti discuss the interplay between cosmic expansion and gravitational forces, offering insights into the future of our universe.
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, YouTubeMusic, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
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If you'd like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit spacenutspodcast.com/about.
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
00:00 - Andrew Dunkley answers questions from audience about primordial black holes
02:08 - Rusty asks a question about black holes in the solar system
06:39 - Science currently holds the belief that our universe is 13.8 billion years old
09:54 - Scientists say HD140283 is older than the edge of the universe
13:23 - Would the center of a galaxy be like the ultimate Lagrange point
14:11 - Would the center of the galaxy be the ultimate Lagrange point
19:30 - Fred Ferguson: An accelerating expansion means everything in the universe is moving apart
24:20 - Patrick Lukaf: There have been several versions of Planet X proposed
32:22 - Don't forget to send us your questions via our website
www.spacenutspodcast.com/ama
✍️ Episode References
James Webb Space Telescope
https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/
Dark Sky Traveller
http://darkskytraveller.com.au/
Methuselah Star (HD 140283)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_140283
Great Attractor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor
Planet Nine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine
Lagrange Points
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point

 

 

WEBVTT

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Either thanks for joining us on a Q and A

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edition or even a Q and A edition of Space Nuts.

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My name is Andrew Duncle, your host. Great to have

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your company coming up. This time.

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We are going to be answering questions from our audience

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about primordial black holes.

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This is a what if question. We love those.

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Someone else is asking about old galaxies. We are looking

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for the ultimate lagrange point and the accelerating universe, which

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we debunked in the last episode, but we're going to

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unbunk it on this episode of Space Nuts.

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Fifteen second the Channel ten nine ignition.

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Squench Space Nuts Guy or three two.

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Space notes as an I reported, Neil Good and.

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Joining me again is Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large

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and Professor John T. Horner, Professor of Astrophysics. Gentlemen, welcome,

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thanks for joining us.

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Pleasure Andrew, good to be here. Good to have Chnty

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on board as well.

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Which this is.

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Your last show for a little while because you're jetting

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off to.

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Well it's Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Greenland and this will

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be that. These tours are pretty regular occasions, as you

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know from Marny's Dark Sky Traveler Company. I do the science.

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She does all the real work. But this will be

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the first time we've included Greenland in one of these,

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so we're hoping for very spectacular views of Iceberg's as

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well as spectacular views of the Northern Lights.

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Getting American visa yet for Greenland, it's okay.

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Our Mary won't let it go. I can tell you.

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Yeah, well, I'm Judy and I are visiting Greenland later

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this year, so we won't know who's actually controlling.

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We'll let you know what it's like.

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Yeah, but I've got my US exemptions, so I should

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be right. Okay, Shall we get straight into it?

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Why not? All right?

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Our first question comes from somebody who's never sent a

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question in before except for the other twenty five times.

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Rusty from Donnybrook.

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True, Andrew, Okay, it's rusty.

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A question about black holes.

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If a primordial black hole comparable with the size of

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the Earth were to enter the Solar System at a

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high angle to the ecliptic and impact one of the

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rocky planet directly, would it a path through largely unnoticed,

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b leave a huge hole through the center of the planet,

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which would cause a lot of mayhem, or c explode

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the planet completely.

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Or d none of the above heavy hand in.

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I should tell you Johnty that Rusty has a hebit

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of throwing curveballs at us. He's always trying to trick Fred.

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So just bear that in mind when we try and

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tackle this one.

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Well, so I've got a qualification request, Sick. You get

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two very different answers depending on minutia here, because he

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says it's the size of the Earth. But if it's

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the size of the Earth, then it's two two hundred

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times the mass of the Sun, a black hole the

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tip of the Earth. If it's a black hole the

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mass of the Earth, then it's nine millimeters across. And

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so you get a very different outcome depending on which

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of those it is. I mean, either way, you're going

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to change the orbits of the planets, particularly the one

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that it encounters. But if it's the size of the

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Earth and left or twenty two hundred times the mass

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of the Sun, the Solar system will be utterly disrupted,

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the planets will be ejected, the thing it hits will

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just kind of mean, and it's mass will have gone

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up a tiny little amount. If it's the mass of

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the Earth and left on nine millimeters across. We probably

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wouldn't see it coming, we'd see the orbits changing. It

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will probably punch a nine millimeter sized hole through the Earth,

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but there's not really any friction let to slow it down.

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So I don't know that you get much in the

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way of recoil, but you would get a gravitational perturbation

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change in the Earth's orbit, that'd be my take. So

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if it came through the Earth, our orbit will become

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more tilted, seasons would be more pronounced. You'd also have

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a fairly dramatic change in where the planets are in

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the sky and all that stuff. If it was twenty

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two hundred times a mass of the Sun, this will

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be the last podcast.

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Yeah, I think so. Yeah, my take on it is

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pretty well what yours is, John T. I just assumed

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it was the mass of the Earth we were talking about,

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and I think it's the radius of the event horizon.

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That's nine millimeters of an Earth sized and Earth mass

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black hole. But something that size, I mean, you know,

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you said in the intro to this, Andrew that it

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was Rusty throwing a curveball, and that's what it's going

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to be. It would be. It probably wouldn't be a

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direct hit, because those are quite rare, it would, but

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it would still be near enough to a direct hit

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that the orbit of the black hole would you know,

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if it came close enough to the Earth, the tidal

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effects on the Earth itself would be disastrous, one side

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of the Earth feeling much more of a pool than

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the other side. So yeah, effectively we would still be spaghettified,

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and maybe a bit slower than you would if you

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just fell into a black hole yourself. But it would

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be a fairly disastrous scenario as well as you know,

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perturbing the orbits of the other planets.

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It will be a mess.

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So I think it's d isn't it. None of the

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above is the correct answer.

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And the other one with it with the Earth and Moon, though,

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will be because of the way the Earth and Moon

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move if it came through you know, if it's more

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than two or three times the Earth idiots away. We're

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not going to be disrupted, but we will have big

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tidle effects. But the Earth and the Moon will be

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pulled by different amounts in different directions, and so it

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might be enough to dissociate the Earth and Moon and

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suddenly we'll have five planets not four in the MSSL system,

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with the added impact that down the line the Earth

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and the Moon might colyde, and that will be yet

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another bad day.

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Indeed, on the flood slide, golfers be thrilled because it

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would increase their chances of a whole in one significantly.

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Oh dear, all right, Rusty, thanks for that one. You're

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always throwing one out there, and that certainly did apply

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in this case. Our next question comes from Marcel. Science

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currently holds the belief that our universe is thirteen point

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eight billion years old. The James Web Space Telescope keeps

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on finding older and older galaxies. Some of the oldest

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galaxies observed are believed to have formed over three hundred

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million years after the Big Bang. What if we find

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a galaxy that is fourteen million years old? How will

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we begin to adjust our theories to match reality. Which

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theories will be first to get thrown out the window

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versus which theories do we believe are absolutely correct?

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Can I have a shot at this? Yeah, the it's

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not going to happen. We'll find a galaxy older than

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the universe. It actually, in the early days of the

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Big Bang theory that was one of the problems that

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our measurements then suggested that the Big Bang occurred more

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recently than the ages of the planets and the stars,

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that you know, you have a universe that's younger than

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its contents, and that's clearly not a possibility. And it

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was only when we really worked out just how all

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the universes and our current thinking is indeed thirty point

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eight billion years, that was all rectified. But the bottom

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line is that the yardstick by which the a of

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galaxies is measured is basically as a fraction of the

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age of the universe. So you're never going to find

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a galaxy that's older than the universe, because you're sort

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of you know, you're looking back certainly perhaps ninety percent,

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ninety five percent of the age of the universe for

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some of these some of these really primitive galaxies that

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we're seeing. But it's never going to be older than

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the universe because we can't. We define it as essentially

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a fraction of the universe's age, so that won't happen.

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What is more interesting is the souphilety of this, which

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is that we do see galaxies which are seen as

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the universe was as it was when it was only

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perhaps two or three hundred million years old, which look

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more mature than we expected them to be. We see

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black holes that are bigger than we expected them to be,

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because we thought they'd take a lot longer to grow

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to their supermassive size. So those are the conundrums, not

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that we're going to find a galaxy that's older than

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the universe, but trying to understand how it is that

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some of these phenomena that we see spiral arms, for example,

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occurred so quickly in the early history of the universe.

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I suppose his point was that, you know, if we

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find something that's so close to when the universe began,

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how do you equate for that.

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Well, that's the bottom line, is what I was just saying.

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You know, it means we have to revise our ereas

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of galaxy evolution, not that we have to throw away

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the Big Bang, which is what a lot of his

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questions are aiming at. The Big Bang is absolutely secure.

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We can still see it, you know, we know that

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it happened.

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And yet we get people questioning us on it.

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Fred semi regularly.

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There are quite a few people who don't believe in it.

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Well, neither did my namesake, Fred Hoyle. He was a

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staunch believer in the study state theory until he went

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to his grave.

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Yeahs, Johnny, Well that's interesting, Paralleskca. The other thing that

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comes into this is uncertainty, which is we never measure

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an edge with perfect precision. There's always a bit of

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an error bar on it. And I'm reminded of the

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story probably about a decade ago, of that star that

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people dubbed the Methusela Start, which is HD one four

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zero two eighty three lovely Barcode, and that made news

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back in like twenty thirteen because people had measured its age.

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It's an incredibly metal pole star. It's one of the

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oldest stars in the galaxy for certain but they'd measured

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the age based on all these observations of it and

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estimated an age of fourteen point four to six plus

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and minus zero point eight billion years, and that age

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is older than the edge of the universe. So people

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were saying, how can we have a star older than

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the edge of the universe. And the subtlety here is

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in the uncertainty on the measurement, because that plus or

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minus zero point eight billion years is saying that in

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sixty six percent of cases this is one sigma era,

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so sixty six percent of the time the age will

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fall in that age range and thirty three percent of

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the time it will fall outside of age range. So that

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age is compatible with the edge of the universe. And

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it's just telling you that this star is very old.

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It's not saying the stars older than the edge of

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the universe necessarily. And what's actually happening in the follow

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up from that is a couple of more recent studies

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have given it ages of thirteen point seven or twelve

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billion years. So as we've got more data, the arabar

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has shrunk, but it's noticeable that it's that age has

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moved by more than a single Arabar, which is not

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uncommon when the errors are quite large. Other than that,

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it is, like Fred says, the problem is that even

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if you change the edge of the universe a little bit,

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these galaxies will still have formed within the first two

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percent or five percent of its life. You're just stretching

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the timeline or shrinking the timeline a little bit. It's

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like what we talked about in the other podcasts, the

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way that theory and observation interact is that theory is

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the best possible explanation of what we've already seen, and

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it predicts what we should see in the future with

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better instruments. And when those better instruments give us new measurements,

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that allows us to refine or improve, or disprove or

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kill the theory. You know, there's an argument you can

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never prove the theory, but you can disprove it, and

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the more you fail to disprove it, the more confident

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we are that it's a good theory. And in this case,

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is telling us not that the Big Bang theory is wrong.

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It's not telling us that the universe wasn't from that way,

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but instead it's telling us that our understanding of how

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stars and galaxies form in those early days is incomplete.

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And that's exactly why people wanted these incredible telescopes to

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go up there, because that's the only way we can

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find it out.

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And I suppose we have to keep making adjustments for

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the fact that we've decided all this because of two

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ki layers of mush inside.

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Ere yes, so messing what a little bit of do

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we carbon can do.

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It's the it's the one hundred billion neurons in it

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the checky bit.

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Yes, thanks mars O. Great question, always a good discussion

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point that one. This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley,

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Professor Freed Watson, and Professor John E.

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Horna.

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Okay, we take all for Space Nuts and.

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John Ty we have movement. We have movement.

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I see a dog with it who is coming over

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to say to you, Yeah, what's his name?

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That's Maya. That's the sister. We've got a brother and

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sister who are coming to eight years old. But she's

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the modult she's heading off to see if there's anything

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interesting happening elsewhere. Yes, nothing interesting happening here. That's which I.

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Let's go to our next question. This is an Alredio

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a question from one of our regular contributors.

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Hello buddy, Hello spaces buddy from Oregon. Again, Hey guys,

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would the center of a galaxy be like the ultimately

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Grange point like for the galaxy you were saying your

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first had a tunnel in it that once you got

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in the middle you would be weightless. That be like

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a Grange point zero. And if so, wouldn't that make

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the black hole weightless to the galaxy? And would that

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no point in the center from the little grange point

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create a gravitational Well, that look like your donut that

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you were talking about in the galaxy? Were the gravitation

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all right? Thanks guys of the podcast, keep up the

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good work.

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Got a big glucchy there, d and Buddy, but that's

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the Internet for you. Thanks for the question the ultimate

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lagrange point? Would the center of the galaxy be the

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ultimate lagrange point?

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Who wants to take a that one first? I can

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dive in briefly if you want. So. The background here

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is that the lagrange points are local areas of increased stability,

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and it comes out of something called the restricted three

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body problem, where you've got in the Solar system, which

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is where I do a lot of my work, the

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Sun and the planet and something else, and that something

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else is pretty small and tiny, and you can play games.

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So when I was a kid, I was in Scouts

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and we used to go out in the countryside and

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we had contour maps, which were maps of the local

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area that had these lines on and they told you

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how high or how low you were, And what those

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contours are actually is telling you what your gravitational potential

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energy is. It's a measure of the gravity potential. You

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can do the same with the Solar system. You can

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make a map of the Solar system that is like

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a contour map, and when you do that, you find

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the Sun's a big well in the middle, and the

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Earth's a smaller mole where the Earth is. But there

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are five locations where you have local plateaus, local flatbits,

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and there you're lagrange points, and they're more realistically LaGrande areas,

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and three of them are like sabbles on a hillside,

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so they're fairly stabled, but if you roll a little

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where you'll fall off. And that's lagrange one, two, and three,

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and they're on the line between the Sun and the Earth.

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One is on the far side of the Sun, one

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is between the Earth and Sun, and one is just

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on the far side of the Earth on that line.

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The other two lagrange points four and five, which are

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like these big plateaus that are sixty degrees ahead and

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behind the Earth and its orbit, or behind Jupter in

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its orbit. That's where you get the Jupeter trojans. And

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so these are points where the contours are flattered, so

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you can sit there fairly stable before you roll off

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in any given direction. The middle of the Sun in

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that analogy isn't a lagrange point if that's a slightly

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different concept. So you are entirely right that if you're

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in the middle of an object, you don't feel any

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gravitational pull from that object. More strictly, you feel the

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gravitational pull from every atom individually, but they all cancel out.

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So if you're in the middle of the Earth, you're

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being pulled by people study in America the same amount

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as you are by people stood in Australia, but they're

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pulling an opposite direction, so it all cancels out. So

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if you were in the middle of the black hole

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and ignoring all the other issues that would entail, you

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wouldn't feel the gravitational pull of the black hole. And

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if that was exactly at the center of the galaxy,

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all the mass in the galaxy would cancel out, but

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you'd still feel the pull from things locally. So if

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you were in the middle of the Earth and you

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were massless from the point of view of the Earth,

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you'd still feel the pull from the Moon in one

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direction and the Sun in the other direction. You'd still

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feel all those things, so you would be still being

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pulled around. And I dare say that you'd probably be

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pulled slightly off center if you could move around when

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you'd sad feel the pull from the gravitation as the

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black hole pulling you back towards the middle, and the

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further out you go, the more pull you feel, because

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you only feel the pull from the stuff that is

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interior to you everything. And this used to make my

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head hurt when we did electromagnetism at UNI and trying

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to get your head around this. Everything more distant from

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the middle than you are cancels out with everything else.

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Everything nearer to the middle you feel added up, as

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though it's pulling from the center. So technically it wouldn't

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be a grand point because it's not one of those plateaus.

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It's the bottom of a well instead, But it would

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be a place where you would effectively be weightless massless.

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What weightless rather than massless is a technical thing. You

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still have mass, but there'd be nothing pulling on you,

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so you wouldn't have weight, but it wouldn't count as

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the grande point from my point of.

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View, until you turned into spaghetti.

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Steve would be the same thing, and it will probably

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be a lot of pain as you become spagetified. Yes,

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as you do to get there.

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You're to get there, that's right. So that absolutely, John

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T so that I think that means the the answer

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the question is is just yes, except we don't consider,

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you know, the center of things as being at the

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graunge point. It's the graunge points are quite specific, or

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areas is a much better term for them, because they're

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you know, we think of them as an individual point

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in space, but they're not. They're far from it. That's why,

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for example, the L two point in the Earth, the

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GROUNDE system, it can be occupied by many spacecraft at once,

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which it.

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Is, yes, and it's not like did steal The spacecraft

364
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have to adjust to the load.

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And that's because they're starting to roll off the saddle.

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So these halo orbits that they move around are actually

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rolling around the saddle essentially along a line of constant

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high like one of those contours on your contour MAPP.

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But it's very easy to roll off. So that's why

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you burn fuel to stay on location. Because with the

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Alto in particular, if you fall off, you'll eventually fall

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off properly because he've been pulled by everything else. Yeah,

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and land in a pile of dirt, which is what

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happened when I rolled up the saddle once. But was like,

375
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go there, I was not injured. I wasn't really injured.

376
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You're very lucky. Yeah, it was very people to get injured.

377
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Thank you, buddy.

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So yeah, as always, I love the way Buddy thinks.

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He comes up with his amazing ideas.

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I don't know where he his brain is obviously going

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at ten thousand miles an hour all the time.

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It comes up with some interesting questions.

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Our last question today comes from Michael in Evanston, Illinois. Gentleman, Greetings,

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Regarding the expansion of the universe, it is my understanding

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that an accelerating expansion means that everything in the universe

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is moving apart faster and faster. This means that eventually

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nothing will be visible from anywhere else. Does this mean

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that the planets in our Solar system are moving apart

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and that our moon is moving apart from Earth due

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to the universe's expansion. Notwithstanding what we talked about in

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the last episode regarding a new theory about the expansion

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of the universe and dark matter, let's stick with the

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model that we all agree on at the moment. And look,

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he's right, it is expanding.

395
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Everything's moving apart. But there are other factors in play,

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aren't they for it?

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Indeed, it's a gravity that dominates on the scale of

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the Solar System. We can't feel the expansion of the

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universe on the scale of the Solar System is too small,

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and gravity is the overwhelmingly important force. It's only when

401
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you get out to you know, you start looking at

402
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objects which are perhaps more than ten twenty million light

403
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years away, before you start seeing that expansion. Never mind

404
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the accelerated expansion. And even if the accelerated expansion does

405
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continue until we get the big rip, which is what

406
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some people think might happen, it's going to be a

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long time before the distance from the Earth to the

408
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Moon is affected by that particular geometry. Gravity is the force.

409
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Well I had clarified for me, and there's all these

410
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kind of things. Is where that boundary comes. So there

411
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is other local scale of the scale of the Milky Way.

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Even gravity wins. So the Milky Way gets held together.

413
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The local cluster should get hell together as well. But

414
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I don't know where the threshold is where it doesn't

415
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because the local cluster is part of a bigger cluster

416
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which is part of a supercluster, and at some point

417
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you have this boundary where expansion wins, but if it

418
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has to be link to that cluster structure, So it

419
00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:36.440
can't be halfway across a supercluster, because something halfway across

420
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the supercluster is still attracted to its neighbors. So it

421
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comes down to the voids and everything else. And nobody's

422
00:21:43.119 --> 00:21:47.559
been able to give a definitive, essentially horizon where things

423
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will stay closer to us or where things will move away.

424
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So I guess we just don't know that yet. We

425
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don't have a deep enough foundational enough knowledge of the

426
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structure of matter on that kind of scale near as

427
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to know. But I think the event horizon is of

428
00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:03.079
that kind of scale of the Verger cluster will still

429
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be just about there. But the more distant structure one,

430
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I don't know where that threshold is.

431
00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:11.000
It's probably a very wiggly one because it's going to

432
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follow the you know, the inhomogeneity of what we see

433
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around us in our local part of the universe. It's yeah,

434
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:23.440
it's a good point that you know, we can't say, well,

435
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beyond fifty million light years, you're going to see the

436
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expansion dominating because it will depend exactly on the on

437
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the presence. I mean, it throws back to one of

438
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the hot topics twenty years ago, which was the Great Tractor.

439
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The greater tractor being this thing hidden behind the Milky

440
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Way that we believe now is a part of a

441
00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:49.079
supercluster of galaxies that seem to be pulling everything towards it,

442
00:22:49.119 --> 00:22:53.359
but it's only one particular direction. So you've got that

443
00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.400
kind of thing going on all around us and at

444
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different distances. So yes, it would be a week, you know,

445
00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:02.319
thinking back to those contours you were talking about and

446
00:23:02.359 --> 00:23:05.480
minutes ago, Johnty. It's a contour, but it's a very

447
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wiggling one. I think I have.

448
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One heritage of this as well. I always love these

449
00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:13.319
things where we detect something in directly. That's what we

450
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do with excel planets now. It's how Neptune was found.

451
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So we've got several hundred years of inferring that something

452
00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:23.000
exists when we can't see it because it's effect on

453
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:25.359
something else. And the Great attract is just another in

454
00:23:25.400 --> 00:23:27.799
a long list of we can't see it, but we

455
00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:30.319
know it's because we see what it does to everything else.

456
00:23:33.359 --> 00:23:37.119
Yeah, the greater you've enabled me to relyve a really

457
00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:40.160
old dead joke, but the greater attractory the messy Ferguson

458
00:23:40.200 --> 00:23:43.680
because my uncle used to work for their company, but

459
00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:44.599
part right.

460
00:23:46.279 --> 00:23:47.400
And as far as.

461
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:52.079
Expansions concern, expansion wins. When you wait turn many donuts,

462
00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:53.359
you're just feeding me.

463
00:23:53.359 --> 00:23:56.359
Too much information to work with. So this is why

464
00:23:56.400 --> 00:23:59.119
I'm gradually resembling Patrick more more and more, because that's

465
00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:01.319
growing vertict when I was thirteen, and I've just been

466
00:24:01.359 --> 00:24:02.880
expanding horizontally ever since.

467
00:24:03.559 --> 00:24:06.480
Just don't espouse his politics, that's all.

468
00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:10.279
John t oh No, absolutely not. I leaned so far left.

469
00:24:10.319 --> 00:24:20.759
I'm horizontal like many acts great space nuts. Andrew.

470
00:24:20.759 --> 00:24:22.319
I was going to say, you know, this is a

471
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:26.680
Q and A session. Can I thrown a question for

472
00:24:26.759 --> 00:24:31.640
John t Uni questions right, because I'm not going to

473
00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:34.720
be around for the next episode, So i just want

474
00:24:34.759 --> 00:24:36.839
to know what Johnny's take on Planet nineties.

475
00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:40.839
Oh yes, it is really interesting. So the first paper

476
00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:43.359
I ever published, back when I was doing my PhD,

477
00:24:43.680 --> 00:24:47.279
was debunking one of the many variants of Planet X.

478
00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:50.200
And this is a recurring theme that comes up about

479
00:24:50.200 --> 00:24:52.720
every fifteen or twenty years when we get better data

480
00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:54.720
on things that are pushing the limits of our understanding

481
00:24:54.759 --> 00:24:57.880
of the SOL system. So in the early nineteen eighties

482
00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:01.960
you have Nemesis, which was Richard muller hypothesis of a

483
00:25:02.039 --> 00:25:05.000
brown dwarf or a red dwarf orbiting the Sun on

484
00:25:05.039 --> 00:25:07.400
a twenty six million year orbit that was giving us

485
00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:12.599
comets killing cosmats extinctions, and that even though it's sums

486
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:15.880
sound now, at the time it was a reasonable possibility

487
00:25:15.880 --> 00:25:18.200
as an explanation of the data. That made a prediction

488
00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:20.640
which was if it's there, you'll see it. And then

489
00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:22.920
we didn't see it. We got good enough satellites to

490
00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:25.400
do it, and so that died away. And then back

491
00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:28.839
when I sat on my PhD in two thousand, there

492
00:25:28.960 --> 00:25:32.359
was a regurgitation of the idea, in this case being

493
00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:35.880
planet X, because Pluto at that point hadn't yet rightfully

494
00:25:35.880 --> 00:25:39.400
been demotored, so people still counted it with a grimace.

495
00:25:40.839 --> 00:25:43.680
But looking at the data of where comets come in

496
00:25:43.720 --> 00:25:46.720
towards the Sun from, so not their perihelium, which is

497
00:25:46.720 --> 00:25:48.519
where their closest to some but where on the sky

498
00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:51.279
their app helium would be, they're furthest from the Sun.

499
00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:54.079
There were suggestions that there was a bit of an

500
00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:57.400
enhancement of comets coming from a great surf on the sky.

501
00:25:57.519 --> 00:26:00.000
So one particular ring three hundred and sixty grees round

502
00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:03.319
the sky had more comets than any other, and there

503
00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:06.799
were two papers identifying this. The twist was that both

504
00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:08.839
of them had great circles that were at right angles

505
00:26:08.839 --> 00:26:12.559
to each other. That didn't agree. So the first thing

506
00:26:12.599 --> 00:26:14.640
I did in my PhD was look at all this

507
00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:17.000
and say, well, hang on, our discoveries of comets are

508
00:26:17.039 --> 00:26:19.240
biased by the fact that we see them when they

509
00:26:19.319 --> 00:26:21.720
near the sun, we see them at certain months, we

510
00:26:21.759 --> 00:26:24.039
see them from the northern hemispheres, where all these different

511
00:26:24.039 --> 00:26:26.920
biases you put them in and both great circles disappear.

512
00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:30.319
So it was actually a result of our observational biases,

513
00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:32.480
and so that one went away as we got more data.

514
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:35.559
And then what's happened over the last decade or so

515
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:39.160
is that our ability to find small objects in the

516
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:41.799
outer Soul system has got better and better. So we're

517
00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:45.640
starting to find things out beyond the nominal edge of

518
00:26:45.640 --> 00:26:49.119
the edge with Koliper belt, beyond about fifty AU. And

519
00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:52.519
these are objects that are far enough aware that the

520
00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:57.119
influence of the planets isn't enough to modify their orbits

521
00:26:57.160 --> 00:27:01.519
in any real sense. But there has been a set

522
00:27:01.559 --> 00:27:04.640
of detections of objects further out that a bit like

523
00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:07.200
that great circle appeared to be more likely to be

524
00:27:07.240 --> 00:27:10.400
found in one part of the sky than anywhere else. Now,

525
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:13.279
one explanation for that is that there is something that

526
00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:15.839
we haven't seen that's further out, that is stirring them

527
00:27:15.920 --> 00:27:18.920
up and has corralled them, and that works really well

528
00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:22.680
to explain what we see. Another explanation is that this

529
00:27:22.839 --> 00:27:25.200
is in art factor of the observational bias. Because the

530
00:27:25.240 --> 00:27:28.440
survey is primarily done by the Canada, France Hawaii Telescope,

531
00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:33.799
which sees Northern Hemisphere sky by preference to southern Hemisphere

532
00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:37.400
has a varying cycle of cloudiness through the year, it's

533
00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:39.400
hard to find these things where the Milky Way is,

534
00:27:39.759 --> 00:27:41.680
so there are some people arguing that this will turn

535
00:27:41.720 --> 00:27:44.759
out to be an observational bias. You've also got a

536
00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:48.920
few different versions of planet X being proposed. So the

537
00:27:48.920 --> 00:27:51.279
most famous one is the one that gets talked about

538
00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:54.359
a lot, which is batting and people like that talking

539
00:27:54.359 --> 00:27:56.680
about a fairly massive Planet X. But a really good

540
00:27:56.680 --> 00:27:59.519
friend of mine who actually visited me at Unisq, a

541
00:27:59.559 --> 00:28:03.160
couple of mon Patrick Soephi La Kafka from Japan has

542
00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:06.680
been quietly running simulations looking at an Earth mass object,

543
00:28:07.480 --> 00:28:10.279
which would work from the point of view of our

544
00:28:10.359 --> 00:28:12.559
understanding of the formation of the giant planets. You would

545
00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:14.240
have formed a lot of objects out size that were

546
00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:17.640
then ejected that weren't incorporated, some of which will have

547
00:28:17.680 --> 00:28:20.839
been ejected but not fully ejected, so you could have

548
00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:24.599
Earth sized objects in the old cloud quite reasonably. And

549
00:28:24.680 --> 00:28:27.000
he's been looking at the distributions of all these things

550
00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:29.720
beyond Neptune. If you had something the mass of the

551
00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:32.559
Earth two or three or four hundred au away that

552
00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:34.680
we couldn't cannotly detect, but we'll be able to find

553
00:28:34.680 --> 00:28:37.279
in the next five or ten years. And that does

554
00:28:37.319 --> 00:28:40.920
a really good job of explaining the groups of objects

555
00:28:40.920 --> 00:28:45.119
we can't currently explain. Doesn't mean it's right. What it's

556
00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:47.960
doing is saying, here is something we can't explain observationally.

557
00:28:48.440 --> 00:28:51.480
Here's a couple of different teams proposing hypotheses that there

558
00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:54.279
were a really good job of fitting the data and

559
00:28:54.400 --> 00:28:57.480
explaining what we otherwise can't do. And they then make

560
00:28:57.519 --> 00:29:00.000
a prediction in both cases, which is, as Vera Rooms

561
00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:03.920
comes online, this incredible new observatory that's going to increase

562
00:29:03.920 --> 00:29:05.440
the number of objects we know by a factor of

563
00:29:05.519 --> 00:29:08.200
ten to one hundred times. In the Solar system, we'll

564
00:29:08.240 --> 00:29:11.240
certainly have a lot more data, and if these series

565
00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:15.240
are correct, these data will support them. If not, they'll

566
00:29:15.240 --> 00:29:18.400
shoot them down. Now, I think given the past history

567
00:29:18.440 --> 00:29:23.799
of Nemesis and Planet X, people are understandably very skeptical,

568
00:29:23.880 --> 00:29:26.839
but it's very good science been done by really reputable

569
00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:30.519
scientists who are not saying this is definitely there. They're saying,

570
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:33.920
here's something we cannot explain. Here is one way of

571
00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:37.279
explaining it that works really well and fits with the

572
00:29:37.319 --> 00:29:40.880
observational contracts we can only have. The truth could be

573
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:42.480
out there, you know, it's kind of X file thing,

574
00:29:43.319 --> 00:29:46.240
but we won't know until we get more data. When

575
00:29:46.279 --> 00:29:48.319
that data comes in, this is what we should look for.

576
00:29:48.759 --> 00:29:52.160
And that's really important because if you do some modeling,

577
00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:54.240
and some Solar system groups have done this in the

578
00:29:54.279 --> 00:29:57.799
past with very famous models that explain very well what

579
00:29:57.839 --> 00:30:01.559
we currently see but nothing else. They don't make predictions

580
00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:04.039
of what we don't currently see. Then that to me

581
00:30:04.119 --> 00:30:07.680
stamp collecting. It's not actually science because there's an infinite

582
00:30:07.759 --> 00:30:09.960
number of ways of explaining what we can only see.

583
00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:12.240
And what both these models are doing really well is

584
00:30:12.240 --> 00:30:14.799
they're explaining what we currently see, but also predicting what

585
00:30:14.839 --> 00:30:17.680
we will find in the future if their model is

586
00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:20.240
correct and if their model is not correct, so the

587
00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:24.680
testable hypotheses, and that's really important because that shit how

588
00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:27.039
we do our future science, what we look for. So

589
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:30.799
I find it really exciting. I'm, you know, really keen

590
00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:34.200
to see what happens with the various situations on Planet

591
00:30:34.279 --> 00:30:37.079
nine over the coming decades, and if it dies down,

592
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:39.039
I'm sure that in twenty or thirty years, when we

593
00:30:39.079 --> 00:30:42.119
get the next generation of next generation of next generation

594
00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:45.559
of telescopes, the idea might come up again because we're

595
00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:48.240
looking at this ever growing circle of knowledge around the

596
00:30:48.279 --> 00:30:49.880
Solar System. But it's not that big yet.

597
00:30:51.559 --> 00:30:53.240
The five minutes you just spend on that could have

598
00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:56.119
been entered with them. Maybe with them, maybe.

599
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:00.079
But I think it's important to clarify that the this

600
00:31:00.200 --> 00:31:02.200
is good science because it does sometimes get passed off

601
00:31:02.200 --> 00:31:04.279
as a bit of a joke because there's a past

602
00:31:04.359 --> 00:31:07.559
history of things falling flat and those things that fell

603
00:31:07.599 --> 00:31:10.599
flat were also a very good science. It's just this

604
00:31:10.640 --> 00:31:13.359
is the where science gets done, and it runs counter

605
00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:16.119
to the opinion that a lot of people get when

606
00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:18.000
they come out of school because of the challenges of

607
00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:21.160
the curriculum that science has fact and is science sealed

608
00:31:21.160 --> 00:31:23.039
and delivered. And it's one of the problems we've seen

609
00:31:23.119 --> 00:31:27.400
with accepting that cigarettes cause contract, accepting that climate change

610
00:31:27.440 --> 00:31:31.599
is an issue, is that people get taught that science

611
00:31:31.680 --> 00:31:34.400
is signed and sealed and delivered, and then when things change,

612
00:31:34.519 --> 00:31:37.559
like Pluto is demoted, that feels like a betrayal. It

613
00:31:37.559 --> 00:31:42.279
feels like you've been lighter that somehow things nefarious are

614
00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:46.000
going on, and it makes it much harder than to

615
00:31:46.200 --> 00:31:49.599
get changes in our understanding through and so it's really

616
00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:51.640
important to stress that this is how science works, and

617
00:31:51.680 --> 00:31:55.039
this is really good science. No fair point, great point,

618
00:31:55.240 --> 00:31:58.119
very good, very good. Jence.

619
00:31:58.200 --> 00:32:00.799
That's where we're going to have to finish up. Thank

620
00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:04.359
you so very much, Professor Fred Watson, and enjoy your

621
00:32:04.400 --> 00:32:08.200
travels and we will catch up with you round late February.

622
00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:10.920
Bottle look of it grows like it yep, Thank you, Andrew,

623
00:32:11.079 --> 00:32:14.160
thank you, John Ty, and I look forward to listening

624
00:32:14.200 --> 00:32:17.480
to Space Nuts podcast without being on it.

625
00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:22.839
That will be rare. Yeah, that's just plenty of photo us. Okay, yes,

626
00:32:22.920 --> 00:32:23.400
please do.

627
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:27.279
And Professor Johnny Horner, thank you for being a part

628
00:32:27.319 --> 00:32:29.839
of Space Nuts Q and A today as well. We'll

629
00:32:29.839 --> 00:32:31.440
catch you on the next episode.

630
00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:33.039
It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

631
00:32:33.599 --> 00:32:36.079
And thanks to Hue in the studio who couldn't really

632
00:32:36.119 --> 00:32:39.279
do much because he was caught in the ultimate lagrange point.

633
00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:40.680
And from me Andrew Dunkley.

634
00:32:40.920 --> 00:32:42.799
Oh, don't forget to send us your questions via our

635
00:32:42.839 --> 00:32:46.359
website Spacenuts podcast dot com, space Nuts dot io. Get

636
00:32:46.359 --> 00:32:48.160
your questions in and we'll get to them as soon

637
00:32:48.200 --> 00:32:49.240
as we possibly can.

638
00:32:50.079 --> 00:32:51.880
So from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks to your company.

639
00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:53.880
See you again on the next episode.

640
00:32:53.440 --> 00:32:59.000
Of Space Nuts. Bye bye to the Space Nuts podcast.

641
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:06.680
Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.

642
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:09.960
You can also stream on demand at bites dot com.

643
00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:15.839
This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.
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