SpaceX Innovations, Super-Puff Planets & the Mysterious South Atlantic Anomaly

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Andrew Dunkley: Hello again. Thanks for joining us on Space

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Nuts where we talk astronomy and space

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science each and every week. Twice a week in

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fact. My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host.

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It is good to have your company. Coming up on

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today's episode, we're going to get the

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latest from SpaceX and uh, they've got bigger

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and better plans as well. Uh, what about low

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cost space telescopes? Well, there's a

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man we're about to speak to who knows all

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about those because his university is

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involved. Uh, another weird exoplanet

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has been discovered and magnetic, magnetic

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field issues here on Earth. We'll talk about

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all of that on this episode of Space

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Nuts. 15 seconds. Guidance is

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internal. 10, 9.

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Ignition sequence start. Space Nuts

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5, 4, 3, 2.

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Jonti Horner: 1.

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Andrew Dunkley: 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2,

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1. Space Nuts astronauts report it

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feels good. Joining us once again to

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talk about all of that and plenty more, I'm

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sure, is Jonti Horner and he is

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a professor of astrophysics at University of

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Southern Queensland. Hello Jonti.

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Jonti Horner: Good morning. How are you going?

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Andrew Dunkley: I am m well. What about you?

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Jonti Horner: Oh, not too bad. I'm recovering. I just spent

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a weekend on the Barrier Reef doing outreach.

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I've got a lovely friendship with a small

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island at the southern end of the Barrier

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Reef that I've been going to for 13 years or

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so. And so Fred gets to go jetting all around

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the world and go to Scandinavia and I get

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to go to the Barrier Reef, which is still

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really, really awesome, to be honest. So, uh,

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I went out there and did an outreach talk and

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some stargazing every night, which reminded

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of the that the most distant object I can see

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with the naked eye is not the Andromeda

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Galaxy, but it's a Triangulum galaxy, which

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is very obvious to me from a dark site

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fainter than Andromeda. Um, that's actually

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my background at the m minute because

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photographing it from home, um, a few weeks

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ago, um, I am very, very keen

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at some point to try and find Centaurus there

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with the naked eye, which I'm reliably told

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that some people with particularly eagle eyes

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can spot from here in the southern

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hemisphere. But for me, Triangulum's it,

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not Andromeda. We've all seen Andromeda, so

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that was great.

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But then today has been a little bit feral

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because there have been a few articles gone

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out about the Orionid meteor shower which we

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mentioned on the podcast a couple of weeks

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ago. And so suddenly the journalists have

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realized it's happening today and have been

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wanting to talk about it today. And I've been

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trying to disappoint everybody and make

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Australians miserable by pointing out that

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it's not the awesome spectacle that some of

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the AI garbage would have you believe.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, of course. And there's plenty of AI

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garbage these days. And it's just getting

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worse.

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Jonti Horner: Some of the AI generated images that are

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popping up on Facebook, I mean, they're

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pretty, but they're pretty in the same way

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that a Picasso painting is in that they don't

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really bear much reality to the reality that

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we see. They're rather totally, totally

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speculative. And it makes me a little bit

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sad, um, that they're convincing enough even

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though they're incredibly wrong. The people

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who don't know much about the subject get

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really hyped up and then get really

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disappointed.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yes.

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Jonti Horner: And I think that's the damage in it. It's a

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boy who cried wolf syndrome, right?

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Andrew Dunkley: Yes.

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Jonti Horner: Here's amazing thing. It's going to be

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brighter than the midday sun and, and then

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you can't see it except if you've got a

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telescope. People go, well, why should I have

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a look?

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. M. And that's just

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going to get worse. Uh, I don't know how you

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stop it.

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Jonti Horner: I don't.

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Andrew Dunkley: There's too many, too many buff heads out

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there who just want to stir people up.

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Jonti Horner: But, uh, I wonder whether it's going to be

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one of these things that booms and then

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collapses and reaches a stead partially just

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because of the incredible costs involved with

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the AI and you know, the energy use and the

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water use that everybody talks about. I

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wonder if it's going to be a thing that's

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like the, the lady's shiny toy at the minute

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and everybody's using it and then it'll just

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fall by the wayside a little bit, I guess,

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like auto tune and pop music and stuff like

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that. I remember a while where every pop hit

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that turned out on the radio seemed to have

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these weird distortions and it means

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everybody was fond of auto tune. Um, and

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nowadays people would rather prove that they

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can sing themselves rather than have the

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computer do it for them.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Well, I, uh, remember a radio

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interview, uh, on an entertainment segment

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when I worked for the ABC years ago, probably

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going back 20, 20 odd years or more.

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And the expert in inverted

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commas, uh, was asked if reality television

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had a future and she said, no, it'll phase

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out in five years. Um,

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no, I think it's a

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dominant format now.

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Jonti Horner: Makes my head hurt. But I often say this when

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I'm talking about the search for life

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elsewhere, and the fact that, uh, we're

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betting all our assumptions on knowing one

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form of life, which is Earth. Uh, life, very

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diverse, but only one form of life. There's

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an old saying that I'm probably paraphrasing,

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is that the one prediction you can make with

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certainty, uh, is that all predictions will

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be wrong.

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Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. And that one's right.

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Yes, indeed. Uh, we better get down to

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it.

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And our first story, our first couple of

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stories, in fact, involve SpaceX. They've,

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uh, made the news again with a recent

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touchdown that, uh, has been quite

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spectacular. But they've got bigger and

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bolder plans, which we'll get to shortly. So

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tell us about this. Uh, I watched the video.

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It's quite an amazing feat of engineering,

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isn't it?

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Jonti Horner: It is. And it's a reminder that the

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development of rockets is done through

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explosions. And SpaceX are very aggressive

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with that. And there was a lot of humor hard,

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uh, earlier in the year about the incredibly

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expensive firework displays they were putting

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on for people of the Caribbean, where there

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were three SpaceX test launchers on the trot

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that went boom, um, in what

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SpaceX describe as rapid unscheduled

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disassembly. I love that. Yeah. It apparently

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started as a joke and became a meme and now

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is just a standard term, which is kind of

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adorable in itself. Yeah. And at the

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time, even though there was a bit of fun to

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be had, and there were some concerns as well,

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because debris was found across the Turks and

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Caicos Islands and there was a lot of

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controversy about who owns, um, it, who

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should clean up after it, all the rest of it,

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all the way through, there's this ongoing

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line that this is how they learn, this is how

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you develop rockets, is you test them to

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destruction. And, um, from the destruction

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you learn more than you would do from a

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successful flight. And SpaceX have

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done this all the way through their long

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history and, uh, they've had a much more

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aggressive testing schedule than you'd be

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used to. If you think back to the rocket

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launchers of bygone eras where governments

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were in charge, where every time something

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went wrong, there was this huge delay where

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they were painstaking and trying to figure

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out the nitty gritty and everything about it

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with the way SpaceX have worked. They've got

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the next rocket under construction when they

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launch the current one. So there's this rapid

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turnover, uh, of lots of testing,

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where the goal is not for the next test to

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necessarily be a perfect success, but rather

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to be better than the last one, and what

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we've seen with the last two launches of

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their starship, of their big

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headliner rocket that is destined to be the

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one to launch people to the moon and to Mars

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and beyond, is the benefits of this kind

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of process. We've just seen the fifth

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starship launch of the year and, um, the

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second one which has gone well, and it's the

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final launch, incidentally, of this version

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of starship. They're now working on a bigger

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version that's slightly taller and slightly

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gruntier, which will do some more testing and

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then they'll build an even bigger version,

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which is the one that they hope to do a lot

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of the really exciting stuff with. But the

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current launch, happened about a week ago

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now, was live streamed and, um, there is

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beautiful video footage of it online,

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particularly of the final stages of the

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relatively soft, gentle landing in the ocean.

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And, um, what they achieved with the launch

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was successfully launched. The boosters, I

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believe, on the sides, came back and touched

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down on the pad, which is an incredible

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technical achievement when you think about

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it, and we now almost take it for granted.

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Yeah. And that's part of the achievement that

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has allowed SpaceX to launch things to space

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much more cheaply than those previous

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government missions I mentioned, because you

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can reuse parts and that lowers the cost

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dramatically. But then the main body of the

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starship did this suborbital flight,

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probably, in all honesty, delayed some Qantas

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passengers flying from Australia to South

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Africa because they say we're going to launch

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a rocket and of course you don't want an

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aircraft to be the way when it's coming back

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down. And there were a lot of stories about

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that earlier in the year with disgruntled

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Qantas passengers being delayed when

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launchers were scrubbed. So their flight was

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delayed and the launch didn't even happen.

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This launch definitely did. It flew

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this suborbital flight, did a few test

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deployments of satellites to prove it could

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do that, then reentered the atmosphere. And

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there's this gorgeous footage of the thing

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falling sidewards through the atmosphere, not

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out of control, not tumbling, but looking

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like it's coming in sideways and like

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everything's done and it's just going to

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crash. And, um, then suddenly the engines

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turn on and it stands on its tail and just

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slows down and slows down until it kicks up

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all this steam, all this water, but

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essentially just gently settles onto the

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water and has a soft landing where it can be

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recovered and reused. And that soft landing

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happens somewhere to the west of Western

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Australia in the Indian Ocean. And

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it's a really incredible technical feat. Uh,

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I will bag SpaceX when we're talking about

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Starlink. While I acknowledge that that does

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a lot of good as well, it's one of these

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things where it's not all good, it's not all

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bad, but there's aspects of both. But I think

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this kind of success should be really

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celebrated because it's a really fabulous

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example of this constant progression of

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improving technology we're getting that will

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make human use of space cheaper in

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the future. It'll allow a lot more variety in

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what we do. And the context here, of course,

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is that SpaceX have a contract with NASA to

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launch astronauts to the moon. And the

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accelerator plan for that is that the Artemis

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3 mission is scheduled to launch in early

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2027 to send people out to the

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moon to do a lap of the moon and bring them

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back and probably spend even up to 30 days in

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space, quite a lengthy mission that will be

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launched off the next generation of this

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starship, or the next, but one generation of

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this starship. And uh, the fact that they've

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now had two launches on the track where it

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all worked, uh, and nothing blew up is

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probably fairly reassuring for the people who

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plan to sit on top of this thing in 12 or 18

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months time. It's also something where

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there's a bit of extra pressure from the big,

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big head guy who didn't develop the company

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but bought it and has been a good advocate

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for it, I think you'd possibly say in the

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form of Elon Musk, challenging individual,

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but he's really very vocal about the

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fact that he wants this thing to not just

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send people to the moon, but also to send

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them to Mars. Yes. And uh, one of the things

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he wants to achieve in the tech demonstrator

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phase of that is to use

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Starship version 3, which is a version

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after the next version, to launch a mission

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to Mars, sending small

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spacecraft robots effectively in the next

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launch window to Mars. Now that next launch

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window is only 12 months away. For those who

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are keen at looking at the night sky, Mars is

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almost now hidden behind the sun. It's pretty

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much out of view. We're swinging back around

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to gradually approach it again. And by this

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time next year we'll see the usual flurry

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of activity as people start to launch their

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spacecraft. And you get the next wave of

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things going to Mars because that's a cheap

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and quick time to go there. That's the launch

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window. Uh, and Elon Musk wants version three

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of starship ready so that

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it can launch things to Mars in that launch

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window, uh, to demonstrate the capacity of

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getting things there with a rocket big enough

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to eventually put people there. And of

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course, he's famously expressed the desire to

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be the first person to die on Mars. Um, I'm

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sure many people in the audience have similar

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aspirations for Elon Musk.

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Andrew Dunkley: Um, we've had a few comments over the course

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of the last several months.

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Jonti Horner: Absolutely. But this is where things are

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looking. And the fact that they've been so

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successful so quickly is really promising for

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the moon missions and, um, for the Mars

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missions to come down. The future, and it

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should be celebrated. And the footage that's

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out there that you can find all over the

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place on YouTube Music is really

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astonishingly incredible. To see the control

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this rocket has and the fact that coming back

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through the atmosphere, falling on its side,

327
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it can suddenly just wake up, stand on its

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tail and gently touch down in the water.

329
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That's really cool.

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Andrew Dunkley: It is very, very cool. It sort of goes back

331
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to the early days of science, uh,

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fiction, where that's what rockets did.

333
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Jonti Horner: Yes.

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Andrew Dunkley: And now it's real. Uh, so much stuff seems to

335
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be happening that, uh, has been written about

336
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by science fiction writers, you know,

337
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50, 100 years ago. Um, so this,

338
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this new version of the, um,

339
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uh, the spaceship is going to

340
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be, as you said, bigger, uh, and

341
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gruntier. It's going to have some really, um,

342
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powerful Raptor engines attached to it, and

343
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it'll be quite an awesome piece of machinery.

344
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Biggest rocket ever, I think.

345
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Jonti Horner: Absolutely. And it would not surprise me if

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there were a few explosive disassemblies of

347
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this one as they're tuning up, because that's

348
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how they learn. And I think there were a lot

349
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of people who are not tuned into this, who

350
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are not quite as big as space fans as we all,

351
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uh, are, who, when the explosions were

352
00:12:50.530 --> 00:12:52.530
happening, were taking a lot of mirth from it

353
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and saying, come on, I can't even launch a

354
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rocket. And we've been doing it for 50 years.

355
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And a lot of the voices on the Internet who

356
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follow how these things go, who are much

357
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wiser and much more knowledgeable about this

358
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than I am, were saying, don't panic. This is

359
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exactly how SpaceX do business. They're not

360
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worried. This is how they learn. And each

361
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failure happened later, and now they get

362
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successes. It's how they work, and it's how

363
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you learn. You learn more from your failures

364
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than the success.

365
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Andrew Dunkley: Yes, they could well be sending a fleet of

366
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these Starship V3s to Mars next year,

367
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the way they're talking. So watch, watch

368
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this. SpaceX boom, boom.

369
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Uh, let's move on to our next story.

370
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Uh, this is one that your university's uh, a,

371
00:13:31.880 --> 00:13:33.980
uh, little involved in. And this is low cost

372
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private space telescopes. Do tell.

373
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Jonti Horner: I do love this. Now I can immediately take a

374
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total detour here, um, because I'm good at

375
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that. Here's a topic and I'm not going to

376
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talk about it for the first few minutes, but

377
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we have at UNISQ something I'm really proud

378
00:13:49.140 --> 00:13:51.260
of, which is our Minerva Australis facility.

379
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And um, that is something we've built to find

380
00:13:54.020 --> 00:13:55.780
planets around other stars and learn more

381
00:13:55.780 --> 00:13:58.780
about them to basically work following

382
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up the observations of the NASA TESS mission.

383
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Uh, and we were able to build this facility

384
00:14:03.500 --> 00:14:05.180
which is the only professional astronomical

385
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research observatory in Queensland, using

386
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Australian Research Council funding and using

387
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input from partner universities. And

388
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we're talking about a total budget here of a

389
00:14:16.020 --> 00:14:18.060
few million Australian dollars, less than 10

390
00:14:18.060 --> 00:14:20.900
million. If you went back even

391
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20 years this would not have been possible.

392
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What we've been able to do is build this

393
00:14:25.020 --> 00:14:26.940
array of telescopes where all the telescopes

394
00:14:26.940 --> 00:14:29.060
have 70 centimeter mirrors. So they're big

395
00:14:29.060 --> 00:14:31.940
chunky research grade telescopes that we were

396
00:14:31.940 --> 00:14:33.940
able to buy off the shelf because there's a

397
00:14:33.940 --> 00:14:36.300
company called Plane Wave who

398
00:14:36.780 --> 00:14:38.620
developed what is essentially the Model T

399
00:14:38.620 --> 00:14:41.380
Ford revolution for research level

400
00:14:41.380 --> 00:14:43.820
telescopes where they realized that there's a

401
00:14:43.820 --> 00:14:46.700
really big market for telescopes that are big

402
00:14:46.700 --> 00:14:48.500
compared to what amateurs use, but at the

403
00:14:48.500 --> 00:14:50.100
small end of what professional astronomers

404
00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:52.100
use. And uh, there's a big market because the

405
00:14:52.100 --> 00:14:54.580
military wants these to be looking for space

406
00:14:54.580 --> 00:14:57.420
debris and to do space situational awareness,

407
00:14:58.090 --> 00:15:00.450
satellite tracking, things like that. The

408
00:15:00.450 --> 00:15:02.410
wealthiest of the amateur astronomy community

409
00:15:02.490 --> 00:15:04.910
want these to do their astronomy with and uh,

410
00:15:04.930 --> 00:15:06.770
the professional astronomers would want to

411
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use them as well. And um, by

412
00:15:09.450 --> 00:15:11.290
setting up a production line where you

413
00:15:11.290 --> 00:15:14.010
produce these things relatively en masse,

414
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rather than getting an order for a telescope,

415
00:15:16.890 --> 00:15:18.930
designing a specific telescope for that

416
00:15:18.930 --> 00:15:21.530
telescope's needs and building it as a one

417
00:15:21.530 --> 00:15:24.130
off, you can build things on a production

418
00:15:24.130 --> 00:15:26.620
line and you can make them a lot cheaper. In

419
00:15:26.620 --> 00:15:28.340
this case about an order of magnitude

420
00:15:28.340 --> 00:15:30.220
cheaper. Uh, so that meant we were able to

421
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get these telescopes of this size and of this

422
00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:33.740
quality for about a quarter of a million

423
00:15:33.740 --> 00:15:36.020
dollars each instead of two and a half

424
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million dollars each. Wow. Which meant that

425
00:15:38.580 --> 00:15:40.739
we were able to build this facility and build

426
00:15:40.739 --> 00:15:43.260
a relatively low cost research facility

427
00:15:43.820 --> 00:15:46.780
for one task. And that's in real contrast

428
00:15:46.780 --> 00:15:48.660
to uh, most of the really big expensive

429
00:15:48.660 --> 00:15:51.020
observatories historically which have been

430
00:15:51.020 --> 00:15:53.020
really expensive and all singing, all

431
00:15:53.020 --> 00:15:54.740
dancing, to do all things for all people.

432
00:15:55.940 --> 00:15:57.820
By having this kind of Model T Ford

433
00:15:57.820 --> 00:15:59.900
revolution where you suddenly have telescopes

434
00:15:59.900 --> 00:16:02.180
coming off a production line, you're able to

435
00:16:02.180 --> 00:16:03.740
make things in order of magnitude more

436
00:16:03.740 --> 00:16:06.099
affordable. And that allows people to be

437
00:16:06.099 --> 00:16:09.020
innovative and develop bespoke

438
00:16:09.020 --> 00:16:10.940
observatories that do one thing well rather

439
00:16:10.940 --> 00:16:12.900
than everything well. And they can do that a

440
00:16:12.900 --> 00:16:15.100
lot cheaper. And that's been a huge success

441
00:16:15.100 --> 00:16:18.060
for us. We've discovered about 40 or 50

442
00:16:18.060 --> 00:16:19.860
planets. We've been involved in the

443
00:16:19.860 --> 00:16:22.300
discoveries all at a really low cost, which

444
00:16:22.300 --> 00:16:24.980
makes this probably the cheapest exoplanet

445
00:16:24.980 --> 00:16:27.020
facility on the planet in terms of cost per

446
00:16:27.020 --> 00:16:29.380
planet. Learned about. So we're really proud

447
00:16:29.380 --> 00:16:32.140
of that. And working on that,

448
00:16:32.380 --> 00:16:35.180
we learned about a company in the UK

449
00:16:35.340 --> 00:16:38.180
called Blue Sky Space limited And they are

450
00:16:38.180 --> 00:16:40.700
a very innovative, innovative spin out

451
00:16:40.860 --> 00:16:43.700
from, um, University of

452
00:16:43.700 --> 00:16:46.580
London, um, and my name is Dun Turtle Black

453
00:16:46.580 --> 00:16:47.980
there. It's not the Royal Holloway University

454
00:16:47.980 --> 00:16:49.980
of London, but it's one of the big

455
00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:51.580
universities in the middle of London. We've

456
00:16:51.580 --> 00:16:54.060
worked with them closely. We've had Giovanna

457
00:16:54.060 --> 00:16:55.540
Tinetti, who's one of the world's leading

458
00:16:55.540 --> 00:16:57.300
scientists from them, visit us on a couple

459
00:16:57.300 --> 00:16:59.860
occasions. And uh, there's this spin out that

460
00:16:59.860 --> 00:17:02.100
came out of their undergraduate master's

461
00:17:02.100 --> 00:17:04.940
program where people have set up a company

462
00:17:05.740 --> 00:17:08.660
that has looked at the idea of building

463
00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:10.580
things on a production line and said, can we

464
00:17:10.580 --> 00:17:13.090
apply that to space telescopes

465
00:17:13.730 --> 00:17:15.730
instead of looking at building James Webb,

466
00:17:15.730 --> 00:17:18.170
which is billions of dollars for an enormous,

467
00:17:18.170 --> 00:17:19.970
really complex thing that everybody has to

468
00:17:19.970 --> 00:17:22.890
fight to use? Yeah. Can we take the

469
00:17:22.890 --> 00:17:25.850
parts that are available to us off the shelf

470
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from people making satellites and

471
00:17:27.610 --> 00:17:29.250
particularly making things like cubesats,

472
00:17:29.250 --> 00:17:31.210
which are designed to be easy to put

473
00:17:31.210 --> 00:17:32.770
together, cheap to put together because you

474
00:17:32.770 --> 00:17:35.530
can go and get pieces off a shelf. And can we

475
00:17:35.530 --> 00:17:37.410
effectively crowdsource from research

476
00:17:37.570 --> 00:17:39.840
institutions cheaper, more

477
00:17:39.840 --> 00:17:42.800
specialized space telescopes that are

478
00:17:42.800 --> 00:17:45.400
built off the shelf and um, reduce the costs

479
00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:48.080
of building space telescopes by a factor of

480
00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:50.920
10 to 100 times. The first of

481
00:17:50.920 --> 00:17:52.800
these that they came up with is a project

482
00:17:52.800 --> 00:17:54.600
called twinkl that I know for a fact where

483
00:17:54.600 --> 00:17:56.520
one of the universities that's bought in on

484
00:17:56.840 --> 00:17:59.440
and that's going to launch a telescope with

485
00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:01.920
about a 70 centimeter mirror, so comparable

486
00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:04.560
to the ones we've got at our facility for a

487
00:18:04.560 --> 00:18:06.840
cost of about $75 million, or

488
00:18:07.870 --> 00:18:10.350
there's a real exoplanet tool. Now $75

489
00:18:10.350 --> 00:18:13.190
million sounds expensive, but to

490
00:18:13.190 --> 00:18:15.430
launch a space telescope of that kind of

491
00:18:15.430 --> 00:18:18.070
caliber for $75 million is utterly unheard

492
00:18:18.070 --> 00:18:19.910
of. And the way they're doing it is by

493
00:18:19.910 --> 00:18:22.110
building it from off shelf materials, they're

494
00:18:22.110 --> 00:18:23.710
getting universities to buy it and those

495
00:18:23.710 --> 00:18:26.230
universities get guaranteed access and they

496
00:18:26.230 --> 00:18:28.390
get to participate in the design. So you get

497
00:18:28.390 --> 00:18:30.030
the telescope that is good for the science

498
00:18:30.030 --> 00:18:32.310
you want to do. That's going to be Twinkl.

499
00:18:32.310 --> 00:18:34.500
And Twinkl is going to launch ah, at some

500
00:18:34.500 --> 00:18:36.900
point in the next couple of years. But

501
00:18:36.900 --> 00:18:39.820
they've also been working on what was

502
00:18:39.820 --> 00:18:42.380
developed second but will launch first,

503
00:18:42.860 --> 00:18:45.660
which is a smaller, even cheaper

504
00:18:45.660 --> 00:18:48.660
instrument called mawv. Now we've

505
00:18:48.660 --> 00:18:50.620
been involved in the discussions with this

506
00:18:50.620 --> 00:18:52.900
since it was first a thing. But I don't off

507
00:18:52.900 --> 00:18:54.580
the top of my head know whether we've got buy

508
00:18:54.580 --> 00:18:56.700
in or whether we're observers on the

509
00:18:56.700 --> 00:18:58.300
sideline, sharing them in because I'm not

510
00:18:58.300 --> 00:19:01.000
personally involved with the mission. But

511
00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:03.920
Mauv is a CubeSat. It's going to be about

512
00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:06.880
the size of a small briefcase. It has got

513
00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:09.760
an off the shelf UV instrument

514
00:19:09.760 --> 00:19:12.080
so ultraviolet looking at wavelengths shorter

515
00:19:12.080 --> 00:19:15.080
than we see with the unaided eye that they've

516
00:19:15.080 --> 00:19:17.880
been able to modify to allow it to be a

517
00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:20.240
spacecraft that is dedicated at studying

518
00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:23.160
stellar flares, looking at stars, stars

519
00:19:23.160 --> 00:19:25.200
like the sun, stars like red dwarfs like

520
00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:28.010
Proxima Centauri and studying them to look at

521
00:19:28.010 --> 00:19:29.730
how active they are, learning more about

522
00:19:29.730 --> 00:19:31.650
their activity levels. Now this is really

523
00:19:31.650 --> 00:19:34.040
interesting in the context of exoplanets, ah,

524
00:19:34.530 --> 00:19:37.250
and the search for life elsewhere. That's one

525
00:19:37.250 --> 00:19:39.850
of the big motivators of this because this

526
00:19:39.850 --> 00:19:42.690
idea that stellar flares and stellar activity

527
00:19:43.090 --> 00:19:44.970
could be something that makes a planet that

528
00:19:44.970 --> 00:19:46.810
would otherwise be really suitable for the

529
00:19:46.810 --> 00:19:48.410
search for life and suitable for life to

530
00:19:48.410 --> 00:19:50.810
develop and thrive and turn that planet into

531
00:19:50.810 --> 00:19:53.810
a barren and hostile wasteland. And Mars

532
00:19:53.810 --> 00:19:56.530
is held up as an example of this. Mars has a

533
00:19:56.530 --> 00:19:58.410
very thin and tenuous atmosphere now. It's

534
00:19:58.410 --> 00:20:00.690
cold and arid, but when it was young it was

535
00:20:00.690 --> 00:20:03.650
warm and wet and had oceans and would

536
00:20:03.650 --> 00:20:05.210
have looked almost like a mini version of

537
00:20:05.210 --> 00:20:07.170
Earth, uh, 2.0. It had all the conditions you

538
00:20:07.170 --> 00:20:09.570
need for life. But over billions of years,

539
00:20:09.570 --> 00:20:12.530
Mars's atmosphere has been whittled away from

540
00:20:12.530 --> 00:20:15.210
the outside in by solar activity, in part

541
00:20:15.210 --> 00:20:16.650
because Mars doesn't really have a strong

542
00:20:16.650 --> 00:20:18.290
magnetic field now it's also lost the

543
00:20:18.290 --> 00:20:21.260
atmosphere chemically to the surface. But

544
00:20:21.260 --> 00:20:23.060
this has always given people an idea that

545
00:20:23.060 --> 00:20:25.260
stellar activity constrict the atmospheres of

546
00:20:25.260 --> 00:20:27.980
planets and render them unsuitable for life

547
00:20:27.980 --> 00:20:30.660
in the long term as well as in the shorter

548
00:20:30.660 --> 00:20:33.340
term. That extreme activity would lead to UV

549
00:20:33.340 --> 00:20:35.340
doses that could even break through and

550
00:20:35.340 --> 00:20:36.900
sterilize the planet. So there's a lot of

551
00:20:36.900 --> 00:20:38.900
ways stellar activity could be bad for life.

552
00:20:40.020 --> 00:20:42.140
What we know about with the sun is the sun's

553
00:20:42.140 --> 00:20:44.740
a really calm and chill star. It's much less

554
00:20:44.740 --> 00:20:47.730
active than the majority of stars are. And

555
00:20:47.730 --> 00:20:50.690
that has led to people speculating along the

556
00:20:50.690 --> 00:20:53.410
lines of the anthropic principle that we're

557
00:20:53.410 --> 00:20:56.370
only here to observe the universe because our

558
00:20:56.370 --> 00:20:59.250
sun is so stable, and therefore we should

559
00:20:59.250 --> 00:21:00.810
only ever look at stars that are really,

560
00:21:00.810 --> 00:21:02.650
really stable. There are others who argue

561
00:21:02.650 --> 00:21:05.530
that you can't take every coincidence about

562
00:21:05.530 --> 00:21:07.210
our solar system and assume that it's a

563
00:21:07.210 --> 00:21:09.490
requirement for life. And, uh, maybe it is

564
00:21:09.490 --> 00:21:11.290
just coincidence that we happen to be around

565
00:21:11.290 --> 00:21:13.990
a really stable star. But if we want to learn

566
00:21:13.990 --> 00:21:15.910
more about planetary systems around other

567
00:21:15.910 --> 00:21:17.390
stars, and particularly if we want to be able

568
00:21:17.390 --> 00:21:20.110
to focus the search for life elsewhere, on

569
00:21:20.110 --> 00:21:21.550
the planets that are the most promising

570
00:21:21.550 --> 00:21:24.390
targets, we want to maximize the chances of

571
00:21:24.390 --> 00:21:26.150
those planets having life and being suitable

572
00:21:26.150 --> 00:21:28.270
for life. It's really important to learn as

573
00:21:28.270 --> 00:21:30.110
much as we can about the star, the planets

574
00:21:30.110 --> 00:21:32.230
themselves, all that kind of stuff. And

575
00:21:32.230 --> 00:21:34.910
that's where Morph comes in. Morph is

576
00:21:35.390 --> 00:21:37.630
ridiculously cheap for a space telescope, to

577
00:21:37.630 --> 00:21:39.310
be honest, because it's one of these cubesats

578
00:21:39.700 --> 00:21:41.900
made from off the shelf materials. It's got

579
00:21:41.900 --> 00:21:43.860
this off the shelf UV detector that's been

580
00:21:43.860 --> 00:21:46.780
modified to do stellar activity work. And

581
00:21:46.780 --> 00:21:49.140
it's going to launch potentially in the next

582
00:21:49.140 --> 00:21:51.860
month, possibly as soon as that. Really,

583
00:21:51.860 --> 00:21:53.860
really exciting. And what it will be doing is

584
00:21:53.860 --> 00:21:56.180
looking at stars and studying their stellar

585
00:21:56.180 --> 00:21:58.620
flares, studying their activity to give us a

586
00:21:58.620 --> 00:22:00.820
really good handle on the diversity of

587
00:22:00.820 --> 00:22:02.900
stellar activity you get from planet hosting

588
00:22:02.900 --> 00:22:05.780
stars. And to start teaching us about

589
00:22:06.330 --> 00:22:08.370
how those flares could interact with the

590
00:22:08.370 --> 00:22:11.130
planets that those stars host. Ties into

591
00:22:11.130 --> 00:22:12.970
theoretical work that colleagues of mine at

592
00:22:12.970 --> 00:22:15.450
UNESQ have been doing for years, using

593
00:22:16.010 --> 00:22:18.010
the kind of modeling software that people use

594
00:22:18.010 --> 00:22:19.770
to model space weather in the solar system

595
00:22:19.770 --> 00:22:22.330
and trying to apply that to stars that are

596
00:22:22.330 --> 00:22:25.170
not the sun and planets around them. This

597
00:22:25.170 --> 00:22:27.010
will give the observational grounding for

598
00:22:27.010 --> 00:22:29.610
that theoretical work so that people can get

599
00:22:29.610 --> 00:22:32.100
a much better handle on whether this

600
00:22:32.100 --> 00:22:33.740
assumption we've got based on the one

601
00:22:33.740 --> 00:22:35.860
planetary system we have is actually worth

602
00:22:36.180 --> 00:22:38.380
following, Whether it's less important than

603
00:22:38.380 --> 00:22:40.180
that, whether it's more important than that.

604
00:22:40.740 --> 00:22:42.540
And so we're going to learn a hell of a lot

605
00:22:42.540 --> 00:22:45.500
about stars and also habitability, and help

606
00:22:45.500 --> 00:22:47.820
direct our search for the most promising

607
00:22:47.820 --> 00:22:50.700
targets for the search for life, all from a

608
00:22:50.700 --> 00:22:52.420
company that's just innovatively saying

609
00:22:52.420 --> 00:22:54.740
instead of trying to build James Webb at

610
00:22:54.740 --> 00:22:56.740
incredible cost and having astronomers from

611
00:22:56.740 --> 00:22:59.300
all disciplines fighting for it. Let's build

612
00:22:59.300 --> 00:23:01.020
something off the shelf with much cheaper

613
00:23:01.020 --> 00:23:02.700
components at a much lower price.

614
00:23:03.740 --> 00:23:05.780
Build it in such a way that it's good at one

615
00:23:05.780 --> 00:23:07.620
thing rather than being good at everything.

616
00:23:07.620 --> 00:23:09.340
It's good at one thing and one thing only.

617
00:23:09.900 --> 00:23:11.620
And, uh, yet there are people who want to do

618
00:23:11.620 --> 00:23:13.300
that one thing to contribute to the cost of

619
00:23:13.300 --> 00:23:15.900
launching it. And it is like a space

620
00:23:16.220 --> 00:23:17.900
version of what we've done with Minerva

621
00:23:17.900 --> 00:23:20.460
Australis. And we know with our facility just

622
00:23:20.460 --> 00:23:22.380
how successful that model can be. We've

623
00:23:22.380 --> 00:23:23.980
really pushed above our weight because we've

624
00:23:23.980 --> 00:23:26.540
been able to do that. And Mauve and, um,

625
00:23:26.670 --> 00:23:28.870
Twinkl, which will follow, are a really

626
00:23:28.870 --> 00:23:30.870
interesting window to a future where instead

627
00:23:30.870 --> 00:23:33.470
of everybody fighting for Hubble or everybody

628
00:23:33.470 --> 00:23:35.430
fighting for Spitzer or James Webb,

629
00:23:36.230 --> 00:23:38.150
different research teams have smaller,

630
00:23:38.150 --> 00:23:40.670
cheaper instruments dedicated to the work

631
00:23:40.670 --> 00:23:43.390
they want to do. And science advances that

632
00:23:43.390 --> 00:23:46.150
way instead. There'll still obviously be a

633
00:23:46.150 --> 00:23:47.950
place for James Webb and telescopes like

634
00:23:47.950 --> 00:23:49.710
that. They will do things that you could not

635
00:23:49.710 --> 00:23:52.090
do with an instrument this small. But what

636
00:23:52.090 --> 00:23:53.770
this will also do is it will mean that

637
00:23:53.770 --> 00:23:55.450
there's a little bit less competition for

638
00:23:55.450 --> 00:23:58.330
those jack of all trades facilities, because

639
00:23:58.330 --> 00:24:00.290
people who want to do a specific thing may

640
00:24:00.290 --> 00:24:01.930
have another option that is cheaper and

641
00:24:01.930 --> 00:24:04.370
easier for them to get time on and reduces

642
00:24:04.370 --> 00:24:06.170
their contribution to the burden on the other

643
00:24:06.170 --> 00:24:08.650
scopes. So this will doubtless indirectly

644
00:24:08.650 --> 00:24:10.690
benefit people doing very different science

645
00:24:11.250 --> 00:24:13.090
because they get more time to do their

646
00:24:13.090 --> 00:24:15.770
science because their competitors are getting

647
00:24:15.770 --> 00:24:17.330
time on telescopes in other ways.

648
00:24:17.330 --> 00:24:17.690
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.

649
00:24:17.690 --> 00:24:19.530
Jonti Horner: Could this just open for many, many different

650
00:24:19.530 --> 00:24:20.330
reasons? Yeah.

651
00:24:20.330 --> 00:24:23.310
Andrew Dunkley: Could this lead to, um, total

652
00:24:23.310 --> 00:24:26.190
rethink of how, um, space

653
00:24:26.190 --> 00:24:28.990
telescopes operate? Like, could, uh, there

654
00:24:28.990 --> 00:24:31.630
be a group that says, okay, we want to

655
00:24:31.630 --> 00:24:33.710
specifically search for

656
00:24:34.910 --> 00:24:37.910
X in space. Uh, we need a

657
00:24:37.910 --> 00:24:40.910
specific kind of telescope to do that. If

658
00:24:40.910 --> 00:24:42.910
you build it, we will come, send it into

659
00:24:42.910 --> 00:24:44.190
space and we can do our job.

660
00:24:44.350 --> 00:24:46.030
Could it lead to that kind of thing?

661
00:24:46.510 --> 00:24:48.750
Jonti Horner: I think so long as the price is right.

662
00:24:49.430 --> 00:24:51.930
Um, and that's the thing. If this was no

663
00:24:51.930 --> 00:24:53.850
cheaper than building James Webb, nobody'd be

664
00:24:53.850 --> 00:24:56.770
interested. But Twinkle will be a fairly big

665
00:24:56.770 --> 00:24:58.690
space telescope. You know, 70 centimeter

666
00:24:58.690 --> 00:25:00.490
mirror is not to be sniffed at. That's a

667
00:25:00.490 --> 00:25:02.850
fairly chunky piece of kit. To build

668
00:25:02.850 --> 00:25:05.210
something like that at, uh, a cost. That is

669
00:25:05.210 --> 00:25:08.010
what I said, about $75 million when

670
00:25:08.010 --> 00:25:10.526
James Webb was more than $10

671
00:25:10.694 --> 00:25:13.290
billion. That is a factor of

672
00:25:13.290 --> 00:25:15.370
100 difference in price, effectively,

673
00:25:16.500 --> 00:25:18.820
something like that. Now, 100 twinkls would

674
00:25:18.820 --> 00:25:21.140
not be able to do the Same science that one

675
00:25:21.140 --> 00:25:24.060
James Webb does. But 100 Twinkls could do a

676
00:25:24.060 --> 00:25:27.060
lot of very diverse science. And so

677
00:25:27.060 --> 00:25:29.060
it achieves different things. Now

678
00:25:29.860 --> 00:25:31.780
there are other things out there. We've got

679
00:25:31.780 --> 00:25:33.900
an interesting one in that there is a

680
00:25:33.900 --> 00:25:36.660
partnership between my university unesq,

681
00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:38.620
through this iLaunch initiative that's an

682
00:25:38.620 --> 00:25:40.940
Australian thing, with the University of

683
00:25:40.940 --> 00:25:43.300
South Australia, with Optus, with the

684
00:25:43.300 --> 00:25:45.500
Australian National University and with a

685
00:25:45.500 --> 00:25:46.980
couple of startup companies in South

686
00:25:46.980 --> 00:25:49.600
Australia where there is an Australian

687
00:25:49.600 --> 00:25:51.160
sovereign satellite that is in the

688
00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:52.960
construction under what's called Project

689
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:55.120
Swift. And uh, this is going to be about a

690
00:25:55.120 --> 00:25:57.830
$50 million project. And um,

691
00:25:58.040 --> 00:26:00.440
that is going to be a satellite where Optus

692
00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:01.760
are interested because they're going to be

693
00:26:01.760 --> 00:26:02.960
testing technology for better

694
00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:05.240
telecommunications and also

695
00:26:05.240 --> 00:26:06.840
telecommunications platform that are

696
00:26:06.840 --> 00:26:08.800
Australian owned for Australian citizens. So

697
00:26:08.800 --> 00:26:10.840
you're not at the whim of people from other

698
00:26:10.840 --> 00:26:13.240
countries who may have the ability to turn

699
00:26:13.240 --> 00:26:15.600
off your network as we saw with Elon Musk

700
00:26:15.600 --> 00:26:17.480
turning off Starlink over Ukraine at one

701
00:26:17.480 --> 00:26:20.380
point because he wanted to. We are

702
00:26:20.380 --> 00:26:22.340
concerned about that. So, uh, Optus are

703
00:26:22.340 --> 00:26:23.460
thinking, well, let's try and have an

704
00:26:23.460 --> 00:26:26.140
Australian communications platform. Our

705
00:26:26.140 --> 00:26:28.100
involvement is if you've got a satellite

706
00:26:28.100 --> 00:26:30.500
going around the Earth looking down the

707
00:26:30.500 --> 00:26:32.260
backside of that satellite's looking out to

708
00:26:32.260 --> 00:26:35.020
space. What if you put a space telescope on

709
00:26:35.020 --> 00:26:36.460
the other side of the satellite? You can have

710
00:26:36.460 --> 00:26:38.220
a satellite that's doing telecoms in one

711
00:26:38.220 --> 00:26:40.540
direction whilst also providing research

712
00:26:40.620 --> 00:26:43.540
capacity in the other. So UNISQ is leading

713
00:26:43.540 --> 00:26:45.460
the research telescope side of that and my

714
00:26:45.460 --> 00:26:46.870
colleague Duncan Wright, who's leading the

715
00:26:46.870 --> 00:26:48.790
centre of our, who's the head of our center

716
00:26:48.790 --> 00:26:51.230
of Astrophysics here, is heavily involved in

717
00:26:51.230 --> 00:26:52.910
putting together this innovative, fairly

718
00:26:52.910 --> 00:26:55.830
small 20 centimeter TACT telescope to do a

719
00:26:55.830 --> 00:26:58.270
little bit of exoplanet work off the back of

720
00:26:58.270 --> 00:26:59.990
a commercial platform designed for something

721
00:26:59.990 --> 00:27:01.350
else. And that's a really interesting

722
00:27:01.350 --> 00:27:04.190
partnership. Now that is Ben. It all

723
00:27:04.190 --> 00:27:06.910
ties back to the commercial launch capacity

724
00:27:06.910 --> 00:27:09.870
that SpaceX have provided. Suddenly

725
00:27:09.870 --> 00:27:11.910
you've lowered the price of our access to

726
00:27:11.910 --> 00:27:14.770
space to such a level that people can now be

727
00:27:14.770 --> 00:27:16.730
really innovative and think of new solutions.

728
00:27:17.530 --> 00:27:18.010
Andrew Dunkley: Love it.

729
00:27:18.010 --> 00:27:20.330
Jonti Horner: The downside is more satellites, more light

730
00:27:20.330 --> 00:27:22.570
pollution. The upside may be more cool

731
00:27:22.570 --> 00:27:22.890
research.

732
00:27:23.290 --> 00:27:25.290
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, um, there's a price to pay for

733
00:27:25.290 --> 00:27:26.170
everything, I suppose.

734
00:27:26.170 --> 00:27:26.570
Jonti Horner: Yeah.

735
00:27:26.810 --> 00:27:29.650
Andrew Dunkley: Okay, keep uh, an eye out for that and watch

736
00:27:29.650 --> 00:27:32.250
out for Twinkl, uh, launching soon.

737
00:27:32.490 --> 00:27:35.250
This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and

738
00:27:35.250 --> 00:27:36.810
Professor Jonti Horner.

739
00:27:40.230 --> 00:27:42.870
Jonti Horner: Three, two, one. Space

740
00:27:43.030 --> 00:27:43.670
Nuts.

741
00:27:43.990 --> 00:27:46.830
Andrew Dunkley: Okay, moving out into the realm of

742
00:27:46.830 --> 00:27:49.390
exoplanets as we've been discussing. Uh, and

743
00:27:49.390 --> 00:27:52.190
another weird one has been found. Uh, we

744
00:27:52.190 --> 00:27:55.030
found one similar to this, but uh, this one's

745
00:27:55.030 --> 00:27:56.790
a little bit different because it's not where

746
00:27:57.030 --> 00:27:57.870
you might.

747
00:27:57.870 --> 00:28:00.230
Jonti Horner: Expect it to be. Yes,

748
00:28:00.710 --> 00:28:02.470
one of the things that we can do when we're

749
00:28:02.470 --> 00:28:04.510
finding plants under the stars is we can

750
00:28:04.510 --> 00:28:06.110
learn more about them if we can study them

751
00:28:06.110 --> 00:28:08.670
with more than one technique. So going back

752
00:28:08.670 --> 00:28:11.550
to the real basics, the two most successful

753
00:28:11.550 --> 00:28:14.470
ways of finding planets around the stars are

754
00:28:14.470 --> 00:28:16.190
the radial velocity method and the transit

755
00:28:16.190 --> 00:28:18.430
method. And uh, the radial velocity method is

756
00:28:18.430 --> 00:28:20.830
where you see a star wobbling towards or away

757
00:28:20.830 --> 00:28:23.629
from us. Using the Doppler effect, the size

758
00:28:23.629 --> 00:28:26.030
of that wobble tells you the mass of the

759
00:28:26.030 --> 00:28:28.230
planet roughly, although we don't really know

760
00:28:28.230 --> 00:28:29.790
the tilt of the orbit. So it gives us a

761
00:28:29.790 --> 00:28:32.190
minimum mass for that planet. The bigger the

762
00:28:32.190 --> 00:28:34.870
planet is for a given wobble period, a given

763
00:28:34.870 --> 00:28:37.270
orbital period, well rather the more massive

764
00:28:37.270 --> 00:28:39.750
a planet is, the bigger the wobble will be.

765
00:28:40.070 --> 00:28:41.870
So that gives us about the mass of the

766
00:28:41.870 --> 00:28:43.430
planet, but it doesn't tell us anything about

767
00:28:43.430 --> 00:28:46.150
its diameter. So you can't tell whether it's

768
00:28:46.150 --> 00:28:48.630
a Jupiter mass ball of iron or a Jupiter mass

769
00:28:48.630 --> 00:28:50.190
ball of feathers. They'd have the same

770
00:28:50.190 --> 00:28:51.870
gravitational pull, the same effect on the

771
00:28:51.870 --> 00:28:54.230
wobble. Then you have the transit technique,

772
00:28:54.230 --> 00:28:56.310
which is where, ah, you have

773
00:28:57.350 --> 00:28:59.470
a planet going in front of a star from our

774
00:28:59.470 --> 00:29:01.030
point of view and blocking some of the light.

775
00:29:01.990 --> 00:29:04.030
And um, the bigger the planet's diameter, the

776
00:29:04.030 --> 00:29:06.350
more light it will block. So this doesn't

777
00:29:06.350 --> 00:29:08.670
tell you anything about the mass of the

778
00:29:08.670 --> 00:29:11.110
planet. It could be a Jupiter

779
00:29:11.430 --> 00:29:13.590
diameter ball of feathers or a Jupiter

780
00:29:13.590 --> 00:29:15.150
diameter ball of iron. It would block the

781
00:29:15.150 --> 00:29:17.830
same amount of light, but it does tell you

782
00:29:17.990 --> 00:29:20.910
about the size, the diameter. If you

783
00:29:20.910 --> 00:29:22.870
can do both of those methods for the same

784
00:29:22.870 --> 00:29:24.830
object, you can get the mass and um, you can

785
00:29:24.830 --> 00:29:26.870
get the size, which means you can get the

786
00:29:26.870 --> 00:29:29.600
density. And that's allowed us to

787
00:29:29.600 --> 00:29:32.520
identify that planets have a much,

788
00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:35.400
much, much greater diversity

789
00:29:36.120 --> 00:29:38.480
of densities and compositions than you'd ever

790
00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:40.320
have imagined best. Solely on the solar

791
00:29:40.320 --> 00:29:42.960
system, we found planets that are less dense

792
00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:45.680
than cotton candy. We found planets. There's

793
00:29:45.680 --> 00:29:48.440
one peculiar one that is so much denser than

794
00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:51.160
osmium that people think it is actually not a

795
00:29:51.160 --> 00:29:52.880
planet at all, but it's actually a planet

796
00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:55.350
sized fragment of a white dwarf that was

797
00:29:55.350 --> 00:29:57.190
smashed into pieces. I mean, how weird is

798
00:29:57.190 --> 00:29:57.430
that?

799
00:29:57.430 --> 00:29:58.150
Andrew Dunkley: That is weird.

800
00:29:58.150 --> 00:30:00.550
Jonti Horner: So something the size of the Earth, uh, but

801
00:30:00.550 --> 00:30:03.510
150 times the density of water, which

802
00:30:03.510 --> 00:30:04.430
breaks physics.

803
00:30:04.510 --> 00:30:04.950
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.

804
00:30:04.950 --> 00:30:06.270
Jonti Horner: You know, we find all these things and the

805
00:30:06.270 --> 00:30:08.070
only way we can tell that is because we can

806
00:30:08.070 --> 00:30:10.470
measure the mass of the size, the planet that

807
00:30:10.470 --> 00:30:13.390
we're talking about here, which is TOI

808
00:30:13.470 --> 00:30:16.070
4507B. And what that

809
00:30:16.070 --> 00:30:17.990
barcode means is it's test object of

810
00:30:17.990 --> 00:30:20.680
interest. It's the catalog. It's TESS

811
00:30:20.680 --> 00:30:22.600
thinks there is a planet around this star.

812
00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:25.560
This is the 4507th

813
00:30:25.560 --> 00:30:28.280
object listed in the catalog of Tess thinks

814
00:30:28.280 --> 00:30:30.920
this could be a planet. And the B means this

815
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:32.680
is the first planet found around that star.

816
00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:35.640
That's what the bar curve means. And the team

817
00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:37.760
that has announced the discovery of this

818
00:30:37.760 --> 00:30:40.760
planet have done some work using a

819
00:30:40.760 --> 00:30:42.760
variety of instruments. They've used NASA's

820
00:30:42.760 --> 00:30:44.360
test mission, they've used some telescopes

821
00:30:44.360 --> 00:30:46.970
based in Antarctica. And it's allowed them to

822
00:30:46.970 --> 00:30:49.370
do radial velocity observations to measure

823
00:30:49.370 --> 00:30:51.490
the size. And it's allowed them to do transit

824
00:30:51.490 --> 00:30:54.130
observations to confirm the diameter. So

825
00:30:54.130 --> 00:30:56.890
we've got the mass and the diameter. And that

826
00:30:56.890 --> 00:30:59.090
has shown that this is a planet that is

827
00:30:59.890 --> 00:31:02.490
about the size of Saturn, about the diameter

828
00:31:02.490 --> 00:31:05.250
of Saturn, but a third of Saturn's mass. It's

829
00:31:05.250 --> 00:31:08.130
only 30 earth masses, but it's nine

830
00:31:08.130 --> 00:31:10.410
times the earth's diameter. And, uh, that

831
00:31:10.410 --> 00:31:12.210
means the density of this thing is really

832
00:31:12.210 --> 00:31:15.170
low. The density is less than 0.3

833
00:31:15.170 --> 00:31:17.490
grams per cubic centimeter. It's less than

834
00:31:17.570 --> 00:31:20.490
30% the density of water, which

835
00:31:20.490 --> 00:31:23.330
is really fluffy. That's really, really low

836
00:31:23.330 --> 00:31:25.490
density. And, um, that means that in the

837
00:31:25.490 --> 00:31:27.410
standard parlance that people have accepted

838
00:31:27.410 --> 00:31:30.009
these days, this is classified as a super

839
00:31:30.009 --> 00:31:32.970
puff planet because it's all puffed up and

840
00:31:32.970 --> 00:31:35.170
light and fluffy and very distended.

841
00:31:36.450 --> 00:31:38.930
Now we think we understand how superpuffed

842
00:31:38.930 --> 00:31:41.240
planets form. In the main, they're planets

843
00:31:41.240 --> 00:31:43.880
that are usually very close to very young,

844
00:31:43.880 --> 00:31:46.840
hot stars, often moving on orbits that are

845
00:31:46.840 --> 00:31:49.360
not perfectly circular. And so what's

846
00:31:49.360 --> 00:31:51.120
happening is that these planets formed

847
00:31:51.120 --> 00:31:53.400
further from their stars. They were flung

848
00:31:53.400 --> 00:31:55.880
inwards, probably through interactions with

849
00:31:55.880 --> 00:31:57.920
other planets, initially on quite an

850
00:31:57.920 --> 00:31:59.760
eccentric orbit. And they're undergoing what

851
00:31:59.760 --> 00:32:02.360
we call tidal circularization.

852
00:32:03.320 --> 00:32:06.040
So their orbit was extremely elongated, but

853
00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:08.360
they feel very strong tides when they're near

854
00:32:08.360 --> 00:32:10.160
their closest point to the star and much

855
00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:12.160
weaker tides when they're further away. And

856
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:13.920
those tidal effects are acting to make the

857
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:16.360
orbit more and more circular by essentially

858
00:32:16.360 --> 00:32:18.240
pulling down that point where the planet is

859
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:19.920
furthest from the star and dragging that

860
00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:22.800
inwards. Now, that circularises the

861
00:32:22.800 --> 00:32:24.880
orbit, but it also dumps an enormous amount

862
00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:26.920
of heat into the interior of the planet,

863
00:32:27.240 --> 00:32:29.720
which makes it puff up. The gas gets hotter,

864
00:32:29.720 --> 00:32:32.320
so the planet becomes very distended. And in

865
00:32:32.320 --> 00:32:34.880
many cases, this makes a planet so large that

866
00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:36.480
the outer atmosphere is getting stripped

867
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:38.420
away. And I know a colleague and man at

868
00:32:38.420 --> 00:32:40.580
UNESCU have done studies of some planets like

869
00:32:40.580 --> 00:32:42.980
this using James Webb, and shown that those

870
00:32:42.980 --> 00:32:45.780
planets have tails like comets do, because

871
00:32:45.780 --> 00:32:47.660
the outer atmosphere is blown away by the

872
00:32:47.660 --> 00:32:49.740
stellar wind. And uh, they've got an enormous

873
00:32:49.740 --> 00:32:51.500
spectacular tail. So in many ways you can

874
00:32:51.500 --> 00:32:53.260
think of these as the biggest comets in the

875
00:32:53.260 --> 00:32:55.860
universe. Most of these

876
00:32:55.860 --> 00:32:58.300
planets though we know, are really close into

877
00:32:58.300 --> 00:33:01.020
their stars. And uh, the strength of tidal

878
00:33:01.020 --> 00:33:03.900
heating is a really strong function

879
00:33:03.900 --> 00:33:06.710
of distance. It's not just this one over

880
00:33:06.710 --> 00:33:08.030
distance squared, it's something like one

881
00:33:08.030 --> 00:33:09.870
over distance cubed or one over distance to

882
00:33:09.870 --> 00:33:12.550
the power four. So that means if you move a

883
00:33:12.550 --> 00:33:14.430
little bit further away, the influence of

884
00:33:14.430 --> 00:33:16.550
tidal heating falls off very, very, very

885
00:33:16.550 --> 00:33:19.310
rapidly. So we normally expect to only find

886
00:33:19.310 --> 00:33:21.230
these superpuff planets really close in

887
00:33:21.230 --> 00:33:24.070
stars. This one is one of the most

888
00:33:24.070 --> 00:33:26.510
distant superpuffs ever found from its host

889
00:33:26.510 --> 00:33:28.950
star. It's orbiting an F type star. So that's

890
00:33:28.950 --> 00:33:30.710
a star a bit hotter, a bit brighter, a bit

891
00:33:30.710 --> 00:33:32.990
more massive than the sun. But it goes around

892
00:33:32.990 --> 00:33:35.750
that star every 107 days, which

893
00:33:35.750 --> 00:33:38.390
means that it is further from that star than

894
00:33:38.390 --> 00:33:41.150
Mercury is from the sun. And that should be

895
00:33:41.150 --> 00:33:43.990
too far away really to have significant tidal

896
00:33:43.990 --> 00:33:45.950
heating going on to make this planet bigger.

897
00:33:46.430 --> 00:33:48.150
So that's problem number one. That's a little

898
00:33:48.150 --> 00:33:50.470
bit weird. The other thing that's very weird

899
00:33:50.470 --> 00:33:52.670
of this is that during the process of doing

900
00:33:52.670 --> 00:33:55.230
the transit observations of this

901
00:33:55.390 --> 00:33:58.070
planet, they also did some Rossiter McLachlan

902
00:33:58.070 --> 00:34:00.430
observations. Now this is a really quirky but

903
00:34:00.430 --> 00:34:03.280
very beautiful thing that you can do

904
00:34:03.280 --> 00:34:05.240
with binary stars and with exoplanets.

905
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:05.720
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.

906
00:34:06.040 --> 00:34:08.000
Jonti Horner: Now with radial velocity, we're measuring the

907
00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:10.520
star wobbling towards and away from us. But

908
00:34:10.520 --> 00:34:13.400
that star itself is rotating and young stars

909
00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:16.120
rotate quicker. So if you imagine that star,

910
00:34:16.200 --> 00:34:18.320
one side of that star is coming towards us,

911
00:34:18.320 --> 00:34:20.440
and so the light from that side of the star

912
00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:22.720
will be blue shifted. The other side of the

913
00:34:22.720 --> 00:34:24.480
star is rotating away from us and that side

914
00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:26.800
will be red shifted. And um, what that means

915
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:28.920
in actuality is that each spectral line from

916
00:34:28.920 --> 00:34:31.440
that star is not a perfectly thin line, but

917
00:34:31.440 --> 00:34:33.200
it's actually quite broad. Some of the light

918
00:34:33.200 --> 00:34:35.120
is bluer, some of it's redder. So you get

919
00:34:35.120 --> 00:34:37.000
this chunky, broad spectral line. And I

920
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:38.520
appreciate for people listening, you can't

921
00:34:38.520 --> 00:34:40.880
see me cupping my hands, but I'm waving

922
00:34:40.880 --> 00:34:42.760
around helpfully in front of the camera here,

923
00:34:42.920 --> 00:34:45.520
even though you can't see me. So the

924
00:34:45.520 --> 00:34:47.840
stars rotating and the stars rotation speed

925
00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:50.600
is really much, much greater

926
00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:53.440
than the scale of the wobble you get from a

927
00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:56.440
planet going around that star, if that

928
00:34:56.440 --> 00:34:58.080
makes sense, the planet going around the star

929
00:34:58.080 --> 00:35:00.120
makes a wobble measured in meters per second.

930
00:35:00.680 --> 00:35:02.480
The rotational velocity of the stars measured

931
00:35:02.480 --> 00:35:05.120
in kilometers per second. When you've got the

932
00:35:05.120 --> 00:35:07.840
planet going around that star, if it is

933
00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:10.760
blocking part of the light from that

934
00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:13.720
star, it will be blocking light from one of

935
00:35:13.720 --> 00:35:15.360
the two sides of the star that is either

936
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:18.160
coming towards you or away from you. So it's

937
00:35:18.160 --> 00:35:20.160
blocking light that is either blue shifted or

938
00:35:20.160 --> 00:35:23.080
redshifted. So if you measure the position of

939
00:35:23.080 --> 00:35:25.200
the spectral lines from that star while the

940
00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:28.000
planet's in transit, if it's blocking some of

941
00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:29.560
the blue shifted light, then it will look

942
00:35:29.560 --> 00:35:32.160
like the light from the star gets redshifted

943
00:35:32.160 --> 00:35:34.720
by several kilometers a second because you're

944
00:35:34.720 --> 00:35:36.160
only seeing the red shifted light or you're

945
00:35:36.160 --> 00:35:38.120
seeing more of the red shifted light. And as

946
00:35:38.120 --> 00:35:39.760
the planet moves across, it will then block

947
00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:41.800
the other side of the star and the star's

948
00:35:41.800 --> 00:35:42.960
light will appear to suddenly become

949
00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:45.920
redshifted. What this allows you to

950
00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:47.320
do, it's really intricate and there's some

951
00:35:47.320 --> 00:35:49.440
lovely video explainers on the web. If it's

952
00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:50.800
making your head hurt trying to understand

953
00:35:50.800 --> 00:35:52.760
me, talk through it, there's some really good

954
00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:55.270
visual explainers out there. But what this

955
00:35:55.270 --> 00:35:57.230
allows you to do is if you measure the radial

956
00:35:57.230 --> 00:35:59.550
velocity of a star during the transit of a

957
00:35:59.550 --> 00:36:02.430
planet, it allows you to work out the tilt

958
00:36:02.430 --> 00:36:05.230
of that planet's orbit relative to the

959
00:36:05.230 --> 00:36:07.950
plane of the star's equator. So if the star

960
00:36:07.950 --> 00:36:10.509
is perfectly above the equator, the planet is

961
00:36:10.509 --> 00:36:12.150
perfectly above the equator of the star and

962
00:36:12.150 --> 00:36:14.590
going in the same direction as the star. As

963
00:36:14.590 --> 00:36:16.470
it comes round, it will first block the side

964
00:36:16.470 --> 00:36:18.670
of the star that is blue shifted that is

965
00:36:18.670 --> 00:36:20.470
coming towards us. So the stars light will

966
00:36:20.470 --> 00:36:22.740
get redshifted, then it'll move across and

967
00:36:22.740 --> 00:36:24.580
block the red shifted light, and the star's

968
00:36:24.580 --> 00:36:26.620
light will be blue shifted. Then the transit

969
00:36:26.620 --> 00:36:27.780
will end and you'll be back to where you

970
00:36:27.780 --> 00:36:29.620
started from. So you get this weird kind of

971
00:36:29.620 --> 00:36:30.780
sine wave type shape.

972
00:36:30.940 --> 00:36:33.620
If the planet's going around backward, that

973
00:36:33.620 --> 00:36:35.860
will happen in the opposite order. If the

974
00:36:35.860 --> 00:36:38.460
planet's orbit's really highly tilted, you'll

975
00:36:38.460 --> 00:36:40.140
make the roster McLachlan effect

976
00:36:40.140 --> 00:36:42.780
measurements. And um, you'll only get one or

977
00:36:42.780 --> 00:36:44.940
the other effect, or you might get no effect

978
00:36:44.940 --> 00:36:46.780
at all because it's coming down vertically

979
00:36:47.290 --> 00:36:49.010
and always blocking the same side of the

980
00:36:49.010 --> 00:36:49.290
star.

981
00:36:49.370 --> 00:36:49.930
Andrew Dunkley: Yep.

982
00:36:50.250 --> 00:36:52.130
Jonti Horner: So what this means is that you can use this

983
00:36:52.130 --> 00:36:54.730
technique to measure the tilt of a

984
00:36:54.730 --> 00:36:57.290
planet's orbit around its star. And again

985
00:36:57.290 --> 00:36:59.170
We've used that fairly effectively from Mount

986
00:36:59.170 --> 00:37:01.210
Kent with our wonderful facility we've got

987
00:37:01.210 --> 00:37:03.570
here. It's become a really common tool in the

988
00:37:03.570 --> 00:37:06.170
arsenal of planetary scientists. And it's

989
00:37:06.170 --> 00:37:07.620
revealed a lot of quirky things. So, uh,

990
00:37:07.650 --> 00:37:09.690
planets around stars like the sun or planets

991
00:37:09.690 --> 00:37:11.450
around stars that are cooler than the sun

992
00:37:11.930 --> 00:37:14.210
typically tend to be aligned above the

993
00:37:14.210 --> 00:37:16.350
equators of the stars going around progrades.

994
00:37:16.820 --> 00:37:19.100
But when you get to these really hot stars

995
00:37:19.100 --> 00:37:21.220
that are more massive than the sun, there's a

996
00:37:21.220 --> 00:37:22.980
growing population of planets we found with

997
00:37:22.980 --> 00:37:25.180
very heavily misaligned, very heavily tilted

998
00:37:25.180 --> 00:37:28.100
orbits. And that's really odd, but they tend

999
00:37:28.100 --> 00:37:29.940
to be the hot Jupiters. Most of those really

1000
00:37:29.940 --> 00:37:32.020
tilted orbits are planets really close in.

1001
00:37:32.980 --> 00:37:35.420
Excuse me, with my phone making a noise

1002
00:37:35.420 --> 00:37:36.900
there. I should really have put that on

1003
00:37:36.900 --> 00:37:38.620
silent. And I normally would do.

1004
00:37:38.620 --> 00:37:40.460
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it reminds me, I haven't put mine on

1005
00:37:40.460 --> 00:37:41.420
silent either. There we go.

1006
00:37:41.420 --> 00:37:43.340
Jonti Horner: Yes. Naughty, naughty, naughty. I will call

1007
00:37:43.340 --> 00:37:44.820
that person back a little bit later on. I

1008
00:37:44.820 --> 00:37:46.460
suspect they want to talk about the Orionids

1009
00:37:46.460 --> 00:37:48.140
because that seems to be what's happening all

1010
00:37:48.140 --> 00:37:50.140
the time at the minute. But anyway, what I

1011
00:37:50.140 --> 00:37:52.340
was saying is essentially the more massive

1012
00:37:52.340 --> 00:37:54.780
stars seem to have a subset of them have

1013
00:37:54.780 --> 00:37:57.780
these really heavily misaligned hot Jupiters

1014
00:37:57.780 --> 00:38:00.380
that are all really close in. But we normally

1015
00:38:00.380 --> 00:38:02.100
only find them when planets are really,

1016
00:38:02.100 --> 00:38:04.620
really close in. This weird

1017
00:38:04.620 --> 00:38:06.820
superpuff planet that is a superpuff, despite

1018
00:38:06.820 --> 00:38:09.620
the fact it's too far from its star to be a

1019
00:38:09.620 --> 00:38:11.260
normal superpuff. It's one of the furthest

1020
00:38:11.260 --> 00:38:13.860
we've ever found, is also one of the most

1021
00:38:13.860 --> 00:38:15.860
distant planets from a star that we've ever

1022
00:38:15.860 --> 00:38:18.660
found on such a misaligned orbit. Its orbit

1023
00:38:18.660 --> 00:38:21.620
is tilted by 82 degrees to the plane of its

1024
00:38:21.620 --> 00:38:22.460
star's equator.

1025
00:38:22.620 --> 00:38:23.100
Andrew Dunkley: Wow.

1026
00:38:23.260 --> 00:38:25.500
Jonti Horner: It's almost up at right angles. So I know

1027
00:38:25.500 --> 00:38:27.180
that was a lot of long explanation. But

1028
00:38:27.180 --> 00:38:29.420
you've got a planet with two things that are

1029
00:38:29.820 --> 00:38:32.700
very, very unusual about it at the same time.

1030
00:38:33.100 --> 00:38:35.060
Which leads to the obvious thought that maybe

1031
00:38:35.060 --> 00:38:37.460
these two things are linked. And maybe what

1032
00:38:37.460 --> 00:38:40.380
we're seeing with these two things is kind of

1033
00:38:40.380 --> 00:38:42.260
cause and effect or something that's telling

1034
00:38:42.260 --> 00:38:44.980
us about the history of this planet, about

1035
00:38:44.980 --> 00:38:47.620
how it's got onto that extremely tilted

1036
00:38:47.620 --> 00:38:49.780
orbit. Maybe it's telling us that the

1037
00:38:49.780 --> 00:38:51.660
encounters and the stirring that have flung

1038
00:38:51.660 --> 00:38:53.980
it onto that orbit are relatively recent

1039
00:38:54.700 --> 00:38:57.380
and they've caused a lot of tidal heating. So

1040
00:38:57.380 --> 00:38:59.300
the super puff nature of the planet is an

1041
00:38:59.300 --> 00:39:02.180
artifact of its recent transition

1042
00:39:02.180 --> 00:39:05.140
to a totally new highly tilted orbit, maybe

1043
00:39:05.140 --> 00:39:06.900
through very close encounters with another

1044
00:39:06.900 --> 00:39:08.620
planet that's been ejected from the system.

1045
00:39:09.180 --> 00:39:11.920
We just don't know yet. This is a weird

1046
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:14.680
thing in a lot of ways. This thing doesn't

1047
00:39:14.680 --> 00:39:17.320
fit the models of how we'd expect most super

1048
00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:19.240
puff planets to look. I would expect most how

1049
00:39:19.240 --> 00:39:21.520
the tilted planets to look. And that makes it

1050
00:39:21.520 --> 00:39:24.360
hugely exciting for scientists because it's

1051
00:39:24.360 --> 00:39:26.359
allowing us to get a window into rare things

1052
00:39:26.359 --> 00:39:27.760
that might not normally happen.

1053
00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:30.760
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. So, um, just a quick question to finish

1054
00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:33.760
this one off. If that planet is

1055
00:39:33.840 --> 00:39:36.320
basically rotating on the vertical,

1056
00:39:36.970 --> 00:39:39.780
um, around the sun, would

1057
00:39:39.780 --> 00:39:42.700
all other planets orbiting that

1058
00:39:42.700 --> 00:39:44.700
sun do the same thing? Or could they be on an

1059
00:39:44.780 --> 00:39:47.420
equatorial orbit, if there are any?

1060
00:39:47.980 --> 00:39:49.380
Jonti Horner: That's the kind of question we want to

1061
00:39:49.380 --> 00:39:51.980
answer. I mean, um, getting

1062
00:39:52.299 --> 00:39:54.380
to a highly tilted orbit can happen a number

1063
00:39:54.380 --> 00:39:55.780
of different ways. So there's a few different

1064
00:39:55.780 --> 00:39:57.740
models for how this could happen, and they're

1065
00:39:57.740 --> 00:40:00.580
not mutually exclusive. One way that you

1066
00:40:00.580 --> 00:40:03.150
can pump up the tilt of a planet's orbit

1067
00:40:03.700 --> 00:40:05.860
is through close encounters between planets,

1068
00:40:05.860 --> 00:40:08.820
stirring each other up. However, that's not

1069
00:40:08.820 --> 00:40:11.780
that effective. And I know that coming from a

1070
00:40:11.780 --> 00:40:13.860
solar system astronomy point of view, comets

1071
00:40:13.940 --> 00:40:16.420
coming in that are scattered by planets very

1072
00:40:16.420 --> 00:40:18.540
rarely get their orbital inclinations changed

1073
00:40:18.540 --> 00:40:20.180
dramatically in a single encounter. That's

1074
00:40:20.180 --> 00:40:22.500
really hard to make happen. You can set it up

1075
00:40:22.500 --> 00:40:24.060
so that it does, but that's going to be quite

1076
00:40:24.060 --> 00:40:26.820
rare. There is another effect

1077
00:40:26.820 --> 00:40:28.660
that you can get which can work with that,

1078
00:40:28.660 --> 00:40:31.490
called the, um, quasi effect,

1079
00:40:32.050 --> 00:40:34.130
where once you've got two objects that are

1080
00:40:34.130 --> 00:40:37.090
massive, inclined by about 30 degrees to

1081
00:40:37.090 --> 00:40:39.490
each other, you can get this periodic

1082
00:40:39.490 --> 00:40:42.010
exchange of energy, of

1083
00:40:42.010 --> 00:40:44.210
momentum, between the eccentricity and the

1084
00:40:44.210 --> 00:40:45.850
inclination of an orbit, and you can cause it

1085
00:40:45.850 --> 00:40:48.050
to oscillate from having a low

1086
00:40:48.050 --> 00:40:51.010
eccentricity and highly tilted

1087
00:40:51.010 --> 00:40:53.810
orbit to a high eccentricity, low tilt orbit

1088
00:40:53.970 --> 00:40:56.780
relative to a given plan. And what that can

1089
00:40:56.780 --> 00:40:59.020
do is it can cause the object to go from a

1090
00:40:59.020 --> 00:41:01.500
nearly circular orbit at a relatively low

1091
00:41:01.500 --> 00:41:03.700
tilt, to a higher tilt and more eccentric

1092
00:41:03.700 --> 00:41:06.100
orbit, and back and forth, oscillating back

1093
00:41:06.100 --> 00:41:08.500
and forth, then you can decouple the planet.

1094
00:41:08.500 --> 00:41:09.940
Because when you're on the highly eccentric

1095
00:41:09.940 --> 00:41:12.340
orbit, you get close enough to the star to

1096
00:41:12.340 --> 00:41:14.500
get that tidal circularization process we

1097
00:41:14.500 --> 00:41:17.100
were talking about, drop it out of that

1098
00:41:17.100 --> 00:41:19.380
resonance, trap it at that high inclination

1099
00:41:19.380 --> 00:41:20.900
orbit, and then it becomes a more circular

1100
00:41:20.900 --> 00:41:23.030
orbit. And what that would do would leave you

1101
00:41:23.030 --> 00:41:25.830
with two very misaligned objects that are

1102
00:41:25.830 --> 00:41:28.790
very, very widely separated. The third

1103
00:41:28.790 --> 00:41:31.230
option, and this is one that my old boss at

1104
00:41:31.230 --> 00:41:33.430
the University of New South Wales many years

1105
00:41:33.430 --> 00:41:36.430
ago, which he favoured, was the idea

1106
00:41:36.430 --> 00:41:38.550
that, uh, the angular momentum vector of

1107
00:41:38.550 --> 00:41:40.350
material Coming in with a star forms.

1108
00:41:40.350 --> 00:41:42.110
Everybody just assumes that the disk around

1109
00:41:42.110 --> 00:41:44.670
the star and the material coming in late will

1110
00:41:44.670 --> 00:41:46.670
be coming in with the same spin axis as the

1111
00:41:46.670 --> 00:41:48.190
material that formed the star in the first

1112
00:41:48.190 --> 00:41:50.660
place. And given that you're in a very

1113
00:41:50.660 --> 00:41:52.940
dynamic and very evolving environment of a

1114
00:41:52.940 --> 00:41:55.540
young stellar cluster, that's not necessarily

1115
00:41:55.540 --> 00:41:57.940
the case. And so you can imagine a situation

1116
00:41:57.940 --> 00:42:00.140
where a star forms with a disk that is very

1117
00:42:00.140 --> 00:42:01.900
misaligned to the star, and then the planets

1118
00:42:01.900 --> 00:42:04.380
form in that disk. And then all the planets

1119
00:42:04.380 --> 00:42:06.100
will be in the same orbital plane, but they'd

1120
00:42:06.100 --> 00:42:08.020
be very misaligned with the rotation of the

1121
00:42:08.020 --> 00:42:10.900
star. So these are all different models, and

1122
00:42:10.900 --> 00:42:12.460
doubtless all of them have happened

1123
00:42:12.460 --> 00:42:14.660
somewhere. And what we want to learn is how

1124
00:42:14.660 --> 00:42:17.590
common they are, how they work so

1125
00:42:17.590 --> 00:42:19.590
that we can get a better handle on planet

1126
00:42:19.590 --> 00:42:20.990
formation. Because what all these kind of

1127
00:42:20.990 --> 00:42:23.590
discoveries remind us is that a planets

1128
00:42:23.590 --> 00:42:25.190
themselves are more diverse than we could

1129
00:42:25.190 --> 00:42:27.230
ever possibly have imagined. But also their

1130
00:42:27.230 --> 00:42:29.870
orbits and their architectures and the setups

1131
00:42:29.870 --> 00:42:32.670
of planetary systems are also incredibly

1132
00:42:32.670 --> 00:42:34.790
diverse. And we're, in all honesty, just

1133
00:42:34.790 --> 00:42:36.390
scratching the surface. But finding the

1134
00:42:36.390 --> 00:42:38.830
oddities allows us to better understand the

1135
00:42:38.830 --> 00:42:41.070
process by which planets formed and therefore

1136
00:42:41.550 --> 00:42:43.510
better understand our own place in the cosmos

1137
00:42:43.510 --> 00:42:45.390
and how our planetary system came to be.

1138
00:42:46.770 --> 00:42:48.570
Andrew Dunkley: Interesting. Yeah. The more we look, the

1139
00:42:48.570 --> 00:42:50.290
stranger the things are, uh, that we're

1140
00:42:50.290 --> 00:42:52.810
finding and some defy explanation. And this,

1141
00:42:52.810 --> 00:42:55.210
this is certainly one of those. So if you'd

1142
00:42:55.210 --> 00:42:57.650
like to read all about it, you can do so

1143
00:42:57.650 --> 00:42:59.810
through the archive website.

1144
00:43:02.370 --> 00:43:02.810
Jonti Horner: Okay.

1145
00:43:02.810 --> 00:43:05.690
Andrew Dunkley: We checked all four systems, space

1146
00:43:05.690 --> 00:43:08.450
nets, uh, one final story, and this

1147
00:43:08.450 --> 00:43:11.170
takes us close to home. And Earth's magnetic

1148
00:43:11.170 --> 00:43:13.130
fields, um, are acting.

1149
00:43:13.290 --> 00:43:14.330
Jonti Horner: A little bit weird.

1150
00:43:14.560 --> 00:43:17.050
Andrew Dunkley: Uh, and we've got this giant weak spot,

1151
00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:20.410
uh, in, um, this is in the

1152
00:43:20.410 --> 00:43:21.770
Atlantic, I believe, is it?

1153
00:43:21.930 --> 00:43:24.770
Jonti Horner: Yes, South Atlantic. Now this is one where I

1154
00:43:24.770 --> 00:43:26.450
will stress that I'm not an expert in

1155
00:43:26.450 --> 00:43:28.530
magnetic fields, I'm not a geophysicist, but

1156
00:43:28.530 --> 00:43:30.370
this is still so cool we have to talk about

1157
00:43:30.370 --> 00:43:32.530
it. And for those listening in who understand

1158
00:43:32.530 --> 00:43:34.690
this better than I am, please be gracious

1159
00:43:34.690 --> 00:43:36.250
when you tell me what I got wrong when you

1160
00:43:36.250 --> 00:43:37.690
comment. But anyway,

1161
00:43:39.580 --> 00:43:41.930
um, this work is the result of a group of

1162
00:43:41.930 --> 00:43:44.930
satellites run by the European Space Agency

1163
00:43:44.930 --> 00:43:47.010
called Swarm. And they are satellites that

1164
00:43:47.010 --> 00:43:49.200
are monitoring Earth's magnetic field. And,

1165
00:43:49.200 --> 00:43:51.290
um, when you learn about the Earth's magnetic

1166
00:43:51.290 --> 00:43:53.930
field at high school, you basically get this

1167
00:43:53.930 --> 00:43:56.050
idea that the Earth is this giant bar magnet

1168
00:43:56.050 --> 00:43:57.930
and has this bar magnetic type magnetic field

1169
00:43:57.930 --> 00:44:00.050
around us. And that's about it. But in

1170
00:44:00.050 --> 00:44:02.010
actuality, the Earth's Magnetic field is

1171
00:44:02.010 --> 00:44:04.530
incredibly complicated. And there are areas

1172
00:44:04.530 --> 00:44:06.090
on our planet where it's stronger than

1173
00:44:06.090 --> 00:44:07.650
average and areas where it's weaker than

1174
00:44:07.650 --> 00:44:10.620
average. It has two dominant

1175
00:44:10.620 --> 00:44:12.300
poles. It's got the north magnetic Pole and

1176
00:44:12.300 --> 00:44:14.500
the south magnetic Pole. But they're not

1177
00:44:14.500 --> 00:44:16.740
necessarily aligned in such a way that a line

1178
00:44:16.740 --> 00:44:18.860
between them would run perfectly through the

1179
00:44:18.860 --> 00:44:21.300
center of the Earth. They are both moving as

1180
00:44:21.300 --> 00:44:23.660
time goes on. And that's all because the

1181
00:44:23.660 --> 00:44:25.620
process that generates the Earth's magnetic

1182
00:44:25.620 --> 00:44:28.500
field is really complicated and is down to

1183
00:44:28.500 --> 00:44:31.060
moving fluids, moving molten iron

1184
00:44:31.460 --> 00:44:33.740
in the Earth's outer core, essentially. So

1185
00:44:33.740 --> 00:44:35.230
you've got this molten

1186
00:44:36.110 --> 00:44:38.110
ferromagnetic kind of material sloshing

1187
00:44:38.110 --> 00:44:40.270
around, driving a dynamo that creates this

1188
00:44:40.270 --> 00:44:42.230
time varying magnetic field that does all

1189
00:44:42.230 --> 00:44:45.070
sorts of weird stuff. For a very long

1190
00:44:45.070 --> 00:44:46.870
time, it's been known that there is this

1191
00:44:46.870 --> 00:44:48.790
anomaly in the South Atlantic where the

1192
00:44:48.790 --> 00:44:50.990
magnetic field is somewhat weaker than

1193
00:44:51.470 --> 00:44:53.550
anywhere else on the planet. And, um, this

1194
00:44:53.550 --> 00:44:55.610
has been, I've even heard it described as,

1195
00:44:55.610 --> 00:44:57.830
uh, being kind of the Bermuda Triangle of

1196
00:44:57.830 --> 00:44:59.510
space. It's a place where satellites

1197
00:44:59.510 --> 00:45:02.230
misbehave. Yeah. And it's something that

1198
00:45:02.550 --> 00:45:04.630
space agencies, governments, and now

1199
00:45:04.630 --> 00:45:06.470
commercial entities are very aware of,

1200
00:45:06.950 --> 00:45:08.670
because where you've got a weaker magnetic

1201
00:45:08.670 --> 00:45:10.310
field, you've got less protection from the

1202
00:45:10.310 --> 00:45:12.990
vagaries of cosmic rays, solar radiation,

1203
00:45:12.990 --> 00:45:15.390
solar storms, things like that. So it's a

1204
00:45:15.390 --> 00:45:16.830
place where your satellites are going to be

1205
00:45:16.830 --> 00:45:19.150
more vulnerable than normal and more likely

1206
00:45:19.150 --> 00:45:21.870
to throw up errors and have problems. And

1207
00:45:21.870 --> 00:45:23.470
it's really interesting to study how these

1208
00:45:23.470 --> 00:45:25.590
things change with time. Because if you think

1209
00:45:25.590 --> 00:45:27.350
about the roiling and the boiling of that,

1210
00:45:27.350 --> 00:45:29.340
uh, molten material in the Earth in a core,

1211
00:45:29.730 --> 00:45:31.850
that's going to vary with time. And that's

1212
00:45:31.850 --> 00:45:34.270
what these satellites have been mapping. And,

1213
00:45:34.270 --> 00:45:35.850
um, what they've found is that this South

1214
00:45:35.850 --> 00:45:38.530
Atlantic Anomaly, the Bermuda Triangle of the

1215
00:45:38.530 --> 00:45:40.490
South Atlantic, from a magnetism point of

1216
00:45:40.490 --> 00:45:42.890
view, has been changing quite dramatically.

1217
00:45:42.890 --> 00:45:44.250
They've been mapping it since they were

1218
00:45:44.250 --> 00:45:46.730
launched in 2014. So we've 11 years worth of

1219
00:45:46.730 --> 00:45:49.690
data now. And, um, what they've found is that

1220
00:45:49.690 --> 00:45:51.890
that anomaly in the South Atlantic has got

1221
00:45:51.890 --> 00:45:54.770
bigger. It now has got bigger

1222
00:45:54.770 --> 00:45:56.690
Biennaria equivalent to kind of Central

1223
00:45:56.690 --> 00:45:58.490
Europe, Western Europe. So that's a fairly

1224
00:45:58.490 --> 00:45:59.810
big amount of growth in just

1225
00:46:01.550 --> 00:46:04.110
around. At the same time, the magnetic North

1226
00:46:04.110 --> 00:46:06.270
Pole is merrily trundling its way, moving

1227
00:46:06.270 --> 00:46:08.990
from Canada to Siberia. There

1228
00:46:08.990 --> 00:46:11.630
are a few extra strong patches of the

1229
00:46:11.630 --> 00:46:13.990
magnetic field. One of those in Siberia is

1230
00:46:13.990 --> 00:46:15.950
getting stronger and stronger. The other

1231
00:46:15.950 --> 00:46:17.910
strong patch in Canada is getting weaker. But

1232
00:46:17.910 --> 00:46:19.910
it's still a strong patch. There's One

1233
00:46:19.910 --> 00:46:22.310
possibly over by India. And so we're getting

1234
00:46:22.310 --> 00:46:24.910
this impression of the

1235
00:46:25.310 --> 00:46:27.270
magnetic field of the Earth varying on

1236
00:46:27.270 --> 00:46:29.590
timescales of years and decades at uh, quite

1237
00:46:29.590 --> 00:46:32.150
a rapid way, fluctuating probably more than

1238
00:46:32.150 --> 00:46:33.690
we'd have ever thought of during from ground

1239
00:46:33.690 --> 00:46:36.410
based observations. Now it's interesting

1240
00:46:37.370 --> 00:46:39.850
from just purely a science point of view to

1241
00:46:39.850 --> 00:46:42.050
see everything wibbling and wobbling. It's

1242
00:46:42.050 --> 00:46:44.330
also really important for people launching

1243
00:46:44.330 --> 00:46:46.130
satellite constellations to be aware of this

1244
00:46:46.130 --> 00:46:48.370
and to mitigate for it and to uh, plan their

1245
00:46:48.370 --> 00:46:50.250
orbits around it. Because if you've got one

1246
00:46:50.250 --> 00:46:51.970
point in orbit around the Earth that is more

1247
00:46:51.970 --> 00:46:54.410
vulnerable than the others, fortunately it's

1248
00:46:54.410 --> 00:46:55.890
over the ocean. But maybe you want to have

1249
00:46:55.890 --> 00:46:58.730
fewer satellites going through that area so

1250
00:46:58.730 --> 00:47:00.450
that you maximize the lifetime of your

1251
00:47:00.450 --> 00:47:02.330
satellites in terms of their working lifetime

1252
00:47:02.330 --> 00:47:04.480
and things like that. So it's useful from

1253
00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:04.640
that.

1254
00:47:04.640 --> 00:47:05.840
Now, a couple of the things that have been

1255
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:07.760
mentioned in the discussion of this, uh, in

1256
00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:09.800
order to see, I don't fully understand how

1257
00:47:09.800 --> 00:47:12.760
they're connected. One is that uh, the data

1258
00:47:12.760 --> 00:47:14.920
from these satellites has been said to

1259
00:47:14.920 --> 00:47:16.880
suggest that that motion of the pole from

1260
00:47:16.880 --> 00:47:19.680
Canada to Siberia has been happening since

1261
00:47:19.680 --> 00:47:22.080
the mid 19th century. Now I think that's

1262
00:47:22.080 --> 00:47:23.480
probably something that's getting a bit lost

1263
00:47:23.480 --> 00:47:26.040
in translation because I'm not sure how

1264
00:47:26.040 --> 00:47:28.320
observations going back to 2014 can tell you

1265
00:47:28.320 --> 00:47:29.520
about something that was happening in the

1266
00:47:29.520 --> 00:47:32.240
1800s. Yeah, I suspect what the authors have

1267
00:47:32.240 --> 00:47:34.760
probably said in the original paper is there

1268
00:47:34.760 --> 00:47:37.320
have been suggestions in measurements

1269
00:47:37.640 --> 00:47:39.680
from the ground that the pole has been moving

1270
00:47:39.680 --> 00:47:42.160
for all this time. But what we've got now is

1271
00:47:42.160 --> 00:47:44.280
a very clear model of how it's moved over the

1272
00:47:44.280 --> 00:47:46.120
last 11 years because we've been observing it

1273
00:47:46.200 --> 00:47:48.440
and that somehow got shifted to the results

1274
00:47:48.600 --> 00:47:51.000
suggesting that motion has been happening for

1275
00:47:51.000 --> 00:47:53.800
that length of time. Um, I think that's

1276
00:47:53.800 --> 00:47:55.680
probably a miscommunication thing because I

1277
00:47:55.680 --> 00:47:58.130
don't see any way that an 11 year period of

1278
00:47:58.130 --> 00:48:00.610
observation can accurately tell you what was

1279
00:48:00.610 --> 00:48:02.650
happening 150 years ago. You need other

1280
00:48:02.650 --> 00:48:04.930
observations for that. But you know that

1281
00:48:04.930 --> 00:48:07.330
movement is an ongoing thing. The other thing

1282
00:48:07.330 --> 00:48:09.170
to probably reassure people. I know people

1283
00:48:09.170 --> 00:48:10.970
sometimes worry that this means our magnetic

1284
00:48:10.970 --> 00:48:13.250
field's about to uh, cease and desist and

1285
00:48:13.250 --> 00:48:15.210
turn around and the end times will come and

1286
00:48:15.210 --> 00:48:17.130
it will be apocalypse and all the rest of it.

1287
00:48:17.530 --> 00:48:19.390
This South Atlantic Anomaly, uh,

1288
00:48:20.570 --> 00:48:23.180
is something where geological evidence and

1289
00:48:23.180 --> 00:48:25.500
core drilling and sampling of places where

1290
00:48:25.500 --> 00:48:27.580
the magnetic field gets frozen in. So if you

1291
00:48:27.580 --> 00:48:29.980
look at rocks, you can tell what the magnetic

1292
00:48:29.980 --> 00:48:32.740
field was doing in the past. Yeah. That

1293
00:48:32.740 --> 00:48:35.380
tells us that this anomaly over The South

1294
00:48:35.380 --> 00:48:37.060
Atlantic has been there in one form or

1295
00:48:37.060 --> 00:48:38.819
another for at least the last 11 million

1296
00:48:38.820 --> 00:48:41.780
years. So it's not new and

1297
00:48:42.980 --> 00:48:45.580
scary. Rather we're seeing something that has

1298
00:48:45.580 --> 00:48:47.180
been going on for a long time, but wibbling

1299
00:48:47.180 --> 00:48:48.820
and wobbling and it's sometimes bigger and

1300
00:48:48.820 --> 00:48:49.700
sometimes smaller.

1301
00:48:49.780 --> 00:48:50.500
Andrew Dunkley: It's normal.

1302
00:48:51.730 --> 00:48:53.730
Jonti Horner: This is normal. But it's amazing that we can

1303
00:48:53.730 --> 00:48:56.290
now get information about it on such

1304
00:48:56.290 --> 00:48:58.810
timescales. And much as it's out of my area

1305
00:48:58.810 --> 00:49:00.530
of expertise, I think it's yet another of

1306
00:49:00.530 --> 00:49:02.690
these fabulous examples of how

1307
00:49:03.570 --> 00:49:05.450
what you get taught at school is a very

1308
00:49:05.450 --> 00:49:08.010
simplified version of the way the universe

1309
00:49:08.010 --> 00:49:10.090
actually works. And what we'll learn from

1310
00:49:10.090 --> 00:49:12.050
science is not always that what you were

1311
00:49:12.050 --> 00:49:14.210
taught was wrong, but rather that what you

1312
00:49:14.210 --> 00:49:15.770
were taught was incomplete and we need to

1313
00:49:15.770 --> 00:49:18.240
learn more. So we've gone from, you know, if

1314
00:49:18.240 --> 00:49:19.640
you'd asked me as an 8 year old what the

1315
00:49:19.640 --> 00:49:21.040
Earth's magnetic field's like, I'd have

1316
00:49:21.040 --> 00:49:22.640
probably parroted. It's like you've got a bar

1317
00:49:22.640 --> 00:49:24.960
magnet and the magnetic field has a North

1318
00:49:24.960 --> 00:49:26.640
pole and a South pole and there's an

1319
00:49:26.640 --> 00:49:28.840
inference there that it's unchanging. There's

1320
00:49:28.840 --> 00:49:30.520
an inference that everywhere at the same

1321
00:49:30.520 --> 00:49:32.240
distance from the pole has the same magnetic

1322
00:49:32.240 --> 00:49:34.720
field strength, all these things, when in

1323
00:49:34.720 --> 00:49:37.040
fact it's a much more dynamic situation than

1324
00:49:37.040 --> 00:49:39.720
that. And it's much more like looking at a

1325
00:49:39.800 --> 00:49:42.280
boiling kettle through a glass window on the

1326
00:49:42.280 --> 00:49:43.840
side and seeing the water bubbling and

1327
00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:46.380
roiling around, rather than just looking at

1328
00:49:46.380 --> 00:49:47.660
the steam coming out and saying, oh, look,

1329
00:49:47.660 --> 00:49:48.260
the steam.

1330
00:49:48.740 --> 00:49:50.660
Andrew Dunkley: My answer to that question at school would

1331
00:49:50.660 --> 00:49:52.500
have been the what?

1332
00:49:53.570 --> 00:49:56.420
Um, yeah, but it's also, uh, indicative

1333
00:49:56.420 --> 00:49:59.300
of how very active the interior

1334
00:49:59.300 --> 00:50:02.260
of the planet is. And if

1335
00:50:02.580 --> 00:50:05.220
like I, I read the news every day and I

1336
00:50:05.300 --> 00:50:07.740
this particular types of news that I look out

1337
00:50:07.740 --> 00:50:10.380
for and uh, one of them's volcanic

1338
00:50:10.380 --> 00:50:13.090
activity. And there's been a heck of a lot

1339
00:50:13.090 --> 00:50:15.850
of stuff going on lately, uh, all over the

1340
00:50:15.850 --> 00:50:18.210
planet, but, uh, a few places are starting to

1341
00:50:18.210 --> 00:50:20.850
pop up as, uh, active. There's a particular,

1342
00:50:21.690 --> 00:50:24.370
uh, volcano in Iran that they thought was

1343
00:50:24.370 --> 00:50:26.850
extinct that's now starting to show signs of,

1344
00:50:26.950 --> 00:50:28.130
um, waking up.

1345
00:50:28.450 --> 00:50:31.210
Jonti Horner: Yeah. But they don't think has erupted for

1346
00:50:31.210 --> 00:50:34.090
several million years. I mean, lively

1347
00:50:34.090 --> 00:50:34.370
now.

1348
00:50:34.370 --> 00:50:36.530
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, there's all sorts of things happening

1349
00:50:36.530 --> 00:50:39.490
like that. So who knows, the Dubbo volcano

1350
00:50:39.570 --> 00:50:42.420
maybe may make a comeback. Yes, we did

1351
00:50:42.420 --> 00:50:44.260
have one here millions of years ago.

1352
00:50:44.740 --> 00:50:46.780
Jonti Horner: Yeah. Well, I live in an area on the Darling

1353
00:50:46.780 --> 00:50:48.900
Downs that's incredibly fertile and it's

1354
00:50:48.900 --> 00:50:50.740
incredibly fertile because there was a super

1355
00:50:50.740 --> 00:50:53.660
volcano, erupting, here tens of

1356
00:50:53.660 --> 00:50:55.660
millions of years ago that fertilized the

1357
00:50:55.660 --> 00:50:58.540
place. You know, we have got volcanoes in

1358
00:50:58.540 --> 00:51:00.380
Australia that have been active on the

1359
00:51:00.380 --> 00:51:02.860
mainland within the scope of knowledge of our

1360
00:51:02.860 --> 00:51:05.100
wonderful traditional owners here. I think

1361
00:51:05.100 --> 00:51:07.140
some of the ski resorts in Victoria last

1362
00:51:07.140 --> 00:51:09.830
erupted since the last ice age. Yep.

1363
00:51:10.150 --> 00:51:12.630
Andrew Dunkley: The only active volcano in

1364
00:51:12.870 --> 00:51:15.190
Australian territory is an external

1365
00:51:15.350 --> 00:51:17.750
Australian territory southwest of Western

1366
00:51:17.750 --> 00:51:19.110
Australia. I can't think of the name of the

1367
00:51:19.110 --> 00:51:21.270
island, but that's the only active volcano

1368
00:51:22.080 --> 00:51:25.070
uh, in, in Australian territory. But we've

1369
00:51:25.070 --> 00:51:27.270
got several that aren't far away around

1370
00:51:27.270 --> 00:51:30.150
Indonesia and, and,

1371
00:51:30.150 --> 00:51:31.670
and uh, of course New Zealand.

1372
00:51:31.830 --> 00:51:34.770
Jonti Horner: And I mean we've got the ones

1373
00:51:34.770 --> 00:51:36.890
that are classed as dormant that have erupted

1374
00:51:36.890 --> 00:51:38.850
so recently that we know they'll erupt again.

1375
00:51:38.930 --> 00:51:41.690
Yeah, I, we had this beautiful road trip

1376
00:51:41.690 --> 00:51:44.330
about 18 months ago where we left Toowoomba,

1377
00:51:44.330 --> 00:51:46.250
we picked my partner's parents up down in

1378
00:51:46.250 --> 00:51:47.730
northern New South Wales and we went all the

1379
00:51:47.730 --> 00:51:49.210
way over to Adelaide and back around the

1380
00:51:49.210 --> 00:51:50.970
coast. Coming back up, we did an awesome

1381
00:51:50.970 --> 00:51:52.930
three week trip. Yeah. And we stopped at a

1382
00:51:52.930 --> 00:51:55.730
place I think was called Tower Hill, um, just

1383
00:51:55.730 --> 00:51:57.570
on the Victorian side of the border with

1384
00:51:57.570 --> 00:51:59.370
South Australia. It was fabulous spot for

1385
00:51:59.370 --> 00:52:01.170
bird life. Had the most amazing view of wedge

1386
00:52:01.170 --> 00:52:03.860
tailed eagles and stuff. But that is a uh,

1387
00:52:03.890 --> 00:52:06.730
relatively recent maar, I think they're

1388
00:52:06.730 --> 00:52:08.930
described as. And there's a load of these

1389
00:52:08.930 --> 00:52:11.610
around that area which are uh, not quite mud

1390
00:52:11.610 --> 00:52:14.010
volcanoes and stuff, but they're not, oh my

1391
00:52:14.010 --> 00:52:15.850
God. Explosive Hawaiian type volcanic

1392
00:52:15.850 --> 00:52:18.770
activity, but they're volcanic activity in

1393
00:52:18.770 --> 00:52:20.850
recent geological time that will happen

1394
00:52:20.850 --> 00:52:23.210
again. It's all that kind of stuff. Mount

1395
00:52:23.210 --> 00:52:25.010
Buller I think is the ski resort that last

1396
00:52:25.010 --> 00:52:27.850
erupted about 6,000 years ago on

1397
00:52:27.850 --> 00:52:30.700
timescales longer than our lifetimes. The

1398
00:52:30.700 --> 00:52:32.620
Earth's a much more dynamic place than we

1399
00:52:32.620 --> 00:52:35.140
think. And this is part of the wonders

1400
00:52:35.300 --> 00:52:37.860
of working with and talking to people who

1401
00:52:38.340 --> 00:52:40.220
interface with the traditional owners of the

1402
00:52:40.220 --> 00:52:42.380
land and do it in a respectful enough way to

1403
00:52:42.380 --> 00:52:43.660
be able to learn some of the knowledge

1404
00:52:43.660 --> 00:52:45.940
they've passed down because there is oral

1405
00:52:45.940 --> 00:52:48.100
history passing down memories of these events

1406
00:52:48.100 --> 00:52:51.100
happening. People on this continent now have

1407
00:52:51.100 --> 00:52:53.620
a living oral history that recorded

1408
00:52:53.620 --> 00:52:56.400
events tens of thousands of years ago and

1409
00:52:56.400 --> 00:52:58.200
have passed them down in a form that we can

1410
00:52:58.680 --> 00:53:01.480
identify them and learn from them and get a

1411
00:53:01.480 --> 00:53:03.640
feel for these events that are much rarer

1412
00:53:04.120 --> 00:53:06.720
than we'd normally observe. You know, even in

1413
00:53:06.720 --> 00:53:08.680
the kind of nominally modern science period.

1414
00:53:08.680 --> 00:53:09.560
400 years.

1415
00:53:09.640 --> 00:53:10.120
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.

1416
00:53:10.520 --> 00:53:12.440
Jonti Horner: When you talk about something 6,000 years

1417
00:53:12.440 --> 00:53:15.400
ago, we can get information about it now. I

1418
00:53:15.400 --> 00:53:16.200
think that's magical.

1419
00:53:16.280 --> 00:53:18.720
Andrew Dunkley: It is, it is indeed. Uh, if you would like to

1420
00:53:18.720 --> 00:53:21.010
read about the South Atlantic Anomaly, uh,

1421
00:53:21.010 --> 00:53:23.450
and all the stories we've talked about today,

1422
00:53:23.450 --> 00:53:25.530
you can, uh, do it the easy way and go to

1423
00:53:25.530 --> 00:53:28.330
space.com. uh, Jonti,

1424
00:53:28.330 --> 00:53:30.090
we're done for another day. Thank you.

1425
00:53:30.650 --> 00:53:32.210
Jonti Horner: That's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so

1426
00:53:32.210 --> 00:53:34.250
much. And my phone is now on silent, so.

1427
00:53:34.970 --> 00:53:37.650
Andrew Dunkley: And we just finished. Um. Yeah. All right,

1428
00:53:37.650 --> 00:53:39.690
we'll catch you soon on the Q and A episode.

1429
00:53:39.730 --> 00:53:42.130
Uh, Jonti Horner, professor of Astrophysics

1430
00:53:42.130 --> 00:53:43.930
at the University of Southern Queensland, and

1431
00:53:43.930 --> 00:53:45.890
thanks to Huw in the studio, couldn't be with

1432
00:53:45.890 --> 00:53:47.970
us today. He took a ride on a SpaceX rocket

1433
00:53:47.970 --> 00:53:49.650
and everything was going fine until they came

1434
00:53:49.650 --> 00:53:52.190
in to land. Then he saw a button and it said,

1435
00:53:52.190 --> 00:53:54.670
don't push. Well, this is Huw we're talking

1436
00:53:54.670 --> 00:53:56.790
about. So I think you saw that, uh,

1437
00:53:56.790 --> 00:53:58.360
explosive, um,

1438
00:53:59.230 --> 00:54:01.350
catastrophe. Anyway, he'll be back with us

1439
00:54:01.350 --> 00:54:03.910
one day after the injuries are, ah, all done

1440
00:54:03.910 --> 00:54:06.230
and dusted. Uh, and from me, Andrew Dunkley,

1441
00:54:06.230 --> 00:54:07.390
thanks for your company. Don't forget to

1442
00:54:07.390 --> 00:54:09.710
visit us on our website or our social media

1443
00:54:09.790 --> 00:54:12.190
sites. Uh, and you can interact with, uh.

1444
00:54:12.190 --> 00:54:13.390
Jonti Horner: Each other there as well.

1445
00:54:13.790 --> 00:54:16.190
Andrew Dunkley: Until next time. Bye for now.

1446
00:54:17.390 --> 00:54:19.590
Jonti Horner: You'll be listening to the Space Nuts.

1447
00:54:19.590 --> 00:54:20.190
Andrew Dunkley: Podcast.

1448
00:54:21.970 --> 00:54:24.530
Jonti Horner: Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

1449
00:54:24.770 --> 00:54:27.530
iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast

1450
00:54:27.530 --> 00:54:29.250
player. You can also stream on

1451
00:54:29.250 --> 00:54:30.930
demand@bytes.com.

1452
00:54:31.250 --> 00:54:33.330
Andrew Dunkley: This has been another quality podcast

1453
00:54:33.330 --> 00:54:35.410
production from bytes.com.