The Dinosaur Extinction Mystery Revisited: New Theories & Surprising Discoveries | #378

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Hello once again, thanks for joining
us on Space Nuts. My name is

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Andrew Dunkley, your host, and
it's good to have your company. As

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always. Coming up on this episode
three hundred and seventy eight, what really

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killed the dinosaurs? It was actually
dental problems. I think that was pretty

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much it. We're going to find
out also some planets that are orbiting a

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star that is kind of like ours
and they're all doomed. Are we talking

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about ourselves or somewhere else? We'll
find out about that, and some audience

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questions about Andromeda gravity. We never
get questions about gravity, do we?

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And a place called Tidbinbiller. We'll
get into all of that very very soon.

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On this episode of Space Nuts fifteen
second Channel ten nine Ignition Squench Space

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Nuts or three two one Space As
when actually bought it? Neil's good and

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joining us to unravel all of those
mysteries is Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at

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Large. Hello Fred, Hello Andrew, Hello, good to see you looking

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at today. But apart from that, you're all good. Yeah yeah,

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and maybe you need new glasses.
Oh it could be yeah, actually got

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some new glasses not very long ago. Interesting and well I was going to

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get new glasses, but then they
found out something else was wrong, so

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we're dealing with that. Actually,
the optometrist said to me, I was

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going to recommend new glasses because your
visions deteriorate it slightly. But now I've

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got a bigger fish, something bigger
to deal with. Yeah, it's pressure,

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you know, the pressure in your
eyes. Yeah, apparently mine's gone

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up, so we're looking into it. Bob. Anyway, you can solve

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that, you can. You can
solve that these days just by using drops.

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Apparently well seems to be working.
It's all a bit weird. Anyway,

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I'm sure everyone needed to know that. That's all right. As long

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as it stops at your eyes,
we're quite happy. Yes, now you've

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got some travels coming up, haven't
you. You're a busy boy. Yes,

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Actually I'm off to a place called
Sea Lake in Victoria, which is

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a state to the south of US
here, although it's very rural Victoria.

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I fly to Mildura and then drive
for two hours and I get to Sea

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Lake and there is an astronomy weekend
there. It's a big festival actually,

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with a few professional astronomers and lots
of amateur astronomers and the general public,

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and a good time will be had
by all. So I'm doing talk,

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I think, and discussion and all
that stuff. But then actually the weekend

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after that, I'm going off to
another one, and I'm off again to

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New Zealand and if I remember rightly, it is the one hundredth anniversary of

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one of the astronomical societies. I
can't remember, which might be the r

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S n Z. Yeah, it
might pay are there again? It might

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be the Oakland dial check that I
should find out should there before I go.

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That's see, that's that's more than
that's more than a week away.

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So it's way below the horizon at
the moment, but it will arrive very

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soon. It just don't just don't
do a US president and get Switzerland mixed

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up with Sweden. That would you
know, that wouldn't go down. Well,

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No, I know, there's all
that stuff. I was talking to

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some Kiwis this week actually, or
interacting with them in a meeting of Space

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Agency personnel which took place down in
Cameer. I was virtually joining that to

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talk a little bit about dark and
quiet skies. I didn't have much to

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say, but it was very interesting. These are all space regulators. These

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are the people who make the rules, and so they want to know what

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what satellites are doing to astronomers.
So that's what my parting that way.

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Yeah, well that's a big issue
at the moment. Just a little interesting

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statistic about New Zealand and I hate
to give them a hard time, they've

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had a pretty rough time of its
sporting wives of late. But I got

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a news report the other day from
the Australian Bureau and Bureau of Statistics.

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This might interest people in other countries. But of the New Zealand population of

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five million, what percentage of those
live in Australia. I don't know the

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outswids of that. I'd have to
guess maybe twenty percent is probably something huge.

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It's about ten percent, over five
hundred thousand Kiwis live in Australia as

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Australian residents. Yeah, which is
ten percent of the population. That's that's

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that's actually quite a surprising number.
Yeah. But you know who's moving here

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fastest. I don't know in the
greatest numbers at the moment. The Nepalese.

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Oh okay, not from New Zealand, No, No, the Nepalese

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are the ones that are from Nepal. Yeah, and moving here faster than

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any other nationality at the moment,
which again quite surprised me. Enough of

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that, that's our little planet.
Let's sort of well, let's stick to

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this planet, because sixty six million
years ago, a big rock the size

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of Mount Everest struck the planet at
what is now the Gulf of Mexico.

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And of course we all know that
that was something that led to an extinction

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level event which pretty well wiped out
the dinosaurs. But there's been a lot

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of debate fred about what exactly was
it that finished them off? Was it

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the tsunami that went around the planet
three times? Was it the change in

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environment? Was it the dental plaque
problems created by the vegetation that changed.

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Now there's a new theory which seems
to have quite a bit of substance behind

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it. It does, that's right, And this comes from astronomers in actually

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most of them seem to be in
Belgium. There's few UK names there as

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well. It's a paper in Nature
Geoscience which is entitled chick slob impact Winter

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sustained by fine silicate dust and that
really tells you the story in one.

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So what these scientists have done have
been to look very closely at some of

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the deposits which we find in that
boundary, which used to be called the

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Cretaceous Tertiary boundary. It's now called
the Cretaceous Paleogene boundary because I think that's

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a bit more specific. It's a
layer in the rock strata, and that's

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actually what So it's that lair in
which iridium was found now fifty years ago

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nearly and sorry not quite fifty,
probably more like forty one forty two years

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ago. That iridium was what gave
rise to the theory that this was an

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asteroid, and it's because iridium is
mostly found in extraterrestrial bodies, and so

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that sort of gave the rise to
it. So what's happened is a more

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detailed investigation of that boundary has revealed
that there's some stuff in that they didn't

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really know about. Let me read
the first little bit of the abstract for

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this paper. So this is the
real thing it. As I said in

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Nature Geoscience, the chicks alb impact
is thoughts that have triggered a global winter

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at the Cretaceous Paleogene boundary, or
sixty six million years ago, Yet the

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climatic consequences of the various debris injected
into the atmosphere following the impact remain unclear,

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and the exact killing mechanisms of the
mass extinction remain poorly constrained. So

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here we present they say, palea
climate simulations based on sediment sedimental logical constraints.

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That means things they find in the
boundary layer from an expanded boundary deposit

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in North Dakota, United States,
to evaluate the relative and combined effects of

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impact generated silicate dust that's pulverized rock
basically and sulfur as well as soot from

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wildfires on the post impact climate.
From what they've found is that the distribution

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of silicate dust, which is fine
dust about one michrome micrometer to eight micrometers

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in diameter, and they say that's
larger than has been previously previously estimated.

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And they think that that dust,
because it's sort of very fine dust,

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could have stayed in the atmosphere for
fifteen years and they are suggesting that that

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would push down the average temperature on
the surface by fifteen degrees celsius. And

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that's significant because the average global temperature
at the moment. The average, if

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you average across the whole world,
is fifteen degrees plus fifteen. So if

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you push it down by fifteen degrees, you've got zero. Basically you've got

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freezing. And they say this would
have blocked This is another aspect of it.

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This would have blocked photosynthesis for the
amount of time that they say this

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would have occurred would have been two
years, effectively six hundred and twenty days

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after the impact, And so that
means things wouldn't grow if you don't have

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any photosynthesis. First of all,
you're not churning out oxygen from carbon dioxide,

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because that's what photosynthesis does. But
also you're stifling the plants. Basically,

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things that live on plants don't like
not to find any plants. And

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they say that might have directly caused
extinctions of dinosaurs and other groups that couldn't

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adapt to the conditions, and accurting
now from the Cosmos article rather than the

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original article, which was written by
Ja said so it's sorry, go ahead,

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no no, I was just saying
that this is probably not a huge

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surprise in the scheme of things.
I mean that that impact caused all sorts

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of catastrophic things to happen, not
just you know, the initial impact,

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that rebound that happened in the Gulf
of Mexico or whatever was there at that

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time, and the tsunami I think
went around the world what three times,

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five times some massive number. Oh
yeah, probably yeah. And was all

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of that two miles aisles some horrible
number. Yes, Yes, It's what

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surprises me is it didn't wipe out
life completely. Yes, exactly. I

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was just going to make that comment. You're absolutely right, you know,

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the trauma that the Earth suffered because
of all that. Yeah. The the

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another couple of quotes from the paper
here simulated changes in photosynthetic active solar radiation

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supported dust induced photosynthetic shutdown for almost
two years. That's kind of what I

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said, but in different language after
the impact. But then and then they

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go on to say, we suggest
that, together with additional cooling contributions from

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soot and sulfur, this is consistent
with the catastrophic collapse of primary productivity in

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the aftermath of the Chicksilab impacting.
In other words, nothing was growing,

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basically shut down growth. But there
is a subtlety though, which is pointed

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out in the Cosmos article as well, that the models that they that these

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people just sorry about. It's two
weeks in a row. Yeah, two

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weeks in a row. Yeah,
yeah, two different relatives. The models

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are they suggest that the the recovery
from that, so they've also modeled the

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recovery as well as the kind of
shut down. The recovery would have been

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faster in the southern hemisphere, and
that apparently matches, you know, the

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evidence that when you look at the
evidence from the geological record, the extinctions

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were fewer in the southern hemisphere.
So it's really a really interesting, you

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know, an interesting little snippet that
kind of I guess adds way to their

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model that if you can suggest that
there'd been a faster recovery in the south,

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and that's what the evidence shows,
then you've got some credibility with your

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model. Of course, you know, the geography of the planet was different

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then as well, because a lot
of the continents, the stuff that's now

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in the north was at that time
heading northwards rather than being as far north

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as it is. So the breakup
of Gondwana, just to give you a

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bit of context there, if I
remember right, there was one hundred and

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sixty million years ago, so that
had already happened, but the map was

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still not really like the Earth is
today. Sixty six million years, there's

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plenty of time for plate tectonics to
shift the model to, you know,

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shift the globe of the Earth.
Yeah. Yeah, I imagine that impact

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would have had a bit of an
effect on plate tectonics too, Yeah.

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Probably. I mean it's thought of
stimulated volcanoes as well. That's one of

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the other, you know, the
other lines of research that we see in

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that, Yeah, for sure,
yep. So yeah, really interesting paper.

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I mean, isn't it extraordinary that, you know, forty years after

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it was suggested, we're still finding
out about this impact and seeing different aspects

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to it because of the devastation that
it caused. Yes, absolutely, And

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you mentioned it. The event basically
took us out of the Cretaceous period into

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the Peleogene period. Yep. I
read a story the other day which is

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of a similar ilk that we are
now, according to some scientists, in

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a new epoch, which they're calling
the Anthroposyne Periodpathy, that's right, and

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that is human induced climate change.
They're saying we've reached the point of no

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return and that we are now in
a new epoch which has been created by

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human intervention, so and future geologists
will see evidence of that. They'll see

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a boundary of exactly the same sort
of thing, except it's all soot from

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you know, industrial revolution call and
fossils other fossil fuels, Yeah, fossil

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fields. Yeah, that's right.
So, yes, we're we're tinkering with

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our pludet you know, We're sure, you know, And we can't wind

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it back now, so we're going
to have to learn to live with it,

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by the sound of things. But
yeah, that's a fascinating story.

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You can read all about it in
the on the Cosmos magazine dot com website

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is Space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here
and Fred Watson there. Let's just take

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00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:48.960
a little break from the show to
tell you about our sponsor, Nord VPN.

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As I mentioned last week, I've
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been staying in hotels and apartments for
the last two weeks as we travel,

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firstly for a holiday and now I'm
at a wedding for my my niece.

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00:16:04.200 --> 00:16:08.399
Last night, we stayed in a
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00:16:08.440 --> 00:16:14.360
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00:18:40.200 --> 00:18:47.960
Now back to the show three space
Nuts. Now Fred to our next

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story, and this involves some planets
orbiting a sun that is not like well

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not unlike ours, a sun like
star, if we want to call it

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that, but there's a little bit
of a difference kind of enjoying day in

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the sun, these planets will not. That's right, You're absolutely right.

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This is a story about sun like
stars. So it's always you know,

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stars come in many different varieties.
But so whenever we talk about stars like

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the Sun, you're kind of really
talking about the Sun itself as well,

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and you know, what might potentially
happen to it, what's happened to it

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in the past, and things of
that sort, because what happens to one

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star of one particular class and mass
and luminosity is likely to happen to another

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one as well, according to our
best understanding of stellar evolution. The way,

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what class is our star? Because
I keep well, it's usually called

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a yellow dwarf star, and that's
you know, it's kind of not a

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very complimentary description, but it's because
it's not a giant star. Giant stars

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are big, and the Sun will
evolve into a giant star, but the

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moment, it's not. It's a
yellow dwarf and it's still growing up.

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It's actually it's in it's it's not
it's growing up phase. It's in its

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midlife, right, it's almost exactly
midlife, about five four point five seven

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billion years old, and it's probably
got a lifetime of round about ten billion

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years. So, yeah, the
stars go through a very energetic, youthful

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phase where all kinds of things happen, and then they settle down to a

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slow, steady hydrogen burning phase,
which is what the Sun is in now.

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If I remember rightly six million tons
of hydrogen it burns every second,

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turning into helium and energy. Yeah, so it's stopped stealing cars and getting

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drunk, and now it's relaxed,
that's right, relaxing at home. Indeed,

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it's got its feet up and it's
reading the paper and it will do

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that for another probably four billion years
or so before it does start turning into

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a giant star. So what we
have here that happens to humans too.

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As you get you putting on all
that white swell in all the wrong direction,

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that's right, just like stars do
and get rid of. Yes,

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yes, that's right, sometimes that
you do. So the star is a

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star actually relatively close by, it's
fifty seven light years away. It's one

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that's very very well studied. There's
a very famous UK schmid telescope image of

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it and its surroundings. It is
called row Corona borealiss in the constellation of

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00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:47.680
Corona Borealis. Uh. And it's
it's as you said that the difference between

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00:21:47.720 --> 00:21:52.119
the start and the Sun is just
one of maturity. So yes, we're

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four point five seven billion years old, Corona Borealis is probably more like nine

248
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billion. That means it's sort of
in the last phases of its normal life.

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So it's a normal star at the
moment, but it will I mean,

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well, it will continue to be
a normal star, but it will

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behave differently from a sun like star, so it will start to grow and

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turn eventually into a red giant,
possibly with a diameter in the region of

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well, the Sun's diameter is a
million kilometers, this one could reach ten

254
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times that, you know, ten
million kilometers or maybe even a billion.

255
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It could go that far up to
be a huge, bloated and bloated star.

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So they estimate this will happen in
something like a billion years. It's

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actually a single author of paper which
is in it's in the Astrophysical Journal,

258
00:22:51.359 --> 00:22:56.519
one of the well known journals of
astronomy. Stephen Kin is the author from

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the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
in the University of California, Riverside.

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But what makes this start even more
interesting, Andrew, is that it's got

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00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:10.960
four planets around it, or at
least four planets. We know of four

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planets which orbit Corona Borealis. They're
all nearer to the planet than we are

263
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to the Sun. The nearest one, in fact, the nearest two are

264
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well inside what would be the orbit
of Mercury in the Solar System, so

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they're very close to Corona Borealis.
So they're definitely doomed. There's one about

266
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the distance of Mercury and the furthest
one is eighty three percent of the distance

267
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of the Earth from the Sun,
eighty three percent from Corona Borealis. So

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in that regard, Andrew, as
that star sits at the moment that particular

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planet. Row Corona or Corona borealist
b D is the name of the of

270
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the basically, sorry, it's Row
Corona borealist d is the name of the

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of the planet that's nearly at the
same distance as the as the Earth is

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from the Sun. That could be
in the habitable zone, it could be

273
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in the gold of a row coronat
so interesting stuff. But what has been

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the focus of this particular study is
looking at what might happen to planets as

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a star grows into a red giant. And it's not just a simple kind

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of gobbling up, which is what
you might expect. It's it's a lot

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00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:45.119
more nuanced than that. And it
may well be that there are sort of

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irregularities in the bloating of the parent
star and that's going to have different gravitational

279
00:24:52.119 --> 00:24:59.319
influences on the planets going around it. And so what they're suggesting is,

280
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you know, yes, they may
as the star grows simply spiral in towards

281
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the star, but that would almost
certainly mean that they would they just because

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the temperature of the gaseous envelope that
they're falling into is high, they just

283
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basically evaporate. That They could also, you know, it depends just on

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the geometry. There is something called
the rochal limit, which is basically a

285
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point around any object in space,
and the Earth has a rochial limit as

286
00:25:37.319 --> 00:25:44.200
well. You put something within that
limit and it cannot stay in one piece

287
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:48.279
that the difference in gravity between one
side of it and the other is going

288
00:25:48.319 --> 00:25:52.599
to pull it to pieces. That's
the basis of the Rochal limit. And

289
00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:56.640
so it's almost like spaghettification in a
black hole. Is that kind of phenomenon

290
00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:00.359
the fact that things are getting stretched. So you try and stretch a planet

291
00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:07.079
and he basically falls the bit so
the yeah, that so that that they

292
00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:14.920
may just evaporate or they may get
torn apart by there by the you know,

293
00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:22.720
by the by the gravitational effect of
reaching the Rocial limit. There's there's

294
00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:33.680
one caveat though, that is,
if you've got bigger objects there, then

295
00:26:33.720 --> 00:26:41.319
there's a chance that you might influence
the orbit of that planet in such a

296
00:26:41.359 --> 00:26:48.000
way that it actually gets thrown out
of the system. It's possible then because

297
00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:52.039
a rogue planet, yeah, that's
right, that that it's it's orbit kind

298
00:26:52.039 --> 00:26:59.440
of starts stretching and pushes it further
away from the star, which may you

299
00:26:59.480 --> 00:27:03.720
know, it probably depends on there
being other planets there that we don't know

300
00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:07.480
about yet as well. You could
have interactions between those which might then cause

301
00:27:07.599 --> 00:27:12.519
this, you know, something to
be thrown out. So, you know,

302
00:27:12.599 --> 00:27:17.480
that would be a really interesting possibility. This paper actually looks in great

303
00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:22.799
detail about the possibilities for planets to
escape depending on their you know, depending

304
00:27:22.839 --> 00:27:30.400
on their exact orbit. It's very
detailed, the very detailed report in well,

305
00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:33.640
first of all the original paper that
I mentioned, but also there's a

306
00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:38.440
Universe Today article on it, that
excellent website which gives us space in astronomy

307
00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:42.680
news, and it really pulls this
whole thing to pieces in a very detailed

308
00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:48.279
way. So what are the chances, Well, maybe maybe there'll be a

309
00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:53.759
you know, I mean, the
prediction for that system, which actually comes

310
00:27:53.799 --> 00:27:59.279
from the original paper, is the
evolution of stars through their progression on their

311
00:27:59.319 --> 00:28:03.880
main sequence. That's just gobbledly goop. For normal star. Expansion into a

312
00:28:03.920 --> 00:28:08.200
giant star and then final contraction into
a white dwarf has profound consequences for the

313
00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:14.240
obitting planets. Given the masses and
semi major axis that's the distance from the

314
00:28:14.319 --> 00:28:18.279
parent object. Of the four known
planets, we predict that planet E will

315
00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:23.720
evaporate within the stellar atmosphere, Planet
B will spiral in and be tidally disrupted.

316
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:27.440
That means it will be pulled to
pieces, and Planet C will be

317
00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:33.759
evaporated within the star's atmosphere. Planet
d's fate is a bit less certain.

318
00:28:34.599 --> 00:28:40.000
That's the one that could spin out, but it will probably be destroyed too

319
00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:44.519
at the end of the one of
the phases of evolution. And as I

320
00:28:44.680 --> 00:28:47.759
just mentioned, there is possible that
there might be other planets that haven't yet

321
00:28:47.799 --> 00:28:52.440
been detected. We don't know that
they might survive, or do we know

322
00:28:52.559 --> 00:29:00.359
what kind of planets these are?
No, I think at least one of

323
00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:03.559
them, I think is let me
just check because there is a little table

324
00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:11.720
here, right, but they're they're
okay, So one of them is is

325
00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:21.559
Jupiter sized. The others are super
earths, basically some Neptune super earths.

326
00:29:21.640 --> 00:29:26.039
Yeah, okay, so they're all
bigger than us, Yes they are.

327
00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:30.759
They're all bigger than the Earth.
That's right. Okay, and yet they're

328
00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:34.279
closer to the style and yes,
that's right. That's often the case in

329
00:29:34.279 --> 00:29:40.480
in what we see what we see
in you know, in exo planet systems.

330
00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:45.839
It's a really fascinating it's a fascinating
paper because it does look at possible

331
00:29:45.839 --> 00:29:51.559
scenarios for what might happen to us. Oh that's nice to know. Yeah,

332
00:29:52.799 --> 00:29:56.880
in about five billion, four billion
years time, So you diary when

333
00:29:56.920 --> 00:30:03.920
it goes from being normal to cataclysmically
large and then back on back a white

334
00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:10.519
dwarf. How long does that process
take. I think it's in the region

335
00:30:10.559 --> 00:30:15.359
of you know, millions to ten
millions of years, which is pretty fust

336
00:30:15.440 --> 00:30:21.039
compared with the lifetime of the star
of ten billion years. So, and

337
00:30:21.079 --> 00:30:26.279
in fact, I think the earliest
parts of that process start start maybe a

338
00:30:26.359 --> 00:30:30.440
few hundred million years before it's really
a fully fledged dread giant. So you

339
00:30:30.440 --> 00:30:36.480
know, temperatures will change and things
will start happening over a long period,

340
00:30:36.519 --> 00:30:40.799
probably very slowly, so nobody notices
at first, and then a few million

341
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:41.799
years later you think, oh,
yeah, here we are. We're in

342
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:47.079
trouble now. But let's say there
is a people on one of those super

343
00:30:47.119 --> 00:30:53.119
earths and they're observing their star.
Would they get any telltale signs that something's

344
00:30:53.160 --> 00:30:59.359
about to change? Would there be
a way of detecting the star saying all

345
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:03.359
right, i'm running out of patrol, I'm going to blow up. Well,

346
00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:07.720
yeah, there are. And I'm
not an expert on stellar evolution.

347
00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:14.400
I've always got the basics of it
in my mind. But it's a slow

348
00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:22.440
process. There's just a slow indication
of increased radiation from the star before it

349
00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:26.160
really starts going pair shape. So
should should we be putting out the welcome

350
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:32.240
sign or the nothing to see here
sign or whatever? We can well fifty

351
00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:37.240
seven light years away, you know, standard sort of spacecraft rate's going to

352
00:31:37.279 --> 00:31:41.400
take them a few one hundred thousand
years to get here if they if they

353
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:44.920
thought that the Earth looked like a
nice, juicy place to settle on,

354
00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:49.680
and you know, it's an interesting
thought. Of course, these planets are

355
00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:52.759
going to be much older than the
planets in the Solar System, so they

356
00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:59.359
might have because the star's older,
So they could have had population of species

357
00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:02.720
on them that's simply out there now
because of already you know, not just

358
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:07.799
climate change, but maybe the drift
of planets planet orbits to move very slowly

359
00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:13.759
over periods of tens to hundreds of
millions of years. So yeah, they

360
00:32:13.799 --> 00:32:19.000
may have already had problems in terms
of the way the Solar System has changed

361
00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:22.640
shape. Okay, all we have
to do is put a sign up saying

362
00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:28.039
we've moved into the Anthroposyne period.
So you know, if you want to

363
00:32:28.039 --> 00:32:35.000
come here, it's up to you. But it's not going to be all

364
00:32:35.119 --> 00:32:38.759
right, so doomed planets. Yeah, nothing to see there. That's another

365
00:32:38.799 --> 00:32:44.720
one we can scratch off the visit
list. You can really that story on

366
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:55.319
the Universe Today website Space Nuts.
Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson puts

367
00:32:55.799 --> 00:33:00.319
Okay, now, Fred, time
to tackle some questions. I've got a

368
00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:05.680
couple of questions and then a really
interesting email that came in from Duncan that

369
00:33:06.519 --> 00:33:09.599
I think you'll enjoy. It's got
a funny story behind it. But firstly

370
00:33:09.799 --> 00:33:16.319
we'll go to a question from Yesh. Hello Andrew and Professor Fred Watson.

371
00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:23.359
My name is Yash and I'm living
in Toronto, Canada, although I'm originally

372
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:29.200
from India. I've been a big
fan of your podcast for a while now,

373
00:33:29.960 --> 00:33:36.039
enjoying every single episode. I have
a question for you. In the

374
00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:42.359
unlikely event that I find myself alive
during the impending collision between our Milky Way

375
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:50.599
and the Andromeda Galaxy, I'm curious
to know what I am actually going to

376
00:33:50.640 --> 00:33:59.039
see at that time. Also,
will the collision be a lightning fast spectacle

377
00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:07.200
or a slow motion celestial dance off? Moreover, is there any possibility of

378
00:34:07.280 --> 00:34:20.360
the or surviving amidst this celestial encounter? Assuming that our planet remains intact so

379
00:34:20.840 --> 00:34:24.239
can't bear to hear the answer,
Thank you, Thanks Yash. Great to

380
00:34:24.320 --> 00:34:28.760
hear from you. I think we've
had a question from Yash before. I

381
00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:31.840
can't it just seems familiar to me, But we have been asked about the

382
00:34:31.880 --> 00:34:38.000
Andromeda collision numerous times. I thought
maybe we should revisit it, because,

383
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:46.639
yeah, there's a there's a few
people wondering what might happen. His middle

384
00:34:46.719 --> 00:34:55.320
questions probably answer the question outright and
yes, look, if you are around

385
00:34:55.800 --> 00:35:00.920
for that event, please let me
know, Hey, you doing it,

386
00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:07.440
because that could be important for all
of humanity. This is not going to

387
00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:15.199
happen for around until week after next
now a bit longer. Yeah, from

388
00:35:15.239 --> 00:35:21.360
three to four billion years, which
think about billion years. So yeah,

389
00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:25.880
so two big galaxies careering towards one
another at high speed a couple of hundred

390
00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:30.199
kilometers per second. If I remember
ADI something like that, maybe three hundred.

391
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:37.960
It's it's an inevitable collision. We
believe we've we had results from GAYA

392
00:35:38.039 --> 00:35:45.039
that tally with the radial losty results
that we've got GAYA measures the accurate positions

393
00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:47.920
of stars are on the sort of
face of the sky, as it were.

394
00:35:47.960 --> 00:35:52.880
The transverse velocities can be deduced from
that. In other words, you

395
00:35:52.920 --> 00:35:57.199
can work out the true velocity of
something not just along the line of sight,

396
00:35:57.280 --> 00:36:00.119
which is what we call a radio
velosty, and it looks as so

397
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:06.400
it's an inevitable collision. It's not
going to miss. So the bottom line

398
00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:12.199
here, Andrew, is that the
scale of things that will happen in this

399
00:36:12.360 --> 00:36:17.639
collision, in terms of the length
of time that's involved, is much much

400
00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:24.159
slower than stuff on human time scales. So over a human lifetime, or

401
00:36:24.199 --> 00:36:29.639
even a lifetime of human history,
which is, you know, maybe a

402
00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:34.880
few thousand years, nothing happens.
Even at the heart of the collision,

403
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:42.639
nothing happens. The bottom line is
the space between the stars is so big

404
00:36:43.199 --> 00:36:47.239
that the stars themselves almost certainly won't
collide. There might be a few instances

405
00:36:47.280 --> 00:36:52.559
where stars are captured into binary orbits, or where one star steals another stars

406
00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:57.679
planets, but they would I think
be quite rare because of the amount of

407
00:36:57.679 --> 00:37:02.920
empty space. What's not empty,
though, is the spiral arms of both

408
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:09.360
these galaxies, which are pretty rich
in hydrogen. And so the thinking is

409
00:37:09.400 --> 00:37:16.360
that as the collision evolves, there
will be gravitational disturbances of this hydrogen,

410
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:22.559
which will cause clouds of hydrogen to
collapse and start forming stars very rapidly,

411
00:37:22.679 --> 00:37:28.480
and high mass stars will live for
a short time and then they'll explode as

412
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:32.679
supernova, so we might see we
might start to see more super and ova

413
00:37:32.760 --> 00:37:38.840
explosions that we do at the moment. So the last super and over explosion

414
00:37:39.159 --> 00:37:43.360
in our own galaxy that we could
see. There are probably others that have

415
00:37:43.400 --> 00:37:45.559
been hidden from us by the dust
in the Milky Way, but the last

416
00:37:45.559 --> 00:37:51.079
one we saw was four hundred years
ago. The last one in a nearby

417
00:37:51.159 --> 00:37:55.320
galaxy was in nineteen eighty seven that
was super and over nineteen eighty seven a

418
00:37:55.800 --> 00:38:04.440
in the large Magelanic Cloud. All
of all of that, uh, you

419
00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:12.639
know, could could produce some differences
to the environment. But my guess is

420
00:38:12.679 --> 00:38:17.519
that you know, in general terms, the Earth would be likely to be

421
00:38:17.679 --> 00:38:22.920
relatively unscathed by this, unless one
of the stars nearby turned into a super

422
00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:28.320
and ova and you know, irradiated
us with sub atomic particles. That's not

423
00:38:28.440 --> 00:38:34.960
impossible. But the the the odds
are that as a as an observer,

424
00:38:35.119 --> 00:38:37.960
it will be very spectacular. At
any given time. You know that this

425
00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:45.159
nearby galaxy and getting closer and closer, you wouldn't we wouldn't see it changing.

426
00:38:45.360 --> 00:38:47.079
On a human timescale, we simply
wouldn't see that. We would just

427
00:38:47.119 --> 00:38:52.639
see a snapshot of the of of
the events. But yes, imagine the

428
00:38:52.679 --> 00:38:58.079
Andromeda galaxy in covering the whole of
the of the southern sky, sorry,

429
00:38:58.119 --> 00:39:01.599
the northern sky. It would be
it would be pretty phenomenal, and it

430
00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:07.199
would cover a lot of the southern
sky as well, so and that would

431
00:39:07.599 --> 00:39:12.760
get more and more spectacular. But
you wouldn't, on a human timescale worry

432
00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:15.159
about it. If you could see
it, you'd say, well, yeah,

433
00:39:15.159 --> 00:39:19.360
that's amazing. Yeah, and maybe
it means we're colliding and maybe things

434
00:39:19.400 --> 00:39:22.039
will get a bit hairy down the
track, but for us, it's not

435
00:39:22.079 --> 00:39:24.280
going to affect us. So it's
certainly not lightning fast, which is what

436
00:39:24.360 --> 00:39:29.519
Yash was saying. It's a long, slow process. And just a final

437
00:39:29.559 --> 00:39:36.119
footnote to this, there are simulations
online you can check and see a video

438
00:39:36.800 --> 00:39:39.440
of what actually happens, what will
happen, And it looks as though,

439
00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:44.400
you know, you know, there'll
be a collision the two the stars of

440
00:39:44.440 --> 00:39:50.679
the two galaxies will pass through one
another and then the spiral arms will start

441
00:39:50.719 --> 00:39:54.079
getting disrupted. It won't be a
neat and tidy spiral galaxy anymore. But

442
00:39:54.119 --> 00:39:59.800
then it rebounds and you've got you
know, the things sort of squashing around

443
00:39:59.840 --> 00:40:02.920
it. They passed through each other
again, maybe two or three more times

444
00:40:02.920 --> 00:40:08.800
before settling down to a galaxy which
will be devoid of hydrogen by then because

445
00:40:09.239 --> 00:40:14.599
the gravitational interaction will use up all
the spare hydrogen, and so all the

446
00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:19.320
stars start popping into supernova. But
at the end of it, of course,

447
00:40:19.360 --> 00:40:22.360
you get a galaxy which we now
call milk What is it? Milk

448
00:40:22.360 --> 00:40:28.840
commeda milk commodot. I love that, all right, thanks Yash. There's

449
00:40:28.840 --> 00:40:31.079
a there's a follow up question.
I just noticed that came in on an

450
00:40:31.159 --> 00:40:38.320
email from Jarra, who wants to
know, in regard to the combination of

451
00:40:38.360 --> 00:40:43.400
the Milky Way and Andromeda, what
happens to their respective black holes? Will

452
00:40:43.440 --> 00:40:47.519
they merge? And he's got a
dad joke final line that says, you'd

453
00:40:47.559 --> 00:40:57.360
think that Jarrah would know, Jara
would Jarrow would know? Good one,

454
00:40:57.880 --> 00:41:02.719
So what happens to the black holes
in the end, they would merge.

455
00:41:02.719 --> 00:41:07.480
I think that's the the general understanding
that they would merge because of that relative

456
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:14.519
gravitational attraction. Okay, so yeah, so well, Jara, it should

457
00:41:14.639 --> 00:41:20.559
know now, Yes, fascinating thing
to look forward to or not. Boom

458
00:41:20.559 --> 00:41:24.639
boom. Okay, thanks Jarah and
thanks to Yes. Let's move on to

459
00:41:24.679 --> 00:41:30.599
a question from Buddy. I threw
this one in because I thought that's an

460
00:41:30.599 --> 00:41:35.000
interesting question because it creates a question
in my mind which I will ask after

461
00:41:35.039 --> 00:41:43.440
we hear from Buddy orient again.
Okay, here here's my part of the

462
00:41:43.519 --> 00:41:47.280
day. If nothing about hockey radiation
is supposed to speak more black hole?

463
00:41:49.119 --> 00:41:54.760
How does gravity eskie? Thanks guys, Love Michelle. Yeah, that's an

464
00:41:54.800 --> 00:42:00.840
interesting It's an interesting thought because we
talk about grab in black holes a lot,

465
00:42:04.039 --> 00:42:08.880
and my question after listening to Buddy
is does gravity actually escape from a

466
00:42:08.920 --> 00:42:19.360
black hole? That's it's a well
thought question actually, and I think the

467
00:42:19.400 --> 00:42:24.119
way Buddy is thinking is running is
that gravity is one of the four fundamental

468
00:42:24.159 --> 00:42:30.880
forces that operate the universe. It's
by far the weakest. It's clearly different

469
00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:37.119
from the other three, which are
electromodetic, radiation in the strong and weak

470
00:42:37.199 --> 00:42:45.320
nuclear forces. So the fourth fundamental
force gravity. Some people have thought that

471
00:42:45.400 --> 00:42:51.199
there must be a quantum version of
gravity, where gravity is spread by gravitons,

472
00:42:51.280 --> 00:42:57.199
and so gravitons will be sub atomic
particles, and you're right, sub

473
00:42:57.199 --> 00:43:01.920
atomic particles don't escape from black holes
then, not if they're photons. And

474
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:07.519
so it's a very good question.
And I think what it because clearly gravity

475
00:43:07.559 --> 00:43:13.719
does it escape from black holes.
But what it I think what it underlines

476
00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:19.960
is that when it comes to gravity, it's a force field. And normally

477
00:43:20.199 --> 00:43:24.039
with a force field you associated some
atomic particle with it, But the graviton

478
00:43:24.119 --> 00:43:28.920
has never been discovered. We know
it's a force field because we know it

479
00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:32.519
works. It's we're all sitting in
that force field now as we sit or

480
00:43:32.519 --> 00:43:38.480
stand on the surface of Earth.
But if there are such things as gravitons,

481
00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:44.320
they clearly can escape the clutches of
a black hole. And so that's

482
00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:46.639
a you know, it's an interesting
question, buddy, And I'll try and

483
00:43:46.679 --> 00:43:50.239
read up a bit more on that, because I think it is quite intriguing,

484
00:43:50.320 --> 00:43:54.559
quite an intriguing idea. Yeah,
it is probably start another aval anche

485
00:43:54.599 --> 00:44:00.760
of black hole questions. You know, why not we'd been able to escape

486
00:44:00.800 --> 00:44:06.719
them for a whole week. Nothing
escapes a black colle We'll always be talking

487
00:44:06.719 --> 00:44:09.800
about black Yes, that's very true, very true, Thank you, buddy.

488
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:15.000
We will do some homework on that
one for you and we'll see how

489
00:44:15.039 --> 00:44:19.480
we go. Duncan has sent us
in a text. This is a bit

490
00:44:19.519 --> 00:44:22.760
wordy, but it's worth it because
there's a great story here. William Rudd

491
00:44:22.760 --> 00:44:28.039
was a mechanic servicing the backup generators
at Tidbinbilla during the Apollo program. He

492
00:44:28.119 --> 00:44:31.480
was also a member of the local
Highland band and a skilled piper, and

493
00:44:31.519 --> 00:44:36.599
he would often take his bagpipes to
work and practice when it was quiet.

494
00:44:36.760 --> 00:44:40.719
One particular shift, while NASA's astronauts
were busy on the Moon, Tidbinbilla was

495
00:44:40.719 --> 00:44:45.079
the station relaying the signal from Houston
to the Moon. The story. The

496
00:44:45.159 --> 00:44:50.719
story goes that the phone line between
the control room at tidbin Biller and the

497
00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:55.480
generator room was open, unbeknownst to
mister Rudd. While merely practicing the pipes,

498
00:44:55.920 --> 00:45:00.360
William was told, in no uncertain
terms, they can he you on

499
00:45:00.440 --> 00:45:06.000
the moon. It sounds improbable.
It sounds improbable. They probably could without

500
00:45:06.039 --> 00:45:09.559
having a radio. It sounds improbable. And the people of Tidbinbilla said it

501
00:45:09.639 --> 00:45:15.320
didn't happen, But the people of
Parks were not quite so sure. So

502
00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:19.079
I have a theory. In those
days, there would have been a manual

503
00:45:19.159 --> 00:45:22.719
patch board at Tidbinbilla with all its
plugs and cables leading in and out of

504
00:45:22.760 --> 00:45:28.840
the facility. I imagine the internal
communications were also patched via the same board.

505
00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:35.639
The feed to and from Houston was
via the intel Stat satellite, But

506
00:45:36.719 --> 00:45:39.760
did it go through the manual patch
board to Tidbinbiller control room, And if

507
00:45:39.800 --> 00:45:45.119
it did, was the internal telephone
system at Tidbinbilla also set up via the

508
00:45:45.159 --> 00:45:50.400
same board. Could it be possible
that the distant and eerie sound of Williams

509
00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:55.320
pipes was heard on the mood?
That great question. I love those little

510
00:45:55.360 --> 00:46:02.119
pieces of folklore. If you like
it's good. Yeah, well, you

511
00:46:02.159 --> 00:46:07.920
know, anything's possible. It's the
answer to the question. I have heard

512
00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:10.320
this story before, have you not? In quite as much detail? Yes?

513
00:46:10.360 --> 00:46:17.559
I have yet bagpipes on the moon. It's so I can't remember who

514
00:46:17.599 --> 00:46:24.800
told me. I do know,
you know, passing acquaintance. Some of

515
00:46:24.840 --> 00:46:29.119
the people who worked at Timberbilla during
the Apollo era, one in particular,

516
00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:32.719
who came from the same part of
Britain as I do. In fact,

517
00:46:32.960 --> 00:46:38.159
we used to get the same bus
to school. His name is mister Dinner.

518
00:46:38.159 --> 00:46:40.199
I can't remember his first name.
That's terrible. Anyway, we used

519
00:46:40.239 --> 00:46:44.559
to get the same bus to school, but ten years apart, so because

520
00:46:44.559 --> 00:46:51.199
he's older than me. Right so, but it's yeah, So there's lots

521
00:46:51.239 --> 00:46:55.599
and lots of stories. I I
don't know the you know, the veracity

522
00:46:55.639 --> 00:47:02.639
of it. I my probably my
best contact is actually John Sarkissian, who

523
00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:09.440
is a long term member of staff
at Parks, very very prominent amateur astronomer

524
00:47:09.480 --> 00:47:19.679
as well as a professional radio telescope
engineer and support astronomer. And he's written

525
00:47:19.719 --> 00:47:22.559
extensively on the Apollo era work of
Parks and timber Miller. So you might

526
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:25.800
know a little bit about it.
Next time I see him, I'll ask

527
00:47:25.880 --> 00:47:30.719
him about it. What about the
bagpipes, John, Yeah, well,

528
00:47:30.840 --> 00:47:35.480
yes, that's right, the bagpipes
on the moon. It's a great story.

529
00:47:35.519 --> 00:47:38.480
I hope it's true, just like
I hope the mister Gorsky story is

530
00:47:38.519 --> 00:47:45.480
true. Yes, right, the
famous words that Daniel Armstrong was supposed to

531
00:47:45.559 --> 00:47:49.320
have said when he set foot on
the mood good luck, mister Gorsky.

532
00:47:49.880 --> 00:47:52.760
I'm not going to tell you why
I said it. In fact, it's

533
00:47:52.800 --> 00:47:57.079
been proven that he didn't but it's
such a great story. I wish it

534
00:47:57.159 --> 00:48:01.599
was true. Yes, but we're
not going there. It's too dangerous.

535
00:48:02.440 --> 00:48:06.840
We put out the pasture. If
we hopefully say that, I think our

536
00:48:06.880 --> 00:48:10.159
listeners can find you, if some
will know to someone know, there's plenty

537
00:48:10.199 --> 00:48:15.360
there's plenty of evidence online about that
one. All right, thanks Duncan.

538
00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:20.519
That's great. That's worth investigating for
sure. I don't forget. If you

539
00:48:20.519 --> 00:48:22.719
want to send us an email,
or you would like to send us a

540
00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:27.519
voice message, you can do that
on our website spacenuts podcast dot com or

541
00:48:27.559 --> 00:48:30.960
spacenuts dot dot io. There's an
Ama tab at the top where you can

542
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:35.239
send us emails and voice messages,
or the button on the right hand side,

543
00:48:35.239 --> 00:48:37.599
that little purple one. And have
a look around while you're there,

544
00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:43.400
to the various pages we offer Astronomy
Daily, et cetera. It's worth a

545
00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:47.199
look. I don't forget the shop. Christmas is coming up. Yeah,

546
00:48:47.320 --> 00:48:52.039
that's all I can say. Really, why would you give something from space

547
00:48:52.119 --> 00:48:54.440
Nuts to somebody and smile while you're
doing it? That's what I want't know.

548
00:48:59.119 --> 00:49:04.400
Gosh, no more to say.
That's they're good Christmas present, they

549
00:49:04.519 --> 00:49:07.039
are well. I love them.
You could, you could buy a book

550
00:49:07.079 --> 00:49:13.440
and use that to put your coffee
on or something. Yeah, all right,

551
00:49:14.159 --> 00:49:17.039
Fred, thank you so much.
We're done for another day. That's

552
00:49:17.079 --> 00:49:21.119
great. We made it through another
day and we will look forward to other

553
00:49:21.199 --> 00:49:23.000
days in the future. Thanks again, Undrew to take care. Okay,

554
00:49:23.039 --> 00:49:28.280
you too. Fred Watson, astronomer
at large part of the team here at

555
00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:34.119
Space Nuts. And thanks to here
in the studio for and that's it from

556
00:49:34.119 --> 00:49:37.320
me. Thanks for your company.
We'll catch on the very next episode of

557
00:49:37.400 --> 00:49:45.159
Space Nuts. Bye bye. You'll
be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available

558
00:49:45.159 --> 00:49:51.000
at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,
Spotify, iHeart Radio, or your favorite

559
00:49:51.079 --> 00:49:54.559
podcast player. You can also stream
on demand at bides dot com. This

560
00:49:54.639 --> 00:50:00.119
has been another quality podcast production from
nights dot com.