Jan. 2, 2025

Ruby Rains, Scientific Skepticism & Space Surprises: #483

Space Nuts Episode: Gemstone Rain on Exoplanets and the Reliability of Research Papers #483
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they explore the wonders of the cosmos in another intriguing episode of Space Nuts. This week, dive into the...

Show Notes
Transcript

Space Nuts Episode: Gemstone Rain on Exoplanets and the Reliability of Research Papers #483
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they explore the wonders of the cosmos in another intriguing episode of Space Nuts. This week, dive into the fascinating world of exoplanets with gemstone rain and discuss the reliability of research papers with insightful audience questions.
Episode Highlights:
- Gemstone Rain on Exoplanet WASP-121b: Discover the extraordinary exoplanet where it rains gemstones. Learn about the unique atmospheric conditions that lead to such exotic precipitation and the incredible journey of water and other materials across this tidally locked world.
- Reliability of Research Papers: Delve into a thought-provoking discussion about the accuracy of scientific research papers. Explore how often published findings might be influenced by bias or statistical errors and what this means for fields like astronomy.
- Space Debris in Kenya: Hear about the unexpected arrival of a massive metal object in a Kenyan village, identified as a separation ring from a rocket launch. Understand the implications of such events and the protocols followed under International Space Law.
- Gravitational Wave Detection Breakthrough: Learn about a new technique called optical spring tracking that could significantly enhance our ability to detect gravitational waves. Discover how this advancement could provide insights into cosmic events from the earliest moments of the 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 Music, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favourite platform.
For more Space and Astronomy News Podcasts, visit our HQ at www.bitesz.com.
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 - This is Space Nuts, where we talk astronomy and space science
01:41 - Andrew Bennett: There's an exoplanet that rains gemstones
05:08 - You observe the star's light throughout the orbital period of the planet
12:09 - You can help support the Space Nuts podcast through Patreon or Supercast
13:47 - Bob from North Carolina has two questions for Professor Watson about scientific accuracy
22:12 - A metal object plummeted from space and landed in a Kenyan village on Tuesday
23:34 - Scientists have developed a new technique called optical spring tracking to detect gravitational waves
✍️ Episode References
WASP-121b
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASP-121b
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
https://www.mit.edu/
Johns Hopkins University
https://www.jhu.edu/
Caltech
https://www.caltech.edu/
Hubble Space Telescope
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html
phys.org
https://phys.org/
Astronomy Daily
https://astronomydaily.io/
Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/

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

WEBVTT

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While the world takes a little bit of a rest

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over the Christmas New Year period. We thought we would too,

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but we're not going to leave you hanging. We've dug

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into the archives and found a few of the biggest

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episodes of recent times, so sit back and enjoy those,

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and we'll be back with new episodes of Space Nuts,

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probably in the middle of January.

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See then, Space Nuts.

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Hello and thank you for joining us on Space Nuts,

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where we talk astronomy and space science. Great to have

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your company once again, and coming up on this particular episode,

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we're going to talk about an exoplanet that has unusual rain.

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It's raining gemstones and ruby slippers. Well maybe not the

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ruby slippers, but definitely gemstones, which is very unusual. We'll

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also be answering some audience questions. Bob wants to talk

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about research papers and how accurate or otherwise they might be.

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It's all to come on this edition of Space Nuts

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Channel ten nine Ignition Space Nuts or.

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Three two.

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Space Nuts.

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That's when actually bought it.

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Bells good.

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My name is Andrew Dunkley. I am your host. Thank

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you for joining us and with us again this week.

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Because we can't get rid of him really it is

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Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large.

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Hello Fred, Hello Andrew, how are you.

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You are the space nuts barnacle you are?

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That's yeah, I know, it's just just a barnacle on

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the buck side of space nuts.

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Right.

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We have a lot to talk about today, so let's

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get straight to our first topic, and this is a

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really interesting one. We've talked about exoplanets and even planets

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and moons in our own Solar system that have unusual

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kinds of rain, like sulfur rain.

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And acid rain.

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And I think we talked about a planet one that

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rained diamonds. Now there's an exoplanet that rains gemstones.

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What's what's this all about?

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Well, yeah, it's gemstones among other things. And it's you know,

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there's a lot going on on this exo planet. It's

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what is it? Well, it is. I think it's a WASP. Yeah,

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WASP one to one B. WASP is a is a

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project that developed the detect XO planets by the transit method,

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the fact that their brightness drops when they pass in

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front of their parents. Star. WASP one two one is

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actually a star which is about eight hundred and fifty

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light years from here. It has a planet which is

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very close to it. It's a hot jupiter. That's the

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excuse me, the official description, because it's a big planet

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and it orbits its parents star once every thirty hours,

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so you know, its year is thirty hours long, Andrew,

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it just doesn't it. But that's what's happening now. That means.

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One of the things that means is that with a

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you know, with a period that shorts and the distance

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between the parents star and the planet that's that's small,

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this planet will be tidally locked to its parents star.

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And that is the I guess the key to understanding

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what's you know, what's going on here? It is it's

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day side always is permanently facing the parents style. Well

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that that's a bit of a tortology, really, isn't it,

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because the day side is always facing the parents star.

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But the bottom line is, jeez, this is a good

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start this morning. The bottom line, yes, so well done,

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thank you. Yes, the planet is rotating at the same

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rate at which it revolves around its start, like the

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is rotating at the same rate as it revolves around

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the Earth. And so you've got this one side of

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it that permanently faces the heat source and that means

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one side is hot and the other side is cold. Now,

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given that we can't see these planets directly, you may

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well ask and Drew, how can you study the day

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and night sides of a world like this in detail?

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That's a good question. Glad I thought of it.

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I'm glad you thought of it too. The answer is

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it's really clever stuff and needs you know, it needs

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really quite significant astronomical infrastructure in order to make these observations.

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I should I should mention that the authors of this

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work come from MIT, Massaitutsetts Institute of Technology, John's Hopskins

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Johns Hopkins University, Caltech, and other US universities.

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It is a myth fall, but it is Massachusetts, Massachusetts,

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is what I tried to say.

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That's right. I didn't really anyway, never mind, I didn't

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do well with it. But so what how do you

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How do you detect what's going on on the day

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and night sides of a world like this? And what

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you do is you observe the planet and all you

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can see is the star. That's the only thing that

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is visible in your telescope. But you observe the star's

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light throughout the orbital period, of the planet. And given

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that that's only thirty hours, you don't have to wait

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it very long. If you're looking from outside the Solar

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System and trying to do this with Jupiter, you'd be

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waiting what is it twelve years or something like that.

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It's much longer. No, I think it's five years. Sorry,

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I should do that calculation again. Anyway, thirty hours gives

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you time to you know, to actually work out exactly

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what's going on through the different phases of the planet,

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because that's what it's all about. It's like the phases

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of the moon. We watch the moon going round because

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it's lit up by the Sun and we can see,

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you know, progressing from new moon to first quarter to

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full moon and all the rest of it. And you

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can do the same thing with an exoplanet. But what

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you do, what all you're able to measure is the

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total light from the planet plus the star. But as

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you'd imagine, that varies throughout the revolution period of the planet.

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When you've got just when the planet is behind the star,

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all you've got is the light of the star. And

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I should add that you're not just observing how bright

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it is, you're also observing the spectrum of this thing,

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so you're looking in detail at the chemical constituents that

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is revealed by the light that is coming to you.

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So when the planets behind the star, all her seeing

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is the light of the star when the planet shifts

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slightly in its path around the star, so you can

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see both. What you've got is effectively you're looking at

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the full planet like an equivalent of a full moon.

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It's almost completely illuminated, and that light adds to the

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light of the star. And so you can then look

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at how the spectrum has changed, and that is telling

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you about the atmosphere of the planet itself rather than

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you know the atmosphere of the star. In fact, what

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you can do is subtract the star spectrum from the

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spectrum of the combined planet plus star and you get

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the planet spectrum. That's how this works, and then that

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changes throughout the planet's year thirty thirty hours, and eventually

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you're looking at the backside of the planet, and in

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fact you have a point where that is superimposed on

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the star. Once again, you can do some clever work

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because you can look at you can look at the

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combined spectrum of the backside of the planet superimposed on

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the star itself. That combined spectrum. If you subtract out

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the spectrum of the star itself, it shows you what

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chemical constituents again are in the atmosphere of the planet,

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because the light of the star is passing through the

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atmosphere of the planet, round the edge of it and

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coming back to Earth. So that's the technique. And what's

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been found is that this object is quite extraordinary. So

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it's got a day side that is extremely hot, more

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than three thousand degrees kelvin. So what that does is

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it's known that there is water vapor in the atmosphere

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of this planet. Well there's water vapor on the night side,

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but on the day side, the water molecules are just

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torn apart because of the high temperatures. So you've got

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hydrogen and oxygen atoms that are that are you know,

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they're they're independent within the atmosphere. And then it turns

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out that because of the heat, that generates high pressure

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in the day side, which causes winds that blow things

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around to the night side. On the night side, it's

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cool enough, yeah, for these things to fall back to water,

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and so you get water vapor fall forming in the

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atmosphere of the of the dark side of the planet.

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That the estimate that these these winds are five kilometers

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per second, so this is eleven thousand miles per hour.

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It's it's a it's sixteen, sixteen or seventeen thousand kilometers

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per hour.

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Sounds like that's the same as it was in Sydney yesterday.

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Yeah, we didn't get the wind, but we got the rain.

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So we got the we got the water vapor, huge,

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huge quantities of rain. Oh gosh, bucket loads of it

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h two suitably combined back into water vapor. Yes, so

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that's what they get on the on the dark side

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of the of this wasp on onto one being. But

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there's but way, there's more, because it's not just water

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that's that's circulating like this. They find that on the

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night side that the temperature is right to have quite

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I guess the best word is exotic clouds or clouds

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of exotic materials, and iron is one of them, and

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a mineral, and a mineral that actually is a constituent

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in gemstones. That's that's the point that you are making

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right at the beginning.

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Yeah, well then that's that's the journalistic hook isn't it.

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It is absolutely so. Yes, to quote the Physics Dog

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report on this, on the way around, exotic rain might

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be produced, such as liquid gems from the Corundum clouds,

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so you know, liquid rubies that would be quite nice.

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Actually well yeah, anyway, really quite really quite remarkable stuff.

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I should mention that these these observations were made with

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the Hubble Space telescope. It was one of the spectroscopic

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cameras on board the Hubble telescope that were that was used.

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And fantastic work. Congratulations to the team and to the

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jointist who writing about this.

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I don't suppose they can tell us exactly what kind

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of gem stones these.

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Might be or Jim Jim Blobs sponents.

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Yeah, they're suggesting that it could be maybe Look I

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had rubies in my mind, and yeah, maybe rubies and sapphires.

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That's that's that's the possibility. Corundum apparently is the minerals

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that you know, goes towards these these gemstones.

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So it wasn't far wrong with my ruby slippers analogy.

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No, no, it's a very nice one though. I like

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that very much.

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Yes, interesting, all right, that's a fascinating discovery. And if

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you want to read more about it, you should go

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to the fizz dot org website. It's not FI double z,

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that's p h y s dot org website. It's a

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fabulous website if you want to catch up on that

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and many other stories. This is Space Nuts with Andrew

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Dunkley and of course professor Fred Watson.

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Three Space Nuts.

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going to be cost free and just cost you a

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bit of time, write a review through whatever podcast platform

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you happen to use.

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So that's very helpful as well.

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So those are some of the options to help support

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the Space Nuts podcast, and we do appreciate anything anybody

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does to keep us up and running. Okay, Fred, let's

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get into our question segment. This is where people who

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listen to space and That's send us all sorts of

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hyperintelligent questions that I've got no clue about. But Fred

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has an inkling and the first one comes from Bob.

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This is Bob from Asheville, North Carolina in the US.

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I have two questions. In two thousand and five, Professor

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John Ionidis published a highly influential paper in Close Medicine

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titled why most published research findings are False. He makes

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the argument, and here I'm quoting that for most studied

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designs and settings, it is more likely for our research

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claim to be false than true. It's important to note

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that he was focusing on medical studies, which have less

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scientific rigor than physics. He does, however, conclude that, and

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I'm quoting his paper again, that for many current scientific fields,

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claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of

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the prevailing bias. My first question for Professor Watson is

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how often does this happen in your field? Meaning how

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often our published research findings actually false because of bias

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or statistical reasons. My second question is hypothetical medicine changes

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relatively quickly. For example, peptic ulcers were treated with surgery

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until nineteen eighty four, which is when Barry James Marshall,

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an Australian physician at Royal Perth Hospital, reported that peptic

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ulcers were caused by a type of bacteria called He'll

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go back to pay Lauri. Today ulcers are treated with antibiotics.

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Professor Watson, suppose you get fast forward one hundred or

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five hundred years into the future and look back at

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cosmology and astro and.

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That's where Bob unfortunately got cut off. But we think

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we've got the nuts and pults of his question, so

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we're going to take a stab at it for you, Bob.

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But yeah, I guess the first part of his question

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is about scientific papers, research papers, published works, and how

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maybe they could misinform or not be quite accurate. Is

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that something that happens.

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It's a really interesting question. There are I don't think

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they're in astronomy. There is a strong incentive perhaps or

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the reason why people should intentionally misinform. I think that

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is almost always almost always zero. And what research that

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does bark up the wrong tree. What research of that

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kind that there is is honest mistakes, like the color

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of the universe perhaps, well, that's right, that was an

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honest mistake, Yeah, which was what was?

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It was kind of I originally said it was aqua,

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but it turned out to beige.

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It was beige, that's right. And in fact, I remember

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when I read that paper. This is probably ten to

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fifteen years ago, and I know the guy who wrote

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it quite well. I remember when I read that paper

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thinking this cannot be the case. You can't have a

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an aqua universe because it's expanding and you know, you've

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got basically a red shift there, and it turned out

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to be beige, which is red shifted aqua. Anyway, Look,

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the kind of thing that I was thinking of, Andrew,

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and it might go to the heart of Bob's question,

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is you remember last year there was a big fuss

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when people thought that possphine had been detected in the

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upper atmosphere of Venus, and phosphene is on Earth is

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generally produced by biological processes, and so that I know

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that the researchers who did that work, and I know

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some of them. In fact, I talked to one of

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them afterwards. He's a friend of mine in Hawaii. They

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were very very careful to tease out the signal of

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phosphine from the noise. This was done with quite big

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radio telescopes. In fact, Alma was one of them. Has

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to come a large millimeter array. And it was with

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reluctance that they mentioned the fact that posphine's a live product.

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Because the popular press jumped all over, Yeah, that's right

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on venus, there's life on venus.

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Yeah, exactly what happened. And you know, maybe the bias

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that Bob mentions is there because it's something that we're all,

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you know, we're all kind of trigger happy with. We

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are urgently trying to seek any evidence of life anywhere

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else in the universe.

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Now, when you give some elements of the media an inch,

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they take a mile.

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Well, that's true, and that certainly happened in that case.

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My recollection is that the original team still stand by

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their discovery that it was posphine. But there was another

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paper published. It must have been actually the year before

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us when the posphine measurement was made, because I think

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it was early last year that another paper was published

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showing how how the phosphine signature could be mistaken that

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it might actually think it was something like nitrous oxide.

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I can't remember. It was something a lot less suggestive

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of life processes. So I think honest mistakes are made.

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But yes, there might be a bias there too.

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Generally, you'll probably find bias in circumstances where somebody's trying

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to sell something. You might get those studies that are

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released into certain products that improve your life, and the

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study turned out to be ten people at a five

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stars art for a weekend, answering a question.

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And that kind of thing. So yeah, yeah, I think

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that goes on.

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There is certainly less so in astronomy. Astronomy, I think

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is partly what one thing you're looking for, and you

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always check this whenever you make a discovery, is how

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consistent it is with what we already know about the universe,

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Because often our discovery is they're highly forensic. It's all

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done at distances ranging up to the thirteen billion light years.

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Just turning to and I'm hypothesizing here as to what

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the second part of Bob's question was because he got

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cut off, as he said, but I think he might

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have been wanting to ask me, what if I fast

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forward one hundred years into the future and then look

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back at twenty twenty two, what I would think of

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as being discoveries that maybe were misleading, And perhaps the

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one that comes to mind, and it's not through any

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lack of honesty. This is the best evidence we have

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so far is that dark matter exists and that it

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is a subatomic particle of some kind that is pointed

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to on through so many different experiments, and there's a

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00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:52.279
self consistency about it as well with what else we

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know about the universe. But it could well be that

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it turns out that it wasn't that. You know that

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in the end, there is something that we don't understand

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about physics. And what I'm thinking of his mond modified

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Newtunian dynamics. We've got a friend out there in the

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00:21:10.759 --> 00:21:13.240
audience a bit of a way and who's studying that

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00:21:13.279 --> 00:21:16.079
for his pH d and doing a great job. You know.

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Just maybe the tide will turn and people will see

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the evidence for modified Newtunian dynamics, which means that gravity

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doesn't behave quite the way we thought it did on

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large scales. That that might turn out to be the

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answer that would be one I might venture to suggest

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will be something that in one hundred years time we

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00:21:35.400 --> 00:21:37.839
might look back on and say, we all thought it

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was dark matter. Yeah, how foolish were we?

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Yeah?

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Now, and then that's not probably not an uncommon scenario.

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I mean we hindsight is twenty twenty in hindsight, until

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you go forward and look back and go, ah, okay.

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Right, that was it, that was why.

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Yes, of course we get it right.

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A lot of tom too, I think we do. I

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think that's really all right.

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Bob Lovely, Hey from me, thanks for your questions or

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space nuts.

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Hello again, space nutters. This is Anna from Astronomy Daily,

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the podcast, stopping by again with a couple of the

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important stories we've been following over the past week. In

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an intriguing start to twenty twenty five, residents of Mukukuo

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Village and Kenya's Macqueney County were startled by a mysterious

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arrival from above. A massive metal object weighing over one

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thousand pounds plummeted from space and landed in their community,

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creating a sound that could be heard up to thirty

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miles away. The Kenya Space Agency quickly responded to the incident,

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arriving at the scene on Tuesday morning. Working alongside local authorities,

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they secured the area and retrieved what they later identified

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as a separation ring from a rocket launch. This impressive

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piece of space hardware measures approximately eight feet in diameter. Typically,

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these separation rings are designed to either burn up during

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re entry into Earth's atmosphere or land safely in unpopulated

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areas like oceans. This particular landing, while unexpected, fortunately caused

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no injuries or significant damage. The Space Agency has assured

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the public there is no cause for concern and is

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treating this as an isolated incident. They're handling the situation

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under international space law protocols, with the object now in

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their custody for further investigation. It's a remarkable reminder of

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how space exploration occasionally makes surprising appearances in our everyday lives.

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Scientists have made an exciting breakthrough in our ability to

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detect gravitational waves, those subtle ripples and space time that

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give us unique insights into cosmic events. Researchers have developed

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a new technique called optical spring tracking that could dramatically

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improve how clearly we can detect these elusive waves. The

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Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory or ALIGO uses incredibly

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sensitive equipment to measure tiny distortions in space time caused

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by distant cosmic events. While this technology has already revolutionized

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our understanding of phenomena like black hole mergers, it faces

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limitations from what scientists call quantum noise. This new optical

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spring tracking system works by tuning itself to match the

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frequency of incoming gravitational waves. In tests, researchers used a

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microscopic mirror weighing just fifty nanograms made from carefully layered aluminum,

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gallium arsenide, and gallium arsenide. When hit with laser light,

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this tiny mirror creates an optical spring effect that can

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00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:36.799

Ruby Rains, Scientific Skepticism & Space Surprises: #483

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Ruby Rains, Scientific Skepticism & Space Surprises: #483

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