Space Chronicles: Blue Origin's Boom, The Case for Primordial Black Holes

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Andrew Dunkley: Hello again. Thank you for joining us. This

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is Space Nuts where we talk astronomy and

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space science. My name is Andrew Dunkley.

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Great to have your company. Well, you've

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probably been listening to Jonty for the last

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few weeks with Fred Watson, uh, overseas

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gallivanting as he does. He loves to

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gallivant. And

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he's back. And what we're going to talk about

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today, uh, all sorts of things. A, uh, blue

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origin blowout. You've probably seen the

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footage. Wow. Uh, primordial black hole,

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gravitational micro lensing and is dark

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matter A. Ah, Furphy. We'll deal with all of

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that today on Space nuts.

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Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

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10, 9. Ignition

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sequence start.

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Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.

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

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

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Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.

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Generic: Astronauts report it feels good.

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Andrew Dunkley: And he's back and he's looking well. It's

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Professor Fred Watson Watson, Astronomer at

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large. Hello, Fred Watson.

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Professor Fred Watson: Hello Andre. You're looking well too. It's

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nice to see you.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it's good to see you too. I mean uh,

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it's been a while for both of us because,

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um, we had to do a lot of catch up

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episodes but we didn't quite have enough time

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to cover everything so we brought Jonty in.

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Uh, but he and I had to do catch up episodes

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to cover an absence of mine.

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So um, I haven't actually

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recorded with you for quite a while.

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Professor Fred Watson: It's uh. Yeah, it must be a couple of months

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or so.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it would be. But it doesn't sound like

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that to the audience really.

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Professor Fred Watson: No, probably not.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yes, it's all witchery.

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Well, we. Yeah, I think so. I think so.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.

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Andrew Dunkley: There's at least two or three of them.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Okay, good.

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Andrew Dunkley: So where did you go?

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Professor Fred Watson: You were all over the place. Yes. So it was

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uh, a conference in Germany that took me up

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to Europe and that, that actually was

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really interesting, um, because in

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fact I was going to Scotland before that. I

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had a week with my daughters in Scotland and

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then off to Germany. But the trip there,

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course, um, we can't fly through the Middle

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east at the moment because of the war going

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on there. And so my flight

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via Dubai, they were long cancelled, but

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Mali managed to pull me a flight up to

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Seoul in Korea and then

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on thin air from Seoul over

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the North Pole. And I've actually got a

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certificate to prove that I've been over the

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North Pole. It's over there. I can't go and

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grab it. And then into

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Helsinki and then, uh, yes, it was cold.

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Then uh, um, uh, across to

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Edinburgh. So the Polar Flight was really

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interesting because we started off in Seoul

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in Korea, uh, and then, you know,

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took off, uh, with thin air. And

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I expected us to head towards

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the, towards the west, because that's what

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you do. But no, we headed to the east.

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Wow. And we actually went up between

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Russia and America, so up the Bering

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Strait. So it went far enough

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east that you could turn north right up the

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Bering Strait. So you got Russia on one side,

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America on the other, and then over the North

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Pole, uh, with a little polar

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certificate to prove it. Nice touchdown in

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Helsinki. Yeah. Uh, an hour or so there. Then

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a nice flight over to Edinburgh. And I was

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with my daughter directly. It was great.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, fantastic. Um, I've got an Arctic

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Circle certificate, I think.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yes, you will have. Yeah, I've got one of

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those as well. I got a cape certificate in

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fact.

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Andrew Dunkley: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Professor Fred Watson: Um, but the conference I went to in Germany,

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uh, was, um, it was the 60th birthday

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conference of a colleague with whom I've

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worked very closely on um, the RAVE survey

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which we've talked about before. The radial

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velocity experiment. Uh, Matthias

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Steinmetz. Herr Doctor, Professor Matthias

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Steinmetz. Uh, very senior German astronomer

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now. He, uh, led the project. I was the

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project manager. So we worked very closely

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together with a team of people, most of whom

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were at the conference to celebrate his 60th

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birthday. So I was the sole Australian

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representative. So they made a bit of a fuss

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of me, which was nice. Uh, I got the

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kickoff talk and uh, they looked after me.

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Uh, so it was very, very good. And I

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picked up a lot of what's happening currently

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in the field of science that we're doing. Or

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we might mention some of that a bit later on

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in the show.

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Andrew Dunkley: Sounds good.

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Uh, my trip, uh, was a little closer to home,

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only a nine hour flight away. We went to

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Vietnam for two and a half weeks. Uh,

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people jokingly said to me, don't mention the

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war. But don't mention the war.

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It's uh, it's still very sensitive subject

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and, and what blew my mind.

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And this will be of interest to, um, I

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suppose American listeners because of

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America's involvement in the Vietnam War. But

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um, there is still strong

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division between north and South.

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And uh, it hasn't been forgotten even 50

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years after it ended. There's still very much

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focused on the aftermath of that

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conflict. I

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suppose because it was such a defining time

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in their history. And uh, I mean the

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Vietnam War was only a part of what they

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dealt with. They'd been dealing with

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colonialism prior to that from

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France for um,

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decades and decades. Uh, so

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it's uh, quite uh, extraordinary. There was a

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great documentary, uh, series,

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I think it was on SBS in Australia called the

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Birth of a Nation. And uh, one of our

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guides actually mentioned it and said we'd

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love to see it over here but we're not

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allowed. Uh, so I

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watched it and um, I'm going to try and

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figure out how to get it to him. But I don't

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know. I don't know.

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Professor Fred Watson: We'll see. You could get, you could run afoul

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of diplomatic uh, niceties if you tried

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that. Who knows?

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Andrew Dunkley: Could do. Could do. Anyway.

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Professor Fred Watson: Especially if you talk about it on a public

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podcast. Yeah, maybe like you are doing now.

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Andrew Dunkley: They're probably not allowed to watch this

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over in Vietnam either.

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Professor Fred Watson: Maybe not. No, maybe not.

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Andrew Dunkley: It was funny though because I was pasting

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posting uh, some little videos. I like to do

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little videos while I'm away and I was

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posting them on Tick Tock. I picked up 140

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Vietnamese followers.

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Professor Fred Watson: Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, I thought it was

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cool. There you go. At least I can watch your

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Tick Tock stuff.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah. Uh, particularly the one I did at

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Harlong Bay. It's beautiful part of the world

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and I only did a 60 second sort of three

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60 degree scan of the place. But uh, for some

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reason that video has gone nuts. It's uh, at

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Last count had 14 and a half thousand views.

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Professor Fred Watson: Whoa.

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Andrew Dunkley: I don't understand it.

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Professor Fred Watson: But uh, yeah, that was nice.

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Andrew Dunkley: And we did all the other stuff. Train street,

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you know where the train runs next to the

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cafes in, in um.

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Professor Fred Watson: No, I didn't. Yeah, yeah, it's very popular

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somewhere I should go.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, up in Hanoi and many, uh, other places

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I went. I won't bore people to tears with it.

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We've got to get down to business. Uh, our

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first topic, Fred Watson, is very

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explosive.

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This is the um, Blue

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Origin Knot launch that happened the

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other day. Uh, in fact I don't even think it

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got an inch off the ground before it went up

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in a beautiful nuclear um,

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plume.

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Professor Fred Watson: It was very like a nuclear plume. And no, it

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wasn't actually meant to get off the ground.

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This was a fire test. Oh, it spied all

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right. Yeah, it did. Uh, it was

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um, um, yes,

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basically testing out the engines for a

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launch that was forthcoming. That was going

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to take a whole lot of uh,

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ah, telecommunications satellites,

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uh, up, uh, into orbit. Uh,

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they were fortunately not on the rocket.

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Uh, I think they were uh, the

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Apple Leo, uh, satellites which is

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what used to be called Kuiper, uh, and is

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perhaps the principal competitor

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potentially to Starlink.

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Um, anyway, the satellites were not

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on the booster, uh

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and uh, it basically was to

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test fire its seven engines. This is

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the new Glenn booster, which is Blue Origin's

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heavy lift booster. It's not as heavy

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lift as the SpaceX, uh,

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super heavy, uh, booster that takes the

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starship up.

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Andrew Dunkley: It's not lifting anything now, is it?

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Professor Fred Watson: It's not, no. And uh, what.

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It's got sort of serious ramifications

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because not only did they blow up the rocket,

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they also blew up the launch pad. Uh,

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effectively there's a lot of damage, uh, to

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the launch pad, which is, if I remember

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rightly, it is at Cape Canaveral.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I think so.

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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, and um,

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that explosion, uh, has caused damage that

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people are now talking about several months,

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if not a year or so to repair.

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Uh, and that's bad because that's the only

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facility in the world that can launch the new

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Glenn booster. And the new Glenn booster

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is needed for the Artemis programme.

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Uh, in particular,

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uh, later this year there was supposed to be

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a test launch of

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their Blue Moon lander. This is Blue

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Origins Lunar Lander, um, which

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is uh, um,

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basically uh, the competition, if

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I can put it that way, with the SpaceX

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Starship. So NASA contracted both SpaceX

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and Blue Origin to develop a

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lander, lunar lander for the moon. SpaceX

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has theirs based on the starship.

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Um, what is it, four to

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50 metres tall? It's colossal. Uh, to

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land that on a rough surface on the moon. I'm

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not sure I'd be that keen on that, but never

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mind. Uh, uh, the Blue Origin

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version, the uh, uh,

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Blue Moon as it's called, uh, that is only

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eight storeys high, uh, so

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it's uh, shorter. Uh, but these two

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are both in the running to land the first

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astronauts on the lunar surface in 2028.

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Uh, so, um, there was going to be a test of

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uh, the new um, Glenn

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Heavy Lifter, lifting up a

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blue moon, um, landing vehicle,

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ah, a prototype landing vehicle, uh,

259
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into orbit and actually to touch it down on

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the moon. And that was supposed to happen

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this year. That's clearly off the agenda now.

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Uh, and so, um, it's not going to happen

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actually. It's a little bit, because I've

264
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just read today that that lunar lander,

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um, which of course wasn't on board the

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rocket when it exploded, has just passed with

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flying colours. It's uh, environmental

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test. There's an environmental test that

269
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everything goes through. It's in A huge

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vacuum chamber, um, which is, um, a

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NASA facility, uh, and

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you can change, uh, uh, the temperature

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to match those huge extremes of

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temperature that you will get on the moon.

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Uh, so their prototype lunar lander, the

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blue MO Mark 1, which is called

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Endurance, which is a great name

278
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because, uh, that's not what's happened to

279
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the booster. But Endurance has passed with

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flying colours. Sadly, at the moment there's

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nothing to take it into space, so we'll have

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to see how that evolves.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I think you and I spoke

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about NASA looking at other options other

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than SpaceX, um, not long before you, you

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went away and, um,

287
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now this is kind of, for want of

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a better term, blown up in Blue Origin's

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face. That takes them off the table.

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Professor Fred Watson: Doesn't, uh, seems to for a

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while, unless they can do some very

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rapid repairs to the launch

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vehicle, sorry, the launch site,

294
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uh, the launch facility. So, yeah, it could

295
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push back. So the idea was that late next

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year, uh, there would be the

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Artemis III flight, which would consist

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of these two potential lunar landing

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vehicles, um, the Starship on SpaceX's

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side, the Blue Moon on Blue Origin,

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both going to be launched into Earth orbit,

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uh, to have, um, rendezvous

303
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tests, uh, to demonstrate their viability,

304
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uh, when you link them to the space launch

305
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System. Basically the Orion spacecraft, which

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is what took the Artemis, uh, II

307
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astronauts around the moon. Ah, that will

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take Artemis iii, beg your pardon, Artemis IV

309
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astronauts to the moon. But to land, they've

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got to transfer into another spacecraft and

311
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land on the lunar surface. So all that

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I think, is being thrown into question,

313
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uh, with this explosion. We will wait to see.

314
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It's still too early. We don't even know what

315
00:12:57.890 --> 00:13:00.890
caused it yet. Uh, it was only

316
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less, uh, than a week ago as we speak.

317
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Uh, so we don't actually know

318
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what the consequences are likely to be, but

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they could be quite serious for the

320
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Artemis programme.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, Uh, I mean, uh, I

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think, uh, Elon Musk calls these things,

323
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um, successful failures.

324
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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, I don't know, a rapid

325
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unscheduled disintegration.

326
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Andrew Dunkley: Yes. I don't know what Jeff Bezos calls them,

327
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but, um, yeah,

328
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hopefully they can get down to the bottom of

329
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it. But, yeah, it does throw a spanner into

330
00:13:33.020 --> 00:13:34.860
the works. Maybe it was a spanner thrown into

331
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the works that caused the explosion. Who

332
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knows?

333
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Professor Fred Watson: The one good news storey part, ah, of the

334
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storey is nobody was injured. Yeah.

335
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Andrew Dunkley: Wow.

336
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Professor Fred Watson: Because as you said, it looked like a nucle

337
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explosion. It was incredible. Uh,

338
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and, um, so there was huge

339
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potential for injury there, but everybody was

340
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Accounted for.

341
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Andrew Dunkley: I actually read today that some people

342
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who watched the explosion,

343
00:14:01.950 --> 00:14:04.440
um, this sort of demonstrates how big and

344
00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:06.880
powerful it was. Took 37

345
00:14:07.040 --> 00:14:09.290
seconds to feel the shockwave. Uh,

346
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Professor Fred Watson: really? So they must have been a long way

347
00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:13.520
away.

348
00:14:13.520 --> 00:14:16.080
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, but they could see it quite clearly. It

349
00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:18.360
was such a big explosion that the shockwave

350
00:14:18.360 --> 00:14:20.460
took 37 seconds to reach there.

351
00:14:21.420 --> 00:14:24.140
That's amazing. Yeah. All

352
00:14:24.140 --> 00:14:26.900
right. Um, so, uh, yeah, it does

353
00:14:26.900 --> 00:14:28.980
sort of throw into question the future of

354
00:14:28.980 --> 00:14:31.940
Blue Origin, um, partnering with NASA

355
00:14:31.940 --> 00:14:34.870
for Artemis 3. But, uh,

356
00:14:34.940 --> 00:14:36.460
never write these people off.

357
00:14:36.780 --> 00:14:39.660
Professor Fred Watson: I've discovered we're not doing

358
00:14:39.660 --> 00:14:42.140
that. They will rise,

359
00:14:42.140 --> 00:14:44.260
Phoenix, like from the ashes. But the

360
00:14:44.260 --> 00:14:46.580
question is how soon and what it will do to

361
00:14:46.580 --> 00:14:47.580
NASA's schedule.

362
00:14:47.580 --> 00:14:48.220
Andrew Dunkley: Exactly.

363
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Professor Fred Watson: With Artemisia.

364
00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:51.480
Andrew Dunkley: More to come on that, and you can read about

365
00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:53.880
it, uh, at the Conversation website.

366
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This is Space Nuts, Andrew Dunkley with

367
00:14:56.600 --> 00:14:58.280
Professor Fred Watson Watson.

368
00:15:00.920 --> 00:15:03.040
Generic: Okay, we checked all four systems and

369
00:15:03.040 --> 00:15:04.840
Professor Fred Watson: being with a go, Space Nuts.

370
00:15:05.320 --> 00:15:07.480
Andrew Dunkley: Now, our next storey, Fred Watson,

371
00:15:07.630 --> 00:15:10.320
uh, has a lot of moving parts as well.

372
00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:13.320
Nothing explosive, but, uh, uh, we're

373
00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:15.720
talking, what, primordial black holes and

374
00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:17.720
gravitational microlensing. Is that, Is that,

375
00:15:17.870 --> 00:15:19.150
that what it's about?

376
00:15:19.150 --> 00:15:21.430
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, uh, it's certainly, uh, the

377
00:15:21.430 --> 00:15:24.310
gravitational microlensing. What, uh, it

378
00:15:24.310 --> 00:15:26.030
means for primordial black holes

379
00:15:27.150 --> 00:15:29.350
remains to be seen. But, uh, it's a good

380
00:15:29.350 --> 00:15:31.150
opportunity to talk about it and talk about

381
00:15:31.150 --> 00:15:33.350
the latest research on this. So what's the

382
00:15:33.350 --> 00:15:36.230
storey? Um, on the night of the 18th of

383
00:15:36.230 --> 00:15:38.030
December, 2019,

384
00:15:39.070 --> 00:15:41.710
uh, there was a

385
00:15:41.790 --> 00:15:44.630
microlensing event observed with

386
00:15:44.630 --> 00:15:47.390
a star in the Large Magellanic Cloud,

387
00:15:47.870 --> 00:15:50.460
the nearest of our. Our sort of large, ish

388
00:15:50.460 --> 00:15:52.870
galactic neighbours. Um,

389
00:15:53.340 --> 00:15:55.580
the satellite galaxy of our Milky Way,

390
00:15:55.580 --> 00:15:58.580
165,000 light years away, as the

391
00:15:58.580 --> 00:16:00.860
crow flies, as far as I remember.

392
00:16:01.260 --> 00:16:03.740
So, um, what's a microlensing event? Well,

393
00:16:04.060 --> 00:16:05.980
something passes in front of a star.

394
00:16:06.830 --> 00:16:08.780
Uh, you can't actually see the something

395
00:16:08.780 --> 00:16:11.180
because it's too faint. You can see the light

396
00:16:11.180 --> 00:16:13.940
of the star. And you might think there's

397
00:16:13.940 --> 00:16:15.940
something passing in front of a star. It

398
00:16:15.940 --> 00:16:18.930
would dim the light of the star. But

399
00:16:18.930 --> 00:16:20.890
actually, if the geometry is right, in other

400
00:16:20.890 --> 00:16:22.970
words, if there's something that passes

401
00:16:22.970 --> 00:16:25.570
between you and the star is far enough away

402
00:16:25.570 --> 00:16:27.250
from the star, you get the opposite effect.

403
00:16:27.650 --> 00:16:30.610
The, um, distortion of the space around

404
00:16:30.610 --> 00:16:33.170
the invisible object, uh, actually

405
00:16:33.250 --> 00:16:36.170
acts as a magnifying glass. And so you

406
00:16:36.170 --> 00:16:38.970
get a brightening of the light of the distant

407
00:16:38.970 --> 00:16:41.850
star. Uh, and this is a phenomenon known as

408
00:16:41.850 --> 00:16:43.890
gravitational microlensing. It's well

409
00:16:43.890 --> 00:16:46.290
established, well observed. Uh, there's a

410
00:16:46.290 --> 00:16:49.150
team in New Zealand which, um, he's Very,

411
00:16:49.150 --> 00:16:51.510
very adept at these microlensing

412
00:16:51.510 --> 00:16:53.950
observations. Uh, so

413
00:16:55.310 --> 00:16:58.150
what we see when that happens is a

414
00:16:58.150 --> 00:17:01.030
rise in the brightness of the star and then

415
00:17:01.030 --> 00:17:03.630
a fall in the brightness of the background

416
00:17:03.630 --> 00:17:05.070
star which

417
00:17:07.230 --> 00:17:10.150
we call a light curve. It's the way the light

418
00:17:10.150 --> 00:17:12.190
changes over time. You can plot it out as a

419
00:17:12.190 --> 00:17:14.590
graph. And it's got a very characteristic

420
00:17:14.590 --> 00:17:17.110
shape. It's a bit like a rather elongated

421
00:17:17.110 --> 00:17:19.470
volcano. It's got a steady ris,

422
00:17:20.490 --> 00:17:23.400
a peak and then a rapid fall, uh,

423
00:17:23.400 --> 00:17:25.890
that falls away very like the flanks of a

424
00:17:25.890 --> 00:17:28.330
volcano. So that's the sort of shape.

425
00:17:28.890 --> 00:17:31.690
So this uh, was the event that was

426
00:17:31.690 --> 00:17:33.930
observed on 18th December.

427
00:17:35.130 --> 00:17:36.970
Can't remember which telescope it was used.

428
00:17:37.500 --> 00:17:40.330
Uh, but we have a group

429
00:17:40.330 --> 00:17:41.930
of Australians who uh, are

430
00:17:42.890 --> 00:17:44.970
directly involved with this.

431
00:17:45.620 --> 00:17:48.370
Uh, so the, the question is

432
00:17:48.690 --> 00:17:51.610
what was the object that passed in front of

433
00:17:51.610 --> 00:17:52.050
the star?

434
00:17:52.690 --> 00:17:55.370
Andrew Dunkley: I'm going to guess maybe a

435
00:17:55.370 --> 00:17:56.690
primordial black hole.

436
00:17:57.330 --> 00:17:59.250
Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's

437
00:17:59.970 --> 00:18:02.690
perhaps the most, um, provocative

438
00:18:03.330 --> 00:18:06.250
explanation. Uh, they've given it

439
00:18:06.250 --> 00:18:07.970
a name, this thing, they've called it Phoebe,

440
00:18:07.970 --> 00:18:09.970
which is I think a lovely name actually.

441
00:18:10.780 --> 00:18:13.410
Um, but uh, the issue

442
00:18:13.410 --> 00:18:16.380
is it is kind

443
00:18:16.380 --> 00:18:18.660
of too small to be

444
00:18:19.220 --> 00:18:21.860
anything normal, if I

445
00:18:21.940 --> 00:18:24.550
put it that way. Um,

446
00:18:24.740 --> 00:18:27.380
so what are the possibilities? One

447
00:18:27.460 --> 00:18:30.260
is what we

448
00:18:30.260 --> 00:18:32.940
sometimes call a rogue planet or an

449
00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:35.460
orphan planet, better known perhaps as a free

450
00:18:35.460 --> 00:18:37.940
floating planet. In other words a planetary

451
00:18:37.940 --> 00:18:40.780
sized object, maybe something that's been

452
00:18:40.780 --> 00:18:43.500
ejected from its solar system or something

453
00:18:43.500 --> 00:18:46.060
that never gained enough mass to become a

454
00:18:46.060 --> 00:18:48.880
star and it's just sort of wandering,

455
00:18:49.350 --> 00:18:52.040
uh, through the galaxy. Uh, we know there are

456
00:18:52.040 --> 00:18:54.960
many of these things, uh, so that could be

457
00:18:56.020 --> 00:18:58.800
uh, one of the explanations for it. But

458
00:18:59.080 --> 00:19:02.000
uh, the issue is this thing

459
00:19:02.560 --> 00:19:05.480
has basically got a

460
00:19:05.480 --> 00:19:08.320
very, very small mass. Uh,

461
00:19:08.320 --> 00:19:10.520
it's only about three times the mass of the

462
00:19:10.520 --> 00:19:12.860
moon. Uh, and that's

463
00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:16.650
kind of small for a planet. Uh, so it

464
00:19:16.650 --> 00:19:19.650
suggests it's an object

465
00:19:19.890 --> 00:19:22.850
that is not a dwarf

466
00:19:22.850 --> 00:19:25.330
planet or, sorry, a rogue planet or an orphan

467
00:19:25.330 --> 00:19:28.130
planet. And it points towards this

468
00:19:28.769 --> 00:19:31.170
much more exotic notion

469
00:19:31.490 --> 00:19:34.300
of a primordial black hole, uh,

470
00:19:34.300 --> 00:19:36.770
which you've kind of, you've already flagged.

471
00:19:37.170 --> 00:19:40.010
And that's where it gets really exciting. So,

472
00:19:40.080 --> 00:19:42.960
so primordial black holes, we've

473
00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:45.480
talked about them before. They were predicted

474
00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:48.370
by Stephen Hawking. They um,

475
00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:52.000
were predicted by him to have been

476
00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:54.720
a byproduct of the Big Bang. In other words,

477
00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:57.640
these are things that don't form from

478
00:19:57.640 --> 00:20:00.400
collapsing stars like the stellar mass black

479
00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:03.040
holes that we see, but from,

480
00:20:03.470 --> 00:20:05.590
um, well, basically, um,

481
00:20:05.590 --> 00:20:08.160
fluctuations in the density,

482
00:20:08.830 --> 00:20:11.670
uh, in the first few

483
00:20:11.910 --> 00:20:14.870
milliseconds after The Big Bang, the density

484
00:20:14.870 --> 00:20:17.870
of that hot medium. Uh, in other words, you

485
00:20:17.870 --> 00:20:19.990
know, if you could get these little spots

486
00:20:19.990 --> 00:20:22.750
that collapse instantaneously to become a

487
00:20:22.750 --> 00:20:25.070
black hole, what you'll produce in the Big

488
00:20:25.070 --> 00:20:27.990
Bang is not just time and space, but

489
00:20:27.990 --> 00:20:30.870
you litter it with these primordial

490
00:20:30.870 --> 00:20:33.430
black holes. And I think it's

491
00:20:33.670 --> 00:20:36.590
from Hawking's work that we assume that

492
00:20:36.590 --> 00:20:39.430
they can be any size you like. Um, they

493
00:20:39.430 --> 00:20:41.750
can be, you know, perhaps,

494
00:20:42.390 --> 00:20:44.390
uh, supermassive black holes, which we know

495
00:20:44.390 --> 00:20:47.190
are the centres of galaxies or, uh,

496
00:20:47.190 --> 00:20:49.790
smaller than stellar mass black

497
00:20:49.790 --> 00:20:52.590
holes. And so by a stellar mass black hole,

498
00:20:52.590 --> 00:20:55.510
we mean one that has a mass of about not

499
00:20:55.510 --> 00:20:57.590
too different from a star. In fact, typically

500
00:20:57.590 --> 00:21:00.580
about five times the mass of the sun. Um,

501
00:21:00.790 --> 00:21:02.830
and they are, ah, thought to have been caused

502
00:21:02.830 --> 00:21:05.030
by a star exploding at the end of its life.

503
00:21:05.030 --> 00:21:07.710
The core collapses, uh, nothing will stop the

504
00:21:07.710 --> 00:21:09.470
collapse and it goes into becoming a black

505
00:21:09.470 --> 00:21:12.250
hole. And but for a star to behave like

506
00:21:12.250 --> 00:21:15.090
that, it's got to be massive, it's got to be

507
00:21:15.090 --> 00:21:17.250
at least, well, five to ten times the mass of

508
00:21:17.250 --> 00:21:20.170
the sun. Um, so that does not

509
00:21:20.170 --> 00:21:22.650
account for things that are, uh, three times

510
00:21:22.970 --> 00:21:25.690
the mass of the Moon. Uh, but,

511
00:21:27.010 --> 00:21:29.930
um, if you can have primordial

512
00:21:29.930 --> 00:21:32.250
black holes of any mass, then

513
00:21:32.730 --> 00:21:35.210
that makes Phoebe a

514
00:21:35.530 --> 00:21:37.770
very distinct candidate for

515
00:21:39.130 --> 00:21:41.960
a primordial black hole. Um, I

516
00:21:41.960 --> 00:21:44.280
might mention that the researchers who've

517
00:21:44.280 --> 00:21:47.160
done this, uh, work are at Swinburne

518
00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:49.920
University in Melbourne, Uh, uh, a university

519
00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:53.040
very active in its studies of actually

520
00:21:53.520 --> 00:21:56.240
most phenomena to do with our galaxy.

521
00:21:56.630 --> 00:21:58.720
Uh, they've got some extremely talented

522
00:21:58.720 --> 00:22:00.160
scientists there, uh, some of whom I know

523
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:03.090
quite well. Um, so, uh,

524
00:22:03.760 --> 00:22:06.000
it's definitely a microlending event.

525
00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:08.760
Something has caused this phenomenon. Uh, the

526
00:22:08.760 --> 00:22:10.320
question is, what is it?

527
00:22:11.650 --> 00:22:13.280
So let me, um,

528
00:22:14.770 --> 00:22:17.650
segue, if I may, to one of

529
00:22:17.650 --> 00:22:20.010
the talks at, uh, the conference that I was

530
00:22:20.010 --> 00:22:22.610
at in Germany, uh, given by

531
00:22:23.250 --> 00:22:25.170
people who, uh, are. Well, in this case, it

532
00:22:25.170 --> 00:22:27.850
was a black hole specialist. And he was

533
00:22:27.850 --> 00:22:29.410
saying that

534
00:22:30.690 --> 00:22:32.050
the evidence for

535
00:22:33.010 --> 00:22:35.970
primordial black holes is

536
00:22:36.370 --> 00:22:39.250
growing. Uh, and this is just one more

537
00:22:39.250 --> 00:22:41.660
example of it, the example of Phoebe here.

538
00:22:42.450 --> 00:22:45.370
Uh, but he also said he thought this was

539
00:22:45.370 --> 00:22:48.370
the next big thing in black hole

540
00:22:48.370 --> 00:22:50.850
science, uh, to actually

541
00:22:51.410 --> 00:22:54.370
determine the reality of primordial

542
00:22:54.370 --> 00:22:56.010
black holes, whether they are there or

543
00:22:56.010 --> 00:22:58.170
whether they're just, ah, a wild prediction

544
00:22:58.170 --> 00:23:00.450
of professor, uh, Hawking.

545
00:23:00.940 --> 00:23:03.730
Um, but he also made the comet

546
00:23:04.290 --> 00:23:06.850
the comment. Sorry, not the comet. He made

547
00:23:06.850 --> 00:23:09.800
the comment that. But, uh, it

548
00:23:09.800 --> 00:23:12.800
was his belief that the next Nobel Prize in

549
00:23:12.800 --> 00:23:15.400
astronomy or physics is the way it goes

550
00:23:15.560 --> 00:23:18.480
would be the discovery of a

551
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:20.920
primordial black hole. In other words,

552
00:23:21.580 --> 00:23:24.440
uh, finding absolutely rock solid evidence.

553
00:23:24.840 --> 00:23:27.120
That primordial black holes exist. Now,

554
00:23:27.120 --> 00:23:29.160
Phoebe is not that rock solid evidence.

555
00:23:29.480 --> 00:23:32.200
Because we've got multiple theories.

556
00:23:32.260 --> 00:23:34.400
Uh, yeah, multiple theories. It could even

557
00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:37.350
be, uh, you know, a

558
00:23:37.350 --> 00:23:39.590
lost satellite of a planet. That's been

559
00:23:39.590 --> 00:23:42.070
chucked out of its solar system. So it could

560
00:23:42.070 --> 00:23:44.230
be an object like the moon or Mercury or

561
00:23:44.230 --> 00:23:46.630
something like that. But that seems

562
00:23:46.630 --> 00:23:48.990
unlikely. And, in fact,

563
00:23:49.300 --> 00:23:52.190
um, the primordial

564
00:23:52.270 --> 00:23:54.790
mass black hole idea, I think, is much more

565
00:23:54.790 --> 00:23:57.670
interesting. It's one that I'm sure

566
00:23:57.670 --> 00:24:00.310
will be looked at in detail. The problem with

567
00:24:00.310 --> 00:24:02.750
these gravitational microlensing events,

568
00:24:02.750 --> 00:24:05.510
Andrew, is you only get one shot at it. You

569
00:24:05.510 --> 00:24:07.930
never see the object. So Phoebe's

570
00:24:08.170 --> 00:24:10.450
basically never going to be seen again. All

571
00:24:10.450 --> 00:24:13.090
we've seen is the effect of it passing in

572
00:24:13.090 --> 00:24:16.010
front of a star. Um, so

573
00:24:16.490 --> 00:24:19.250
what we've got to look for is other, perhaps

574
00:24:19.250 --> 00:24:22.010
other similar phenomena. Or

575
00:24:22.170 --> 00:24:25.010
something that is unequivocally a

576
00:24:25.010 --> 00:24:27.290
black hole. But has a mass less than the sun.

577
00:24:27.290 --> 00:24:29.530
And we did talk about a candidate object,

578
00:24:30.040 --> 00:24:32.730
uh, before we both went on our various

579
00:24:32.730 --> 00:24:35.570
sojourns. Uh, we did talk about an object

580
00:24:35.570 --> 00:24:37.330
like that. I'd need to look it up to find out

581
00:24:37.330 --> 00:24:40.230
what it was. And if we can nail one

582
00:24:40.230 --> 00:24:42.470
of these things and say that is definitely

583
00:24:42.630 --> 00:24:45.110
what it is. Um, in fact, the object we talked

584
00:24:45.110 --> 00:24:47.830
about was, uh, the result of, I think, a

585
00:24:47.830 --> 00:24:49.110
collision that was measured with

586
00:24:49.190 --> 00:24:51.950
gravitational waves. So all this is

587
00:24:51.950 --> 00:24:54.749
perhaps pointing to the idea of primordial

588
00:24:54.749 --> 00:24:56.470
mass black holes. Somebody will nail it

589
00:24:56.470 --> 00:24:58.110
before too long, and, uh, they'll probably

590
00:24:58.110 --> 00:24:59.190
get the Nobel Prize.

591
00:24:59.910 --> 00:25:02.710
Andrew Dunkley: Well, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.

592
00:25:02.950 --> 00:25:05.790
Because in the past we've had theories

593
00:25:05.790 --> 00:25:08.710
about things existing, and voila, suddenly we

594
00:25:08.710 --> 00:25:11.570
find an exoplanet. And we've found thousands

595
00:25:11.570 --> 00:25:13.570
and thousands of them. So it stands to reason

596
00:25:13.570 --> 00:25:15.810
that this is just another progression in that

597
00:25:15.810 --> 00:25:18.770
regard. The evidence is

598
00:25:18.770 --> 00:25:21.210
stacking up. We haven't confirmed one yet,

599
00:25:21.210 --> 00:25:23.890
but it sounds like it's going to happen.

600
00:25:24.530 --> 00:25:27.290
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I think that's right. I think we're on

601
00:25:27.290 --> 00:25:30.050
the track of, uh, a whole new

602
00:25:30.530 --> 00:25:33.530
regime of physics. And,

603
00:25:33.530 --> 00:25:36.170
of course, primordial black

604
00:25:36.170 --> 00:25:38.690
holes are, uh, one potential candidate for

605
00:25:38.850 --> 00:25:41.710
dark matter. Um, which

606
00:25:41.710 --> 00:25:44.590
was ruled out in

607
00:25:44.590 --> 00:25:47.110
the 1990s, maybe

608
00:25:47.110 --> 00:25:49.510
prematurely. It was ruled out because we

609
00:25:49.510 --> 00:25:52.070
didn't see a whole lot of these

610
00:25:52.070 --> 00:25:54.350
microlensing events. Which you'd expect to

611
00:25:54.350 --> 00:25:56.709
see if there was a lot of primordial mass

612
00:25:56.709 --> 00:25:59.230
black holes. Maybe it's just that we weren't

613
00:25:59.230 --> 00:26:01.030
looking hard enough that we missed them.

614
00:26:01.270 --> 00:26:03.950
Andrew Dunkley: Maybe, um, yeah, I never look hard enough for

615
00:26:03.950 --> 00:26:04.390
anything.

616
00:26:05.030 --> 00:26:07.890
Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's because you're. You're a male.

617
00:26:07.970 --> 00:26:10.890
Yeah. You're a bloke. And we don't. We,

618
00:26:10.890 --> 00:26:13.450
we look at something and we just don't see

619
00:26:13.450 --> 00:26:13.690
it.

620
00:26:13.690 --> 00:26:15.170
Andrew Dunkley: No, no.

621
00:26:16.610 --> 00:26:19.610
Which is, you know, not real good for

622
00:26:19.610 --> 00:26:21.130
human history. Because weren't we the

623
00:26:21.130 --> 00:26:21.650
hunters?

624
00:26:21.650 --> 00:26:23.170
Professor Fred Watson: Like we were supposed to be able to see

625
00:26:23.170 --> 00:26:26.160
stuff. Quite so. Oh.

626
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:28.970
Andrew Dunkley: Ah, dear. Uh, it's a really fascinating

627
00:26:28.970 --> 00:26:31.850
storey and I venture to say there'll be more

628
00:26:31.850 --> 00:26:33.930
on this in the not too distant future. But

629
00:26:33.930 --> 00:26:35.810
you can read about it. Great, uh, article

630
00:26:35.810 --> 00:26:37.410
about it on the Univers

631
00:26:39.310 --> 00:26:41.950
website. You're listening to and possibly

632
00:26:41.950 --> 00:26:44.910
viewing Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and

633
00:26:44.910 --> 00:26:46.110
Professor Fred Watson Watson.

634
00:26:48.590 --> 00:26:49.990
Generic: Roger, your lot clearer.

635
00:26:49.990 --> 00:26:52.990
Andrew Dunkley: Also Space Nuts. A Final Storey, Fred Watson

636
00:26:52.990 --> 00:26:55.990
intrigues me for one very good reason. It's

637
00:26:55.990 --> 00:26:58.230
one of the pet topics of our audience. We get

638
00:26:58.230 --> 00:27:00.670
a lot of questions about dark energy.

639
00:27:00.910 --> 00:27:03.910
But uh, this storey ponders the

640
00:27:03.910 --> 00:27:06.820
question. Did we actually invent dark

641
00:27:06.820 --> 00:27:09.580
energy for nothing? Why are they suggesting

642
00:27:09.580 --> 00:27:09.940
that?

643
00:27:11.600 --> 00:27:13.700
Professor Fred Watson: Um. Yeah,

644
00:27:14.740 --> 00:27:16.180
it's all mathematics.

645
00:27:17.140 --> 00:27:19.920
And I'd like just to refer, uh,

646
00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:22.660
listeners and viewers, uh, at the outset to a

647
00:27:22.660 --> 00:27:25.620
very nice article, uh, on this

648
00:27:25.820 --> 00:27:28.580
uh, from um, our much admired

649
00:27:28.580 --> 00:27:31.300
Universe Today uh, website that's

650
00:27:31.460 --> 00:27:34.460
kind of an old friend of um,

651
00:27:34.460 --> 00:27:36.840
of Space Nuts, an article written by Mark

652
00:27:36.840 --> 00:27:39.320
Thompson, uh, which really very

653
00:27:39.320 --> 00:27:42.320
eloquently puts this storey

654
00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:44.680
into perspective. And I'm going to quote

655
00:27:44.680 --> 00:27:47.480
Mark, I hope he won't mind me doing that. Um,

656
00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:50.560
because he introduces uh, this

657
00:27:50.560 --> 00:27:53.360
article by saying, stand a pencil on its end

658
00:27:53.600 --> 00:27:56.480
and mathematically speaking it's perfectly

659
00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:58.520
balanced. Every force is accounted for and

660
00:27:58.520 --> 00:28:00.760
the equations are satisfied. And yet you

661
00:28:00.760 --> 00:28:03.120
already know what happens next. The slightest

662
00:28:03.120 --> 00:28:06.100
disturbance and it topples a solution that

663
00:28:06.100 --> 00:28:09.020
exists on paper but can never survive

664
00:28:09.260 --> 00:28:12.060
contact with reality. In other words,

665
00:28:12.580 --> 00:28:15.580
um, something that's stable, but only

666
00:28:15.660 --> 00:28:18.580
stable. Briefly, I uh, think I'm

667
00:28:18.580 --> 00:28:21.020
paraphrasing what he's getting at with that.

668
00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:23.260
Uh, but just to read a little bit further,

669
00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:25.740
uh, from Mark's article, that's the image

670
00:28:25.740 --> 00:28:27.380
Blake Temple, a mathematician at the

671
00:28:27.380 --> 00:28:29.780
University of California Davis, uses to

672
00:28:29.780 --> 00:28:32.220
describe our um, best model of the universe.

673
00:28:32.220 --> 00:28:35.190
And it's a deeply uncomfortable. And

674
00:28:35.190 --> 00:28:37.670
so I think the way this storey evolves

675
00:28:37.910 --> 00:28:40.870
is that yes, we've uh, for

676
00:28:40.870 --> 00:28:42.590
30 years, almost 30 years. It's

677
00:28:42.590 --> 00:28:45.190
1998 when the

678
00:28:45.190 --> 00:28:47.990
accelerated expansion of the universe was

679
00:28:47.990 --> 00:28:50.790
discovered, uh, by

680
00:28:51.080 --> 00:28:53.750
uh, my colleague, um, Brian Schmidt and

681
00:28:54.520 --> 00:28:57.470
uh, uh, his actually competitors

682
00:28:57.470 --> 00:29:00.350
over the Pacific, uh, Saul Perlmutta

683
00:29:00.350 --> 00:29:03.210
and his team, uh, they jointly won the Nobel

684
00:29:03.210 --> 00:29:05.850
Prize in 2011 for that

685
00:29:05.850 --> 00:29:08.240
discovery that um,

686
00:29:09.050 --> 00:29:10.410
the expansion of the universe is

687
00:29:10.410 --> 00:29:13.210
accelerating. And so, um, the

688
00:29:13.210 --> 00:29:15.930
issue was to try and explain that.

689
00:29:15.930 --> 00:29:18.730
And that's why dark energy was

690
00:29:18.730 --> 00:29:21.370
introduced as a concept.

691
00:29:21.770 --> 00:29:24.530
Uh, an invisible, ah, outward

692
00:29:24.530 --> 00:29:27.290
pressure, um, that is part of space,

693
00:29:27.970 --> 00:29:30.480
uh, just pushes space and everything in it

694
00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:33.080
apart. Um, and so

695
00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:35.960
that's where we get our idea

696
00:29:36.360 --> 00:29:38.920
of dark energy from. But

697
00:29:39.090 --> 00:29:41.880
um, this um, mathematician,

698
00:29:42.030 --> 00:29:44.040
uh, Blake Temple has

699
00:29:44.680 --> 00:29:47.000
said, okay, maybe we're

700
00:29:47.560 --> 00:29:49.960
taking too simplistic a view

701
00:29:50.440 --> 00:29:53.000
of all this. Uh, and

702
00:29:53.270 --> 00:29:55.710
uh, I think it's a group of, uh,

703
00:29:56.120 --> 00:29:59.110
mathematicians led by Dr. Temple. Uh,

704
00:29:59.110 --> 00:30:00.860
they've got a paper in the Proceedings of the

705
00:30:00.860 --> 00:30:02.620
Royal Society. You don't get papers in there

706
00:30:02.620 --> 00:30:05.500
if they're rubbish. So, uh, there's

707
00:30:05.500 --> 00:30:07.180
something to think about there. And they've

708
00:30:07.180 --> 00:30:10.020
actually um, mathematically

709
00:30:10.020 --> 00:30:12.340
demonstrated that

710
00:30:12.820 --> 00:30:15.540
our, um, model of

711
00:30:15.780 --> 00:30:18.260
the expansion of the universe with dark

712
00:30:18.260 --> 00:30:21.220
energy in it is unstable.

713
00:30:21.950 --> 00:30:23.940
Uh, it's something that can't

714
00:30:24.660 --> 00:30:27.580
survive. And

715
00:30:28.300 --> 00:30:30.220
that almost,

716
00:30:30.890 --> 00:30:33.820
uh, means that you can rule it

717
00:30:33.820 --> 00:30:36.420
out, uh, in the world of

718
00:30:36.420 --> 00:30:38.780
physics, uh, if you've got a solution that's

719
00:30:38.780 --> 00:30:41.540
unstable, uh, then it

720
00:30:41.540 --> 00:30:43.900
shouldn't happen. And so,

721
00:30:44.090 --> 00:30:46.660
um, what um, uh, Dr.

722
00:30:46.660 --> 00:30:49.580
Temple and his associates are proposing

723
00:30:49.820 --> 00:30:52.620
is that we've got it wrong. Ah, and that

724
00:30:52.910 --> 00:30:55.550
uh, the. The model of the universe

725
00:30:56.910 --> 00:30:58.750
that we have, which

726
00:30:59.470 --> 00:31:02.470
assumes that matter is basically

727
00:31:02.470 --> 00:31:04.910
spread throughout the universe, the universe

728
00:31:04.910 --> 00:31:07.550
is isotropic, it's the same in all

729
00:31:07.550 --> 00:31:10.150
directions. Uh, is

730
00:31:10.150 --> 00:31:12.910
suggesting that that is also

731
00:31:13.070 --> 00:31:15.630
unstable. Um, and

732
00:31:15.710 --> 00:31:18.630
that really we have to take into account the

733
00:31:18.630 --> 00:31:20.660
fact that the universe is, isn't the same

734
00:31:20.740 --> 00:31:23.010
everywhere. Um,

735
00:31:23.850 --> 00:31:26.500
uh. I can't really

736
00:31:26.580 --> 00:31:28.980
go in deeply to the mathematics because I

737
00:31:29.140 --> 00:31:31.980
actually looked at the original

738
00:31:31.980 --> 00:31:34.940
paper. Um, and so I haven't followed

739
00:31:34.940 --> 00:31:37.650
the mathematical um,

740
00:31:37.650 --> 00:31:40.460
steps in the process. And between you and me,

741
00:31:40.460 --> 00:31:42.420
Andrew, I probably couldn't anyway, even if I

742
00:31:42.420 --> 00:31:45.140
looked at the paper because I do

743
00:31:45.140 --> 00:31:47.140
remember what some of the equations,

744
00:31:47.810 --> 00:31:50.020
um, that govern this sort of thing look like.

745
00:31:50.100 --> 00:31:52.820
And I do remember the emotional response

746
00:31:52.820 --> 00:31:55.660
that my psyche gets to

747
00:31:55.660 --> 00:31:58.580
them. But basically what they're

748
00:31:58.580 --> 00:32:00.180
saying is that

749
00:32:00.850 --> 00:32:02.980
uh, that

750
00:32:03.060 --> 00:32:05.940
accelerated expansion, um,

751
00:32:07.060 --> 00:32:09.220
is actually part of what

752
00:32:09.380 --> 00:32:12.180
Einstein suggested in the first

753
00:32:12.180 --> 00:32:15.080
place. And um, without the need

754
00:32:15.080 --> 00:32:17.240
to invoke dark energy,

755
00:32:18.210 --> 00:32:19.400
uh, and

756
00:32:21.800 --> 00:32:24.280
I'm simplifying, I guess, what,

757
00:32:24.570 --> 00:32:27.320
um. Mark, the author of this

758
00:32:27.320 --> 00:32:29.960
article has written. But the bottom line is

759
00:32:29.960 --> 00:32:32.830
that um, our view, uh,

760
00:32:33.080 --> 00:32:35.800
of the universe on its largest scale

761
00:32:36.280 --> 00:32:39.050
is probably naive. It's probably.

762
00:32:40.400 --> 00:32:42.400
We've perhaps oversimplified it and as a

763
00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:44.840
result of that we've come out with the wrong

764
00:32:44.840 --> 00:32:47.810
answer. Um, I might just, uh.

765
00:32:47.840 --> 00:32:49.600
Andrew Dunkley: That's a really big call though, isn't it?

766
00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:52.480
Professor Fred Watson: It's a huge call. Absolutely huge call.

767
00:32:53.130 --> 00:32:53.190
Uh,

768
00:32:55.840 --> 00:32:58.480
let me just wind up with the last paragraph

769
00:32:58.480 --> 00:32:59.190
that, uh.

770
00:32:59.190 --> 00:33:00.400
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I was just looking at that

771
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:02.880
Professor Fred Watson: myself because that's the. Yeah. That Mark

772
00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:05.080
Thompson's written. I think it really sums it

773
00:33:05.080 --> 00:33:07.720
up. Dark energy has never felt

774
00:33:07.720 --> 00:33:09.840
entirely comfortable to many scientists.

775
00:33:09.840 --> 00:33:12.420
Einstein him, introduced something very like

776
00:33:12.420 --> 00:33:13.940
it, which he called his cosmological

777
00:33:13.940 --> 00:33:16.260
constant, then subsequently called it his

778
00:33:16.260 --> 00:33:18.940
biggest blunder. It was quietly resurrected

779
00:33:18.940 --> 00:33:21.180
in the 1990s when the data demanded it.

780
00:33:21.180 --> 00:33:23.580
That's when the accelerated expansion was

781
00:33:23.580 --> 00:33:26.100
discovered. Now the mathematics might be

782
00:33:26.100 --> 00:33:27.860
telling us it was never needed in the first

783
00:33:27.860 --> 00:33:30.860
place. The universe, it turns out, may be

784
00:33:31.100 --> 00:33:33.820
stranger and simpler than we

785
00:33:33.820 --> 00:33:36.380
thought, only both at, ah, the same time.

786
00:33:36.460 --> 00:33:38.980
It's a great article. I encourage all our

787
00:33:38.980 --> 00:33:40.180
listeners to have a look at it.

788
00:33:40.180 --> 00:33:42.850
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, it's at the Universe Today dot com

789
00:33:43.400 --> 00:33:45.760
website or you can read the paper at the

790
00:33:45.760 --> 00:33:48.520
Proceedings of the Royal Society. But, uh, I

791
00:33:48.520 --> 00:33:50.520
dare say we haven't heard the last of this.

792
00:33:51.510 --> 00:33:53.400
Uh, and what if, what if we have got it

793
00:33:53.400 --> 00:33:56.110
wrong? What if dark energy is a furfy? Um,

794
00:33:57.320 --> 00:33:59.920
that's the big question. But, uh, they seem

795
00:33:59.920 --> 00:34:02.920
to be erring towards the probability

796
00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:05.720
that it is in fact a furphy.

797
00:34:05.880 --> 00:34:08.840
Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Um, you know,

798
00:34:09.020 --> 00:34:11.350
uh, I

799
00:34:11.430 --> 00:34:14.390
suspect that, um, this theory,

800
00:34:15.080 --> 00:34:17.950
uh, if you eliminate the need for

801
00:34:17.950 --> 00:34:20.110
dark energy, you might well eliminate the

802
00:34:20.110 --> 00:34:21.510
need for dark matter as well.

803
00:34:23.430 --> 00:34:25.590
Or it might turn out to be primordial black

804
00:34:25.590 --> 00:34:28.550
holes. We've covered two potential

805
00:34:29.590 --> 00:34:31.750
solutions, uh, to the dark matter problem in

806
00:34:32.230 --> 00:34:35.230
this episode. Uh, nobody can accuse us

807
00:34:35.230 --> 00:34:37.690
of not addressing the big question, Andrew.

808
00:34:37.690 --> 00:34:39.690
Andrew Dunkley: Absolutely. We just don't give them the big

809
00:34:39.690 --> 00:34:40.050
answers.

810
00:34:40.050 --> 00:34:41.930
Professor Fred Watson: We don't give them answers. No, that's right.

811
00:34:41.930 --> 00:34:44.010
Leave that to somebody else because we don't

812
00:34:44.010 --> 00:34:45.090
know. No, we don't.

813
00:34:45.090 --> 00:34:47.130
Andrew Dunkley: No, we don't. But, uh, no. Fascinating.

814
00:34:47.210 --> 00:34:49.250
Fascinating storey. A couple of fascinating

815
00:34:49.250 --> 00:34:52.010
storeys. Uh, and it all started with a big

816
00:34:52.010 --> 00:34:53.210
bang called Blue Origin.

817
00:34:54.010 --> 00:34:56.490
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, it did. That's right. It was a huge

818
00:34:56.490 --> 00:34:57.290
bang. It was.

819
00:34:58.090 --> 00:34:58.100
Generic: Um.

820
00:34:58.490 --> 00:35:00.010
Andrew Dunkley: That brings us to the end. Fred Watson, thank

821
00:35:00.010 --> 00:35:00.650
you very much.

822
00:35:01.770 --> 00:35:03.810
Professor Fred Watson: It's a pleasure, Andrew. Always good to have

823
00:35:03.810 --> 00:35:06.650
a chat and uh, bring to the forefront

824
00:35:06.650 --> 00:35:08.650
exactly what's happening in the deep depths

825
00:35:08.650 --> 00:35:08.960
of the.

826
00:35:09.510 --> 00:35:11.190
Andrew Dunkley: Indeed. And good to have you back too.

827
00:35:11.430 --> 00:35:12.070
Professor Fred Watson: Thank you.

828
00:35:12.390 --> 00:35:14.110
Andrew Dunkley: Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer M at

829
00:35:14.110 --> 00:35:16.670
large. Don't forget to visit us online at our

830
00:35:16.670 --> 00:35:18.510
website if you so desire. SpaceNightsPodcast.

831
00:35:18.510 --> 00:35:21.230
Uh, dot com. You can click on the

832
00:35:21.230 --> 00:35:23.990
AMA link at the top and ask us anything.

833
00:35:24.390 --> 00:35:27.350
Or ask, uh, anybody anything really. But we

834
00:35:27.350 --> 00:35:29.510
make comments. You can sign up for the

835
00:35:29.830 --> 00:35:32.390
Astronomy AstroDailyPod feed. Uh, you can

836
00:35:32.390 --> 00:35:34.190
become a supporter if you so desire. And

837
00:35:34.190 --> 00:35:36.470
don't forget to leave, uh, reviews at your

838
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:39.040
favourite podcasting platform wherever you

839
00:35:39.040 --> 00:35:40.840
listen to us. Reviews are really useful

840
00:35:40.840 --> 00:35:43.320
unless they're bad. But then again, there are

841
00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:45.200
some people who like bad because they want to

842
00:35:45.200 --> 00:35:47.560
see what all the fuss is about. Uh, but don't

843
00:35:47.560 --> 00:35:49.560
do it unless you want to. I'm not going to

844
00:35:49.560 --> 00:35:52.040
tell you what to do. Um, but anyway, that's

845
00:35:52.040 --> 00:35:52.280
it.

846
00:35:52.599 --> 00:35:54.920
Thanks to Huw in the studio who couldn't be

847
00:35:54.920 --> 00:35:57.040
with us today because he's a furphy and from

848
00:35:57.040 --> 00:35:58.920
me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company

849
00:35:59.160 --> 00:36:01.160
on this edition. We'll catch you on the next

850
00:36:01.160 --> 00:36:03.720
episode of Space Nuts. Bye Bye.

851
00:36:04.920 --> 00:36:07.120
You've been listening to the Space Nuts

852
00:36:07.120 --> 00:36:07.720
Generic: podcast

853
00:36:09.460 --> 00:36:12.100
Andrew Dunkley: available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

854
00:36:12.180 --> 00:36:14.980
iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast

855
00:36:14.980 --> 00:36:17.300
player. You can also stream on demand at

856
00:36:17.300 --> 00:36:18.020
bytes.

857
00:36:18.020 --> 00:36:20.820
Professor Fred Watson: Com. This has been another quality podcast

858
00:36:20.820 --> 00:36:22.630
production from bytes. Com.

859
00:36:22.630 --> 00:36:24.490
Andrew Dunkley: Um.