Stellar Snapshots: The Vera C. Rubin Telescope & Mars' Mysterious Landscapes

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Heidi Campo: Welcome back to Space Nuts. I'm your host for

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this episode, Heidi Campo. And joining us today is

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Professor Fred Watson.

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Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

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10, 9. Ignition

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sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,

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

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3, 2, 1. Space nuts astronauts

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report it feels good.

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Heidi Campo: Fred, how are you doing today?

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Professor Fred Watson: Very well, thank you. It's a bit soggy in Sydney. Uh, I

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understand it's been a bit soggy in Houston as well

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with rainy weather.

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Heidi Campo: It has. We've been getting rain like crazy.

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But I'll tell you what, this time of year here in Space

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City is so beautiful because we have these

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trees. I can't remember what they're called, but they guess they get

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the most beautiful flowers on them. So we have all these

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floral, fragrant trees everywhere. So it's amazing.

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If you guys could come visit Space center,

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come check out Johnson Space center, do the tours and see our

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beautiful. This is a great time of year to visit.

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Professor Fred Watson: I think it was this time of year when we actually

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did that as well now, a little bit earlier.

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Um, so it was last year,

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uh, but it was a little bit earlier. I think it was about April.

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So we probably didn't see the best of the trees. But we certainly saw

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the Space Center. And your museum Houston's

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got the most fabulous science museum. Absolutely

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brilliant.

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Heidi Campo: We do pretty good. I'm sure you, uh, probably met some of our local

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mosquitoes around that time of year as well.

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Professor Fred Watson: Maybe.

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Heidi Campo: Yes, with, uh, it being in a swamp,

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the bayou, we certainly get a lot of mosquitoes. But,

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uh, with our story today, there's no

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mosquitoes out there in space, which is, I think,

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one of the attractive, uh, properties.

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We have some incredible stories today talking about some

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of the new images coming in from a

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revolutionary telescope. We're going to be talking

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a little bit about what's going on on the International

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Space Station. And then the

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last story is the one that I hope you guys stick around for

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because this is something I'm a little bit excited to talk to

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Fred about. It's these mysterious,

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um, ridges on Mars. And I'm so

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excited to hear about this, Fred.

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So let's, let's just kind of jump in with this

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telescope. I, I'm looking at

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these images and it's. I say this

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with almost everything. So you guys probably think I'm just lying at this point.

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But it's so beautiful. I just am. So

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I'm never, um, not in awe of the

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images I see from these telescopes.

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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Um, and I guess, um,

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what revolutionized the images that we

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see from modern day telescopes was the

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fact that we've got color in them, which certainly when I was a

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young astronomer back in the 1850s or whenever it

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was, um, there wasn't, everything was black and white, there

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was no color because the color emulsions weren't sensitive

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enough. And then my colleague David Merlin came along at the

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Anglo Australian telescope, figured out how to do three color

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imagery and put it all together to give us true color images.

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And that's now done electronically with um,

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charge coupled devices, uh,

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and the wonderful software

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that people have access to to turn these images

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into these beautiful, beautiful, uh,

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artistically graceful images that

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we see. Uh, and that's my segue I

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guess into the story. Because

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the camera is one of the key components.

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This is a brand new telescope. And the images that you're talk, talking

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about, Heidi, which include nebulae and

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galaxies and all the usual stuff that we're used to seeing, but

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this time in such detail and with

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such, uh, imposing

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colors is perhaps the wrong way to say it. But um,

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you know, you really feel as though you're actually in the action there

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with the, with the um, the nebulae and the

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galaxies. Uh, the, the secret of that is first of

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all the telescope itself is an 8.4

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meter diameter telescope. That's the

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biggest scale of telescopes that we have access to at the moment,

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the 8 meter telescopes. It's on a mountaintop

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called Cerro Pashon in uh, northern Chile.

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I've, uh, not actually visited the mountain, but I've seen

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it uh, from the other side of the valley. Uh,

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there uh, are several telescopes up there. But um,

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what makes it special is two things. The wide angle

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of view that the telescope can see. So

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instead of just homing in on a tiny fine little bit

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of detail, uh, in the sky, it

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does that, but it does it with a very wide angle of view.

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So you see detail everywhere. And that

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is partly because the design of the telescope, but also

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and the segue I was getting to. It's taken me a while. Uh,

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the camera, which is a

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3.2, 3200

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megapixel or 3.2 gigapixel camera,

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I think it's the biggest camera of its kind in

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the world. It's the size of a small car. Uh, and

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it sits at the focus of this telescope, recording

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these breathtaking wide angle images.

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Um, the instrument we're talking about,

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uh, we used to, it's been, this has been in construction for

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best part of 30 years. We've been talking about this telescope

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in the world of astronomy. And at first it was called

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the lsst, which was the Large

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Synoptic Survey Telescope. Uh,

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it's now called, I think I'm right in saying it's the

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Charles Simony Telescope because I think Charles

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Simony, a very well known name in space,

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um, philanthropy, I think I can put it that way. I think he was

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the first paying customer on the International

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Space Station back in the early

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2000s. So a wealthy person,

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but somebody who can put that wealth to good use

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in a scientific sense. But the observatory

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itself, where this telescope is, uh, is

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named after one of my favorite characters

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in the whole of astronomy, Vera C.

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Rubin, uh, whose name might be

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familiar to you. She is, uh, she was a

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compatriot of yours. I can't remember where she grew up

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actually. Should, should have checked that, shouldn't I?

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Vera We. She was one of the, the

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pioneering, uh, uh, astronomers of her

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time. She died in 2016,

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Christmas Day, if I remember rightly. She passed away. She was a

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good age, wonderful, wonderful person.

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Um, very great champion for women in science,

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uh, and uh, somebody who

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put her stamp not just on the science itself, but

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on the capabilities for astronomers.

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She basically was the person who put dark

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matter not so much on the map, uh,

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but raised awareness that this was a real

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issue, uh, that there was something out there that

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weighed, um, much more than the normal matter

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that we can see. Uh, that was,

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um, basically, uh, something we

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needed to explain. Dark matter. She wrote a

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series of really influential papers in the late

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1970s. That's amazing. Yeah,

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so she was an extraordinary woman. So it's fabulous that this telescope

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carries, or the observatory carries her name. So the Vera

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C. Rubin Observatory.

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Heidi Campo: So Fred, I've kind of got a little bit of a

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detour question for you. So get your thinking cap

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on. You know, when we talk about these,

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these telescopes, you said a couple things that stood out to me.

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You know, one about, ah, this woman who

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sounded like just an incredible human being

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who really left her mark on the world. But the one thing that really stuck

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out to me is you said this telescope took 30 years to build.

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And so I know a lot of our listeners are

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people who are still maybe in school or

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considering a field in these sciences or

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they're early career professionals. Can you

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talk a little bit about what it's like to put,

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to dedicate yourself to a project that's going to take

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30 years? It's your life's work. How do you

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choose to, at maybe

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25 years old to say, I'm going to.

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This is Something I'm passionate about. And I'm going to work on this for 30

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years. Like, how do people do that?

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Professor Fred Watson: Well, they do. It's a really good question. Um,

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so with the, with the telescope,

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um, it was the brainchild of a few people.

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Um, and I haven't really got to the

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main issue that this telescope will do. I'll

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keep talking about your, your question.

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Uh, but the main point about this telescope is that it

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can survey the entire southern

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sky every three nights.

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So it's got the capability to record

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the whole sky in detail every three nights.

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So what it's really looking for are

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things that change, and that includes

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things changing their position, which is asteroids. In

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the first 10 hours of observing, it discovered

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2,100 asteroids, which is, you know,

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it's going to really start changing our view

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of the Earth's, uh, locality in space.

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Uh, and also things that go bump in the night, you know,

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the supernova explosions, things of that sort. This will

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be the telescope for picking that up. So,

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yes, 30 years ago, people were

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thinking, what we need is, uh,

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something that can tell us about

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an aspect of the universe. Excuse me. That had

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never really been thought about before. And that is the way things

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come and go. Because we, you know,

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in traditional astronomy, uh, okay,

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things change in the solar system. The planets are going around on short

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timescales. But, uh, it's only

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recently been realized that there are

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things happening everywhere that happen on

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short timescales. You know, like black hole mergers,

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like neutron star collisions, like supernova

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explosions. Stars that have got to the ends of their lives and

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basically blown themselves to pieces. So

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that was the vision for. That was seen by a

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few scientists yet 30 years ago, um,

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and they began working towards

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raising the funding, raising the technology.

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The technology just didn't exist back then to build a

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telescope of this kind, uh, and eventually to get

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it made. So some of those, um, people

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right at the outset were quite senior people with the vision

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to see what might, you know, what might occur. And they are,

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probably, some of them are no longer with us, but they would have

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had students and postdoctoral

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fellows working with them. And they're the people,

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uh, in exactly the way that you've just described.

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They have seen what the potential

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is for a project like this, and they've

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put their noses to the grindstone, uh, and

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stuck in there to, um, eventually

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see, ah, the moment that we're seeing now,

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the start of this telescope, the first light in images that

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we're seeing. So for those people, you know, this

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must feel like a triumph for Those postdocs and

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PhD students who were working on that.

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Um, just another example though, of this. And

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we're spending a bit longer than we probably should on this

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story, but, um, the same is

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true in space missions, and in fact,

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uh, even more so because, uh, there's no

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quick fix if you're doing a science space mission.

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Um, and the one example that, um. Excuse me, I've got an

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itch on my nose. Uh, the one example that comes, uh,

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to mind is somebody who Marnie and I know

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quite well, Linda Spilker. She was the,

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uh, project scientist for the Cassini mission,

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uh, NASA's mission, uh, in orbit

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around Saturn from. Was it

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2004 to 2017. It was in orbit

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around Saturn. And she basically dedicated

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her life, uh, to that

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project. She started off working

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on Voyager, in fact, at the beginning of her

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career, which was one of the pioneering ones, but then

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switched to a mission to go to Saturn and

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worked on that for probably more than 20

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years, uh, culminating in being the mission

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scientist. I think that was one of the best

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space missions that's ever, ever happened because

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we learned so much. But she's now working on,

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um, uh, the possibility of sending

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spacecrafts to some of Saturn's moons, like, um,

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Enceladus, where we think, well, we know there's an ocean of water

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underneath the icy surface. So,

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um, in some ways people start off,

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you know, with one project, but it

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germinates into something else that does become their life's

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work. That's certainly what happened with Linda.

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So, uh, yes, for the people who were involved right at the

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outset of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, or

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the LSST as we used to call it, um,

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this must be a moment to savor. And, you know, I'm, um,

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sure there are people out there who are in exactly the

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situation that you've described.

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Heidi Campo: That is the. That is such a cool part of

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these sciences is the things that we do. We may never

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see the fruits of those labors in our lifetime.

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And so the people who really commit to the

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true visionaries, not just the people who want to do

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it for a title or, you know, getting the

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Netflix documentary, the people who really want to change the

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future is usually a future they may never live to

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see. And they know that, but they commit to, uh,

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dedicating their life to this work. And it's. That's just

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amazing and selfless to me. And, you

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know, there's. There's a lot, um, to be said

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about the leaps that we make with the people

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who think that way. But we also need the people

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who are going to go out there and then, you know, do the

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work. The people who are going to make that vision, actualize

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it. And those are the astronauts who are out there living

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on the space station right now. These are the people who are

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building on the sciences that we've been working

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on since, you know,

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Galileo. This is stuff

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humanity's been working on for a long time.

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Space nuts.

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So with that being said, I think that's a good segue into

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talking about what's going on on the space station

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right now.

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Professor Fred Watson: Um, and it's a busy time. Um,

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um, I was, ah, struck when I

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looked, you know, kept an eye, try and keep an eye on what's going on

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on the space station. But we've got,

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um, it's getting a bit crowded up there, I have

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to say. So at the moment we

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have 11 astronauts, uh, living on the

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space station. Um, and I was

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interested to read that they've all sort of, um,

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divvied up all the sleep stations that there are. And the

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various people are sleeping in effectively

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cupboards and, you know, um, work

304
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rooms and things of that sort, uh, so that they all have their

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sleep stat. Ah. So what's caused this? There

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are currently seven astronauts,

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uh, NASA astronauts who are the

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working sort of standard astronauts, uh,

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on the space station. Uh, they are a member of what's

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called Expedition 73, um, those seven

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astronauts, but they've been joined by four

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privately funded astronauts, uh, on a mission

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called the AX4 mission. It's AXION Space

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that is doing that with specific, um,

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requirements for experiments. I think

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Axiom have got something like they've got two

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weeks on the space station and I think they've got, I don't know,

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three, five dozen or something experiments that

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they've got to do, uh, some of which, um, are

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very much along the lines of your own

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interests. Heidi, because it's all about human,

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you know, the way humans interact with space. I was really

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interested to read that one of the experiments was

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something called the thigh cough. And

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uh, a thigh cuff is a tight cuff

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on your thigh, obviously. Uh, and it's all

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about trying to change the way the fluids move

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in your body. Because in weightlessness the

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fluids in your body do unusual things,

330
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uh, and they tend to pool inside your head, which is

331
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not a good thing. Um, and so

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basically, um, that's uh,

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one of the experiments that's been done. I don't know whether you're

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familiar with, uh, the use of thigh.

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Heidi Campo: Yeah, so I was reading this right now and, and at

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the risk of sounding foolish in case, um, anyone

337
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out there is listening who knows a lot more about this than me, I

338
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was reading this article to try and see if they specify if this

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thigh cuff is BFR technology or if it's

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separate. Because, you know, I don't. I don't know everything.

341
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But, um, I think I'm saying think

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and italicized right now. I think when they're talking

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about a thigh cuff, what they're talking is

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talking about is what they call BFR technology, which

345
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stands for blood flow restriction technology.

346
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That is, um, a

347
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training and exercise technique that's used here on

348
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Earth. It's actually become quite popular with bodybuilders

349
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because they've realized that they can get, um,

350
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greater muscular hypertrophy benefits when

351
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training that way. And if you guys don't know what

352
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muscular hypertrophy means, that's increasing the

353
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muscle size. So in space, one of our big

354
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problems is muscle atrophy. We're losing

355
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muscles, we're losing bone density. So

356
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when we train with blood flow restriction, it

357
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helps sort of expedite, you know, there's

358
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no shortcuts, but it does enhance the effects of

359
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exercise. And the more

360
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interesting thing, I don't know if it's more interesting, but an

361
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additional benefit is they're actually using it

362
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to help mitigate the effects of Sands right now as well.

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Professor Fred Watson: The effect of. Sorry, I missed the word you said there.

364
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Heidi Campo: Sans. Sans. S A, N, S.

365
00:17:27.770 --> 00:17:30.330
I'm, um, surprised you haven't heard about that one. I got to teach you something.

366
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Um, Sans is a neuro

367
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ocular syndrome which affects

368
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vision of astronauts in space.

369
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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

370
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Heidi Campo: So their vision.

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Professor Fred Watson: Didn't know it was called that.

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Heidi Campo: Yeah, yeah, it has a. Has its own

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acronym, just like everything else up there.

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Professor Fred Watson: So, um, yeah, that's quite a serious one because that's one of

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the. I think that's one of the deleterious

376
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effects that spaceflight, um, has that does

377
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not recover when you get back to

378
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normal, uh, gravity.

379
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Heidi Campo: Sometimes it does. Okay, so

380
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sometimes it improves, sometimes it doesn't improve.

381
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Sometimes they make a little bit of progress. And there have been

382
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cases, believe it or not, where crew members have

383
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gone up needing prescription glasses and

384
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have had to wear prescription glasses their whole

385
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life. And they go up there and they come back and their,

386
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their prescription is fixed. And they've

387
00:18:24.310 --> 00:18:27.310
joked, uh, the joke was made when I was at this presentation. They're like,

388
00:18:27.310 --> 00:18:29.870
yeah, that was the most expensive eye corrective surgery ever.

389
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Professor Fred Watson: But, yeah, that's, uh, that's fantastic. Um,

390
00:18:34.970 --> 00:18:37.870
look, I had not heard that. So, yeah, if

391
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you want to fix your eye problems, um, go

392
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into space.

393
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Heidi Campo: Or make it worse. It's a roll the dice.

394
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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. My way. Yes, it's. It's,

395
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uh, it's a bit of a toss up as to which way

396
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it goes.

397
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Um, um, so just, you know,

398
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celebrating the fact that we do have such a busy space

399
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station at the moment. Um, the,

400
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um, leader of expedition, uh,

401
00:19:01.630 --> 00:19:04.190
70. I beg your pardon. The leader of the

402
00:19:04.190 --> 00:19:07.070
Axion crew. Axion 4 crew

403
00:19:07.710 --> 00:19:09.870
is, uh. And this is the privately

404
00:19:10.030 --> 00:19:12.590
funded one, uh, is actually Peggy

405
00:19:12.590 --> 00:19:15.280
Whitson, who's a big name in

406
00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:18.360
astronaut circles. I think she holds one

407
00:19:18.360 --> 00:19:20.990
of the records for, uh.

408
00:19:20.990 --> 00:19:23.840
Yes, the record for the most time in space by an

409
00:19:23.840 --> 00:19:26.640
American and worldwide by a woman.

410
00:19:26.800 --> 00:19:29.200
So she is very much a veteran of

411
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spaceflight. And what, um, you know,

412
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you didn't really imagine a better leader for a

413
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:37.840
flight crew than somebody like Peggy. And the other thing

414
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I liked is that, um, not only is the

415
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space station getting pretty full, but all the

416
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parking spaces are getting used up as well

417
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because there are three docked

418
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crew spacecraft, uh, at the

419
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moment, and there are two docked cargo

420
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spacecraft at the moment as well. And you know, there's

421
00:19:58.260 --> 00:20:00.620
not that many docking ports on the International

422
00:20:00.940 --> 00:20:03.940
Space Station. So I think they're running out of space up

423
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there. It's great to see it being so

424
00:20:06.460 --> 00:20:09.380
busy at the moment, given that we're probably going

425
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to use it, lose it in five years time. So

426
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make the most of it.

427
00:20:13.490 --> 00:20:16.250
Heidi Campo: Yeah, yeah, it'll be, uh. It's a. It's

428
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amazing what's going on up there. It really is.

429
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And I actually, I just forgot to also mention, speaking of busy, I

430
00:20:21.490 --> 00:20:23.650
think today's International Asteroid Day.

431
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Professor Fred Watson: Uh, okay.

432
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Heidi Campo: I think I saw that on LinkedIn.

433
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Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it's, uh. So that celebrates. I think, if I remember

434
00:20:32.570 --> 00:20:35.450
rightly, International Asteroid Day is

435
00:20:35.450 --> 00:20:38.110
the day of the Tunguska, uh,

436
00:20:38.190 --> 00:20:41.060
um, meteorite or asteroid impact, which happened

437
00:20:41.060 --> 00:20:43.380
in, um, in Siberia in

438
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1908.

439
00:20:45.310 --> 00:20:47.260
Heidi Campo: Uh. Is that the one that got the dinosaurs?

440
00:20:47.820 --> 00:20:50.620
Professor Fred Watson: No, no, that's right. No, that was 66 million years ago.

441
00:20:51.740 --> 00:20:54.700
Yeah, this was only a century ago.

442
00:20:55.130 --> 00:20:56.700
Uh, let's just do.

443
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Heidi Campo: Just trying to keep our listeners on their feet.

444
00:20:59.340 --> 00:21:01.780
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, absolutely. Asteroid day

445
00:21:01.780 --> 00:21:04.400
2025. Um. Oh, yes, it's

446
00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:07.120
yesterday our time. It's the 30th of June.

447
00:21:07.120 --> 00:21:10.080
You're absolutely right. And it's what, um, that's the

448
00:21:10.080 --> 00:21:12.920
celebration that you, uh, that it's the date of

449
00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:15.760
the, um. The same day as the 1908

450
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Tunguska event, so.

451
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Heidi Campo: Well, Happy asteroid day, Fred.

452
00:21:19.079 --> 00:21:20.360
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, and you too.

453
00:21:22.280 --> 00:21:25.160
I did my master. Sorry, go on, you go.

454
00:21:25.560 --> 00:21:28.390
No, I was just going to say I did my master's degree on um,

455
00:21:28.760 --> 00:21:31.480
researching um, asteroid orbits with these newfangled things called

456
00:21:31.480 --> 00:21:34.480
computers. Um, and uh, in those days it was very

457
00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:37.300
unfash fashionable to be interested in asteroids, but it's not

458
00:21:37.300 --> 00:21:39.540
now because we're all interested in asteroids.

459
00:21:40.100 --> 00:21:41.460
Who knows what they might do.

460
00:21:45.860 --> 00:21:47.620
Heidi Campo: Space nuts. Yeah.

461
00:21:47.620 --> 00:21:50.540
Speaking of asteroids, do they have anything

462
00:21:50.540 --> 00:21:52.740
to do with these weird

463
00:21:52.820 --> 00:21:55.580
landscapes on Mars? I have been, I

464
00:21:55.580 --> 00:21:58.540
was uh, scrolling on social media a couple days ago and I came

465
00:21:58.540 --> 00:22:00.180
across these images of these

466
00:22:01.390 --> 00:22:04.030
weird ridges and craters on Mars. And

467
00:22:04.270 --> 00:22:07.270
it's weird, the shadows almost, some of the pictures

468
00:22:07.270 --> 00:22:10.030
I was looking at, the shadows almost looked like trees.

469
00:22:10.430 --> 00:22:12.990
And for a second I had this weird. And I was fantasizing

470
00:22:13.470 --> 00:22:16.430
Mars terraformed, but it not looking

471
00:22:16.430 --> 00:22:18.430
like Earth, it looking like an alien

472
00:22:19.710 --> 00:22:22.630
Earth, you know, and I was like, wow, that'd be so weird. But yeah.

473
00:22:22.630 --> 00:22:24.510
What is going on with this landscape?

474
00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:28.780
Professor Fred Watson: Um, it's a surprise actually to everybody, uh,

475
00:22:28.780 --> 00:22:31.680
including you and me. So uh,

476
00:22:32.510 --> 00:22:35.310
and this comes from Curiosity, uh, the rover

477
00:22:35.310 --> 00:22:38.270
that's been working hard on the uh, surface

478
00:22:38.270 --> 00:22:40.270
of Mars for, What was it,

479
00:22:40.270 --> 00:22:42.910
2012 when

480
00:22:42.910 --> 00:22:45.150
Curiosity landed? I think it was a long time ago.

481
00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:48.600
Um, so Curiosity is at a place called uh,

482
00:22:49.320 --> 00:22:50.430
um, Gale Crater

483
00:22:51.630 --> 00:22:54.190
2014. Okay. Gale Crater

484
00:22:54.430 --> 00:22:57.100
has a mountain on it called Mount Sharp. And uh,

485
00:22:57.150 --> 00:22:59.880
that's what the spacecraft was designed to

486
00:22:59.880 --> 00:23:02.640
explore, which has done very well. But we've got

487
00:23:03.190 --> 00:23:05.840
um, in Gale Crater we've now got this

488
00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:08.920
new form of a landform that has never

489
00:23:08.920 --> 00:23:11.360
been seen before. Um, and

490
00:23:11.520 --> 00:23:14.160
it's, they're calling it the boxwork lattice,

491
00:23:14.650 --> 00:23:17.120
uh, landform. Um, and

492
00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:20.680
that sort of gives you an idea of what it might look like.

493
00:23:20.680 --> 00:23:23.440
You know, some of these, I'm m actually

494
00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:26.130
thinking perhaps it's just the way my mind

495
00:23:26.130 --> 00:23:28.970
works. But I'm thinking of those inserts that sometimes

496
00:23:28.970 --> 00:23:31.690
go in a box of a dozen bottles of wine,

497
00:23:32.110 --> 00:23:35.090
uh, because they have cardboard inserts uh, in them that

498
00:23:35.090 --> 00:23:38.010
are sort of like this lattice shape. And I think that's

499
00:23:38.010 --> 00:23:40.930
the shape of these ridges that have been found. They're not,

500
00:23:40.930 --> 00:23:43.210
you know, they're not very deep, they're only a few

501
00:23:43.450 --> 00:23:45.610
inches high, but

502
00:23:46.170 --> 00:23:49.130
they're ridges in an absolute pattern,

503
00:23:49.650 --> 00:23:51.690
um, very boxy looking pattern

504
00:23:52.510 --> 00:23:55.390
and they haven't been seen before. And so uh,

505
00:23:55.390 --> 00:23:58.230
that is exciting. The planetary scientists who

506
00:23:58.230 --> 00:24:01.230
are looking at the results coming from Curiosity.

507
00:24:01.650 --> 00:24:04.550
Um, and so of course the first thing you have to do is work

508
00:24:04.550 --> 00:24:07.070
out what you think Might have caused them.

509
00:24:07.590 --> 00:24:09.790
Uh, and the current theory

510
00:24:10.270 --> 00:24:13.270
is that uh, when Mars was

511
00:24:13.270 --> 00:24:16.230
drying out, and this is probably 3.8 billion years ago,

512
00:24:16.230 --> 00:24:19.110
because we know it was warm and wet before that. But when it

513
00:24:19.110 --> 00:24:21.950
was drying out, there was probably a very dry

514
00:24:21.950 --> 00:24:24.900
surface, but with groundwater

515
00:24:24.980 --> 00:24:27.380
that was underneath the surface. And

516
00:24:27.650 --> 00:24:30.020
um, that groundwater would have been rich in

517
00:24:30.100 --> 00:24:32.940
minerals. And basically, uh, what

518
00:24:32.940 --> 00:24:35.900
it did was came up through cracks in the

519
00:24:35.900 --> 00:24:38.660
bedrock. So the bedrock itself has had to crack

520
00:24:39.060 --> 00:24:41.820
and let the groundwater up through the

521
00:24:41.820 --> 00:24:44.740
cracks. And what we then see, uh, is

522
00:24:46.340 --> 00:24:49.220
the groundwater disappears, it leaves the minerals behind.

523
00:24:49.220 --> 00:24:51.750
The minerals are harder than the, the bedrock

524
00:24:51.750 --> 00:24:54.590
itself. And so as the bedrock wears away

525
00:24:54.590 --> 00:24:57.590
with the effect of dust and wind over

526
00:24:57.590 --> 00:25:00.350
the last 3.8 billion years, you're left with

527
00:25:00.350 --> 00:25:03.310
this, um, almost a structure that

528
00:25:03.310 --> 00:25:05.830
looks a bit like a curb, uh, you know, on a

529
00:25:05.830 --> 00:25:08.790
roadway. Uh, but it's, but it's shaped in a, in a

530
00:25:08.790 --> 00:25:11.510
boxy pattern. So. Yes, quite

531
00:25:11.510 --> 00:25:14.350
remarkable that uh, we're

532
00:25:14.350 --> 00:25:17.150
seeing new landforms that have not been identified

533
00:25:17.150 --> 00:25:20.110
before. And of course all of this helps by telling us

534
00:25:20.110 --> 00:25:22.160
about the history of Mars and the confirming, uh,

535
00:25:23.160 --> 00:25:26.160
perhaps yet again that Mars once had a lot more water than

536
00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:26.840
it does now.

537
00:25:27.720 --> 00:25:30.560
Heidi Campo: I'm also looking at some searches and the conspiracy

538
00:25:30.560 --> 00:25:33.400
theorists are going crazy with it's remnants of a city.

539
00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:37.160
Professor Fred Watson: Okay. Oh, yes, I never thought of that.

540
00:25:40.200 --> 00:25:43.180
Yeah. Remnants of a city. Well, that's right, you know, um,

541
00:25:43.720 --> 00:25:46.680
of course, um, pareidolia.

542
00:25:46.680 --> 00:25:49.080
That's the, uh. Ah, do you know about

543
00:25:49.080 --> 00:25:51.640
pareidolia? It's a lovely word. It's,

544
00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:55.220
I'm sure you've come across it. Yeah, it's when you see

545
00:25:55.860 --> 00:25:58.780
familiar things, uh, in

546
00:25:58.780 --> 00:26:00.980
objects that have nothing to do with them. So when you see

547
00:26:02.100 --> 00:26:04.860
figures in clouds, or when you see

548
00:26:04.860 --> 00:26:07.570
rocks that are shaped like um,

549
00:26:08.500 --> 00:26:11.500
a truck tire or a spoon

550
00:26:11.500 --> 00:26:14.340
or whatever, um, it's our inbuilt

551
00:26:14.740 --> 00:26:17.700
ability to recognize shapes in things that are quite

552
00:26:17.700 --> 00:26:20.590
unrelated. Um, and of course the classic

553
00:26:20.590 --> 00:26:23.110
one on Mars was the face on Mars from the Viking

554
00:26:23.110 --> 00:26:25.350
orbiters back in 1976. This

555
00:26:25.830 --> 00:26:28.470
clearly a human face on Mars. And

556
00:26:28.750 --> 00:26:31.630
uh, it gained so much. It

557
00:26:31.630 --> 00:26:34.550
was a giant, it was a landform actually. But it

558
00:26:34.550 --> 00:26:37.190
gained so much publicity that NASA

559
00:26:37.190 --> 00:26:39.710
actually changed the orbit of their next

560
00:26:39.710 --> 00:26:42.510
spacecraft so that it would fly over this area

561
00:26:42.510 --> 00:26:45.430
and take images. And of course we could see it was just a crumbling

562
00:26:45.750 --> 00:26:48.310
mountaintop, uh, not a face at all.

563
00:26:48.470 --> 00:26:51.390
Heidi Campo: It inspired that weird movie Mission to Mars. Did you

564
00:26:51.390 --> 00:26:51.990
see that one?

565
00:26:52.320 --> 00:26:53.990
Professor Fred Watson: Um, may have done.

566
00:26:55.190 --> 00:26:57.910
Heidi Campo: It was goofy. It scared me when I was a little kid.

567
00:26:58.390 --> 00:27:00.950
There's like A tornado and an alien.

568
00:27:00.950 --> 00:27:03.910
Professor Fred Watson: And probably scared me too.

569
00:27:04.710 --> 00:27:07.470
Heidi Campo: Yeah, it's, you know, the humans, the human's ability

570
00:27:07.470 --> 00:27:10.440
for recognition. You know, I think about, um,

571
00:27:10.630 --> 00:27:13.470
AI and how AI is getting really good at recognizing

572
00:27:13.470 --> 00:27:16.270
things, but the human brain's ability

573
00:27:16.270 --> 00:27:19.050
to make these recognition, I. I still think

574
00:27:19.050 --> 00:27:21.850
it's unmatched. I don't know. The technology is probably

575
00:27:21.850 --> 00:27:24.730
catching up, but it really is fascinating,

576
00:27:24.730 --> 00:27:27.370
like recognizing emotion and very, very

577
00:27:27.370 --> 00:27:30.210
subtle changes on the human. On the human face.

578
00:27:30.450 --> 00:27:32.930
Have you ever heard of the term the uncanny valley?

579
00:27:33.650 --> 00:27:35.090
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, no, I haven't. No.

580
00:27:35.410 --> 00:27:38.210
Heidi Campo: It's a. It's a term used a lot in,

581
00:27:38.280 --> 00:27:41.090
um, like, film design, like, in, like,

582
00:27:41.090 --> 00:27:43.760
scary movies. But it's, uh,

583
00:27:43.760 --> 00:27:46.680
also in, like, art and anthropology. But long

584
00:27:46.680 --> 00:27:49.680
story short, the uncanny valley, if you're looking at a

585
00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:52.680
cartoon face of Mickey Mouse where it's like, okay, it's kind of

586
00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:55.360
like human, there's an eyes, nose and mouth. Mickey

587
00:27:55.360 --> 00:27:58.280
Mouse's face is not scary at all. It's just cute and cartoony,

588
00:27:58.600 --> 00:28:01.520
but the more realistic it gets.

589
00:28:01.520 --> 00:28:04.040
But it's still cartoonish. There's a

590
00:28:04.200 --> 00:28:07.200
point where it starts becoming scary. And that's

591
00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:09.760
where a lot of, like, people will. Will use the

592
00:28:09.760 --> 00:28:12.670
example of the movie the Polar Express, where the

593
00:28:12.990 --> 00:28:15.710
CGI was really good, very human,

594
00:28:15.710 --> 00:28:18.510
like, but there was like a blank, blank stare

595
00:28:18.750 --> 00:28:21.350
and the emotions weren't quite right. So they call it the

596
00:28:21.350 --> 00:28:24.310
uncanny valley because it's. It's

597
00:28:24.310 --> 00:28:27.190
a point where we see

598
00:28:27.190 --> 00:28:30.030
something that's almost human, but it's not quite human and

599
00:28:30.030 --> 00:28:32.670
we don't like it. It makes us feel unsettled.

600
00:28:32.910 --> 00:28:33.470
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.

601
00:28:33.630 --> 00:28:36.590
Heidi Campo: And it's crazy that humans have that built in

602
00:28:36.590 --> 00:28:39.470
unsettledness with something that's almost human but

603
00:28:39.470 --> 00:28:39.950
not human.

604
00:28:40.540 --> 00:28:43.220
Professor Fred Watson: M. No. That's very telling

605
00:28:43.220 --> 00:28:46.220
about something deep in our, you know, in our

606
00:28:46.220 --> 00:28:49.020
psyche that probably goes

607
00:28:49.020 --> 00:28:51.740
back to ancient times in our

608
00:28:51.740 --> 00:28:53.020
evolutionary makeup.

609
00:28:53.260 --> 00:28:56.059
Heidi Campo: There's lots and lots of theories. Let us know what you guys think,

610
00:28:56.059 --> 00:28:58.460
if you guys have any, um, thoughts or

611
00:28:58.700 --> 00:29:01.580
theories on the uncanny valley and how

612
00:29:01.740 --> 00:29:04.380
that relates to our pattern recognition of the

613
00:29:04.940 --> 00:29:07.660
man on the moon or the face on Mars or

614
00:29:07.740 --> 00:29:10.020
having. How I saw these images of these,

615
00:29:10.490 --> 00:29:13.490
uh, rocks on Mars and I thought of trees right

616
00:29:13.490 --> 00:29:13.770
away.

617
00:29:16.090 --> 00:29:18.730
Professor Fred Watson: Obviously. Some others thought about cities as well.

618
00:29:19.370 --> 00:29:21.770
Heidi Campo: Yeah. What did you see when you looked at this, Fred?

619
00:29:22.550 --> 00:29:25.450
Professor Fred Watson: Um, I saw pretty well what I was being told to look for.

620
00:29:27.210 --> 00:29:29.450
Ridges. Oh, it's ridges. Yeah.

621
00:29:29.850 --> 00:29:31.530
Heidi Campo: Good analytical mind.

622
00:29:31.850 --> 00:29:34.810
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Well, that's not. Perhaps it's not a good

623
00:29:34.810 --> 00:29:37.450
analytical mind. I just take it for granted.

624
00:29:37.850 --> 00:29:40.510
Yeah, it's a good point. I did, actually. There's quite a nice, um,

625
00:29:40.730 --> 00:29:43.710
on one of the websites, uh, and

626
00:29:43.710 --> 00:29:46.670
I'm sure it's well available. Uh, There's a nice

627
00:29:46.670 --> 00:29:49.590
360 degree panorama from Curiosity

628
00:29:49.590 --> 00:29:52.230
that you can scan around and you can actually see these

629
00:29:52.230 --> 00:29:54.550
ridges from Curiosity's viewpoint.

630
00:29:55.830 --> 00:29:58.790
So it's worth a look. I think that's, um, come

631
00:29:58.790 --> 00:30:01.750
from jpl, which of course is the organization

632
00:30:01.830 --> 00:30:04.150
that is operating the spacecraft.

633
00:30:04.870 --> 00:30:07.870
Heidi Campo: That's fantastic. Fred. This has been so much

634
00:30:07.870 --> 00:30:10.630
fun today. Thank you for joining me and bringing some

635
00:30:10.630 --> 00:30:12.390
sunshine to our rainy day,

636
00:30:13.010 --> 00:30:15.460
um, keeping us all curious.

637
00:30:15.780 --> 00:30:18.780
Professor Fred Watson: It's always a pleasure, Heidi. And, um, yeah, we've got rain

638
00:30:18.780 --> 00:30:21.660
coming here too, so I might need a bit of your sunshine

639
00:30:21.660 --> 00:30:23.540
when the. When the sky's clear in Houston.

640
00:30:24.260 --> 00:30:26.940
Heidi Campo: All right, well, hopefully the rest of you are all staying warm and

641
00:30:26.940 --> 00:30:29.940
dry. And, uh, we thank you so much for joining us.

642
00:30:29.940 --> 00:30:32.620
And this has been another fun, exciting, enlightening

643
00:30:32.620 --> 00:30:34.380
episode of Space Nuts.

644
00:30:34.380 --> 00:30:36.860
Voice Over Guy: Space Nuts. You've been listening to the

645
00:30:36.860 --> 00:30:38.180
SpaceNuts podcast,

646
00:30:39.980 --> 00:30:42.540
available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

647
00:30:42.700 --> 00:30:45.460
iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast

648
00:30:45.460 --> 00:30:47.820
player. You can also stream on demand at

649
00:30:47.820 --> 00:30:50.440
bitesz.com. This has been another quality podcast

650
00:30:50.440 --> 00:30:52.120
production from bitesz.com.