The Sahara Mystery: Unearthing the Origins of a Remarkable Meteorite | #362

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Hi there, Andrew Dunkley here,
and thanks for joining us on another edition

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of Space Nuts. Lots to come
today, we'll be talking about a meteorite

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that was discovered, not recently,
they've known about it for a few years,

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but they've made a discovery in regard
to this one. It was found

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in the Sahara Desert, so we'll
tell you all about that. It's got

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quite a fascinating backstory, and we
talked about it recently a courtesy of an

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audience question that of whether or not
dark dark matter stars might exist or now

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the James wed Space Telescope is suggesting
that there is one out there, maybe

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more than one, but we'll be
talking about that potentially three and we've got

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audience questions, a couple of left
field questions from Scott, Mikey and Graham

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will tackle all of that today on
this edition of Space Nuts nine Agnia think

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Space Nuts three two Space Nuts and
actually bought it deals good and joining us

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to go on and on and on
and on and on about all of that

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is a professor we know and love
so well, Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer

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of Bar Hello, Fred, nice
to talk to you again, Andrew,

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And yeah, I think we both
can go on and we really respect if

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things. I've been doing it for
a living for forty years. That's going

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on and on and on about little
stuff. Yeah, um now we yeh

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by the way, yeah all well
in your world, yes, thank you.

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Yes. We were down last week
at Perula in West sorry in South

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Australia, which is right at the
northern end of the Flinders Rangers, and

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we were there because they have just
been declared a Dark Sky Sanctuary. A

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bit of a celebration that we were
involved with, but it was very nice

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to visit. It's an extraordinary place
geologically. It was widely prospected after the

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Second World War for uranium. There
is uranium that there is indeed a uranium

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mind there, but there's but it's
a natural environment that is highly unspoiled,

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apart from the road lead to the
uranium prospecting sites which let you actually access

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some of the most extraordinary scene.
Really, I think he's in Australia.

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Remarkable. It's really good that you
and money can bring darkness to the world.

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So tell mission, that's right.
Mardi styles herself because she is the

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princess of darkness. She styles herself
a lady of the night. Well that

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might seem mean something else. Yeah, yeah, well but she's not that.

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She says that I'm by a lady
of the night. She says it

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always goes down well into it.
Yeah, I can imagine. Oh that's

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terrific. So that'll be making a
lot of astronomers very happy. Yeah.

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All right, Well let's get on
to our first topic. And this is

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as you've mentioned, well, as
we mentioned at the start, about a

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meteorite. This first story, this
is a meteorite that they found in the

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Sahara Desert well a little while back, but they've been able to study it.

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And what's fascinating fascinating about it is
that it's an Earth rock. So

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how can it be a meteorite?
Well, that therein lies the question,

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Fred, that looks like it is
the case, and it's it's a first

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of its kind. Fine, by
the sound of it, it's certainly the

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first that has had this idea that
it might have come from Earth tanked onto

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it. And it's still I suspect
it's still scientifically a debatable issue still whether

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it did come from Earth, but
the evidence seems to point that way.

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So what we're talking about is a
meteorite. All the meteorites have names.

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This one is called Northwest one three
one eight eight, very glamorous name,

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and it's I think actually it might
be in a private collection. I'm not

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sure, but it's been analyzed by
geologists as you would because people, you

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know, people who think they've got
a meteorite usually want to go to a

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geologist to check whether it really is
a meteorite. Yeah, because some of

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them are just stones, you know, they're not people say, oh,

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I've got a meteorite here, but
yeah, well it's just a rock.

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It's very hard actually to identify them. Anyway. This one has been identified.

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It meets all the all the characteristics
of of the meteorite. It has

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been clearly been heated on its outer
surface, assumably by its passage through the

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atmosphere. But it's m geophysicists in
the French National Center for Scientific Research they

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are basically investigating this. And what
has led to the idea that it might

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be the first known boomerang meteorite is
it's it's composition is very very closely matching

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the composition of rocks in the Earth, and it's it's what we call isotopes,

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the sort of exact atomic structure of
the atoms, that the isotope,

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that the isotopes match what we find
on Earth, and there is there is

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some really interesting what you might call
nwanswers to this, because yes, those

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isotopes are matching, but some of
them are their ratios. The isotope ratios

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have changed a little bit, and
so what the the citists are suggesting is

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that that change has been due to
the fact that this rock has been in

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orbit around the Earth and has been
bombarded by cosmic rays. Because cosmic rays

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are subatomic particles. They they're they're
in space, hence the name. We

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actually don't know the origin of some
cosmic rays. A lot of them probably

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come from star explosions, but there's
a sort of high enage background that has

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still I think, as people are
scratching their heads, some of them are

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from Russia. I'm very aware of
a cosmonaut named Ray. Should save that

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for the dad jokes that we do
on Tiktoey. Maybe I should. What

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do you call a Russia about?
Yeah? Never mites. Anyway, there's

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a suggestion that the isotope ratios have
changed because of their bombardment by cosmic rays

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and the amount of change leads these
scientists to believe that they've been bombarded by

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cosmic rays for at least two thousand
a year, two thousand years, and

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possibly more like ten thousand years.
And so what that is suggesting that this

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rock somehow came from Earth ten thousand
years ago. Now, the candidates for

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an event on the Earth surface that
would send a rock into orbit, which

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would orbit for a while and then
eventually come come back again. The candidates

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are, first of all, the
volcanic iroction, and we've had a very

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big one quite recently, the Hunger
Tong Hunger Pie volcano in Tonga. Was

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it two years ago? Now it's
a while. Yeah, I was getting

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on. Yeah, that actually hurled
rocks, but not into orbit. Apparently

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the debris that was emitted by that
blast peaked at around fifty eight kilometers thirty

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six miles, and that's not high
enough to get into orbit. You'd need

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to propel it higher and actually give
it a sort of horizontal velocity of some

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sort of swell for it to stain
in orbit. Yeah, so these rocks

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went high into the atmosphere, but
weren't high enough to actually become an Earth

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an earth bound or an Earth rock
that is suddenly in orbit. So the

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other catastrophic or high energy event that
they postulate, and they think this is

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the likely one, is an asteroid
impact. Excuse me, because an asteroid

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impact generates huge amounts of energy and
can send rocks very high. In fact,

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it can put rocks into orbit.
And we think that's why here on

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Earth we see meteorites from the planet
Mars. There are some meteorites which are

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called Martian meteorites, which we know
have come from Mars, and we know

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that because of the traces of gas
that entrapped in them, which match Mars's

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atmosphere exactly. So I think that
about three hundred Martian meteorites known now they

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classified into different different types. So
it looks as though what we might have

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is a scenario where something hits the
Earth ten thousand years ago or thereabouts,

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maybe a little bit before that propels
debris into space, some of it stays

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in orbits that that orbit gradually decays
as orbits do, and eventually this bit

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of rock comes back through the other
atmosphere, gets heated again by its passes

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through the atmosphere, and turns up
as a meteorite in Northwest Africa, in

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fact in the Sahara Sara Desert where
it was found. So yeah, a

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really interesting story. I suspect that
there still it's still you know, a

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likely candidate for debate this tale.
But the the person, you know,

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the person who leading this study is
clearly quite convinced that that's where it came

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from. And how long ago are
we thinking? Roughly ten thousand years so

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um, it's it's it's you know, we don't actually know where the impact

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that that the crater was. I
think one of the one of the things

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that this team in France have looked
at is to try and find an impact

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crater that might actually fit the bill
for that. But excuse me, these

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are these are you know, the
ten thousand years ago is quite young and

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if it would that they reckon,
it would form a crater probably something like

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you know, twenty kilometers wide or
something of that sort. Yeah, we

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have to be a massive impact to
cause that amount of volofty it would,

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that's right exactly. And you know, most most of the craters that fit

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the bill on that millions of years
old rather than thousands. So there is

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a there is a problem here,
I think. Yeah, it sounds like

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it. Yeah, but it's still
a really interesting idea, and it's still

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you know, even if even if
it doesn't come from Earth, it's remarkable

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that it's it's It's structure and composition
match Earth's rocks very well. Either way,

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it's a fascinating story. And I
believe if it is, though,

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an Earth's rock that's been added into
space and then landed back on the Sahara

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Desert, that that's a first.
I mean, it's probably not the first,

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but it's the first one we've found. Yeah, haven't they also found

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Earth rocks on the Moon? Did
we cover that? They found moon rocks

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on Earth? Moon rocks? I
found something on the Moon. They might

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that. Not sure about that?
Not sure about that that there's certainly moon

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rocks on Earth, like like the
ones we get from Mars. They're created

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by impact crass or impact events.
Um yeah, now hang on there.

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It is nine seventy one the Apollo
astronauts found a chunk of Earth that they

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dug up on the Moon. Anyway, all right, I saw I'd heard

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about that somewhere. That's that's well
done. Yeah, thank you, that's

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a really interesting one. Maybe who
knows, maybe you've made a link there,

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then these two things might come from
the same event, that's it.

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Oh yeah, yeah, that could
be interesting. Yeah, yes, probably

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follow up on that because I didn't. Yeah, I'd forgotten that I'd forgotten.

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Yeah wow, okay, So which
apollo did I say it was?

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Well, it's just nute seventy one, it's probably it would be fifteen.

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Yeah, now that the fifty sixteen
sixteen was sort of ten, that's to

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anyway, just mother. But now
it's definitely something worth pursuing. And I'm

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sure they're doing more and more examination
of this particular meter right to see if

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they can figure it all out.
But fascinating story the Boomerang asteroid, and

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yeah, if you want to read
up on it, it's on the space

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dot com website. Fred. We've
got a live studio audience, Brookie viewing

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us today through various outlets Facebook,
YouTube, and Rumble. One of them

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is one of our regular listeners,
Misty West, who's sent us a terrible

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dad joke these Misty, I thought
we were bad. This is plain terrible.

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I thought about putting it observatory in
my house, but the cost was

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astronomical. Oh, with that,
we'll take a breath. You're listening to

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the space and Nuts whether Andrew Duntley
and Professor Fred Watson space puts now once

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again. The James Webb Space Telescope
is in the news. It's been sort

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of looking around going oh, what's
that and that's how it sounds, by

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the way, and it has found
something that we did discuss recently thanks to

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an audience question about whether or not
there could be dark matter stars, and

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we kind of debated it and thought, well, you know, how could

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it be a star if it's dark
matter. Well, the James Webb Space

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Telescope might have discovered not one,
not two, but three of these weird

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things. Yes, that's right,
And we'd have to preface this by noticing

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that this is entirely hypothetical. Yes, but the idea is that if you

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have particularly this might occur in the
early universe where the density of dark matter

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it's probably higher than it is now. If you if you have a star,

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that he's formed by the collapse of
a cloud of gas and dark matter,

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And that's how we know that stars
are formed that way. Normally,

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it's the dark matter that that sort
of concentrates the gas itself. That's how

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galaxies start. So you've got this
web of dark matter that there's left over

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from the Big Bang itself that has
gravitational pool which attracts the hydrogen. Hydrogen

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comes together, clumps together. I'm
doing all this with my hands. Yeah,

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I can say that little listeners clumps
together. People with very good hearing

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would be able to hear you doing
that. Yeah, they would have to

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have very good hearing indeed. Anyways, So and that clumps together and eventually

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collapses into a cloud, a highly
dense cloud under its own gravity. The

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pressure goes up, temperature goes up, it goes up high enough that you

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can trigger nuclear fusion, and then
you've got a start. So, but

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what the hypothesis for dark stars is
is something that's a bit different. If

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you imagine a mixture of the hydrogen
and the dark matter and it's being it's

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collapsing to form a star, your
hope. But what happens is that as

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the dark matter is compressed, there
is a hypothesis that dark matter particles can

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self annihilate, so that they come
together and they just disappear and produce you

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know, electromagnetic radiation. But like
you get antimatter and matter. Yeah,

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and so what they're saying is if
that happens, if you've got this mixture

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of gas and dark matter that collapses
and it sort of wants to be a

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star, but the dark matter itself, just by it self annihilation, is

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creating energy, so it's producing light
and heat, and that stops the hydrogen

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itself becoming a normal star. So
what you've got is this star that's that's

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in a way kind of frothy.
It's it's being prevented from collapsing into a

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normal start by the amount of energy
that the annihilating dark matter is producing,

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and so it doesn't become a normal
star. So the suggestion is that it

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does become a start, but it's
gigantic. And one of the numbers that's

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being banded around is that a dark
star could be ten times the diameter of

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the earth sorbit around the Sun.
So that's what's that. That's three three

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hundred, three hundred million kilometers is
the diameter of the Earth orbit around the

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Sun. So if you multiply that
by ten, you've got three billion kilometers,

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which is a very very big star
in the end. Well, that's

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right, and in fact, that
is the that's why these scientists who have

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been using that are looking at a
survey produced by the JIBS web space telescope.

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Why they're excited by it because they
they are they're going to be big,

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and they're going to be bright.
They actually could be a lot brighter

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just because of the size of them, and you know the fact that there's

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still energy being being created. So
what the scientists in question have done,

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and I haven't said where they are, but I think I'm right in saying

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this is at the University of Texas
at Austin in the US. So these

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are scientists who have looked through James
Webb space telescope data something called the Advanced

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Deep Extra Galactic Survey, which is
I think publicly available probably, and what

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they've looked for is objects that are
very compact but have the signature, the

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spectral signature of being a long way
away. In other words, they're highly

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red shifted. And so they found
three candidates for that. It's really really

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interesting. What you've got to do
here, I think, is is work

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out a way that you can differentiate
between one of these dark scar that dark

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scar dark stars which are very large, and a compact galaxy. Because a

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compact galaxy might also look like this
at the distance that the James Webb telescope

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is looking at. But they think
they're seeing in the spectrum of these things

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evidence that they're not galaxies that they
seeing, that they're looking at dark stars,

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and they would be the first candidates
for such an object if it can

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be proven. And this clearly is
going to generate much more research. What

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you've got is something that might give
us a few more hints as to what

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dark matter is. Yes, and
you know that's always a good thing at

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the moment, and the idea is
a good one, and your ideas on

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the postcard, please, Yeah,
it's it's it's the dark matter is an

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elusive material. It would be fantastic
to be able to shine some light on

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it, if I can put it
that way, by means of these dark

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stars. I think the only thing
that bothers me about this is that dark

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matter doesn't interact directly with matter as
we know it. And yet if there

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are dark stars that are in existence, you've got a correlation between dark matter

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and real matter and ones disturbing the
other. So how can that be Because

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the only way that dark matter does
interact with normal matter is gravitationally. Yeah,

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it's the one thing nothing else,
you know, it doesn't sort of

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talk to normal atoms, can't shake
hands. They can't shake hands, they

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can't the dark matter can't block the
light of brighter things behind it because it

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doesn't interact with electromagnetic radiation. But
the only thing it does do is generates

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gravity, and gravity, of course, is common to both both dark matter

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and normal matter. And so that's
that's the idea that you've got a gravitational

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collapse of a mixture of these two
things, real matter and dark matter at

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a very high density. And that's
that's the critical thing about this. They

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collapse to a high density so that
you get some shining of the stars,

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but also shining of the dark matter
itself because of the annihilation. It's a

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really interesting story and one that I
think could have ramifications. I think we

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should follow this one as it evolves. Oh, I suppose the fact that

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they've found more than one makes it
even more fascinating because a lot of the

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time we can say, all right, we've found one thing that is a

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planet called Earth that has life,
but we've never found another one, so

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we can't say definitively that life exists
beyond that one example. But here we've

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got three actual candidates. Yeah,
that's right, So so really quite remarkable.

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I mean they you know, again, there's still the possibility they might

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turn out to be highly compact galaxies. But nevertheless, nevertheless, I think

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it's a very intriguing story. It
sure is. We'll keep an eye on

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that one, and I dare say
it's going to spawn a whole bunch of

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audience questions. But it just seems
to be the topic at the moment.

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Dark matter, black holes, dogs
and cats living together. People really want

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to know about that stuff. We've
got that too, No, Yeah,

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revenue. They're nearly talking to each
other as well, I like dark Muster

256
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and real latter. Yeah, but
they're not touching each other. Well,

257
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they did accidentally this morning. The
cut. The cut still takes a very

258
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dim view of the dog, but
us that's usually how it goes, Fred,

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Yeah, that's just that's just normal
Earth life. Yeah, and so

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maybe dark Utter takes a dim view
of real Nutter who knows it? Yeah,

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highly likely, finally likely. All
right, this is Space Nuts Andrew

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Dunkle here with Professor Fred Watson.
Space puts as would you we're shuffling along

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rather quickly today. We've got to
slow down. But we've got a few

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questions. I'm going to hit you
with the first one because it does dovetail

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with that dark star theory. This
comes from Scott. You're a frid and

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Andrew. Scott couldn't here from christ
Church in ZID. I have so many

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questions, but I'll start these two. Could the reason dark matter doesn't interact

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with light or build structures is that
it hasn't gone through the Higgs field.

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Maybe there wasn't enough Higgs to go
around. Thoughts on that, mate,

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Also, what do you think about
afterlife time? It took fourteen billion years

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for this life, but felt like
just now, when we're gone, it

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could take trillions of years, but
we wouldn't notice it until the next life.

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Even then we could end up in
a fourteen billion year structure. I

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could go on and on, but
just your quick thoughts on an afterlife or

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time when we don't exist? How
fast it travels? Thanks friend and injury.

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Wow, that's deep. It's very
deep, very tide. Thanks got

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I hope you're well now. Guess
first up the dark matter of Higgs field

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00:24:48.799 --> 00:24:56.440
scenario. Yeah, It's a really
interesting question, and I guess we would

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assume that dark matter is affected or
influenced by the Higgs field. So the

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Higgs field is it's like all things
in you know, this sort of sub

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atomic physics. You can imagine it
as a particle or a field, like

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a force field. And the Higgs
field is the elements, which is represented

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by the Higgs boson, which as
we know, was fouled in twenty twelve

284
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by at the Large hundred collider called
god particle. Yeah, it was not

285
00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:37.720
a good name, but it was
probably. So the Higgs field basically is

286
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what gives other particles their mass.
And we do know that dark matter particles

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have mass because they have gravitational attraction, and so one would assume that they

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interact with the Higgs field in the
same way that normal matter particles do.

289
00:26:00.119 --> 00:26:04.240
But it, like so many things
about that master, this is something that

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may still prove to be wrong.
It might, you know, might not

291
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be a certainty. But my assumption
will be that, yes, start matter

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is bound by the effect of the
Higgs boson, the Higgs field in just

293
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the same way as normal matter is, just because it basically has grovitational attraction.

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It has mats. Okay, that
was simple, well easier than the

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00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:30.599
next bit though, yes, after
lifetime. Now I've got to confess,

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00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:33.640
Scott, I'm not quite sure where
you're coming from here, but i's Alfred

297
00:26:33.720 --> 00:26:38.599
nodding, well, so I must. Yes, I'm kind of reading between

298
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:42.920
the lads here as well from Scott. But I wonder if so. Scott's

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00:26:44.039 --> 00:26:48.880
point is that it's taken us thy
point eight for the billion years for us

300
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:53.400
to evolve, if you include the
period when you know the element elements were

301
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:59.279
being made by nuclear synthesis within within
stars and all of that stuff. So

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00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:06.039
us he is saying, Okay,
we've got a planet full of sentient beings,

303
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conscious beings who can understand what time
is, and we can look back

304
00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:17.119
fourteen thirty point eight billion years and
sort of see the history of the universe

305
00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:22.400
and understand how we got here.
So I think what he's saying is,

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if we disappear as a species and
there's no other sentient beings in the universe,

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which is possible and a bit spooky, the next time you know,

308
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organisms like us evolve, will they
notice that the universe you know that might

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00:27:45.599 --> 00:27:51.720
be trillions of years down the track, will they notice that. And I

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think the way I'm understanding this question
is it goes to some other issues which

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are about some people. People have
argued that unless you've got consciousness, the

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00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:10.000
universe isn't real, you know,
so that it's it's like that argument about

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00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:17.359
the trees fall down in forests when
nobody's looking, that sort of thing.

314
00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:19.759
If a tree falls in the forest
and nobody's around, can you still hear

315
00:28:19.839 --> 00:28:23.319
it and kind of thing, Yes, yeah, that's right, so you

316
00:28:23.599 --> 00:28:29.599
know it's it's them, And it
goes into it goes back to quantum theory,

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00:28:29.680 --> 00:28:33.200
where particles can exist in superposition.
You know, we know that things

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can be in many places at the
same time and different states altogether until you

319
00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:42.359
look at them, and it's the
act of looking at them or basically making

320
00:28:42.440 --> 00:28:45.960
them interact with the outside world,
which is really what he's saying. But

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00:28:47.079 --> 00:28:53.559
it's that that that causes that quantum
superposition to be broken and you can you

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00:28:53.640 --> 00:28:57.599
can see things in one place rather
than many places at once. So I

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00:28:57.960 --> 00:29:03.839
think part of this idea is,
Okay, if there's nobody here to see

324
00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:07.960
the universe, does it really exist? So there's the clock still ticking?

325
00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:12.640
Or do we you know there's the
next sentient. Sentient beings that emerge still

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00:29:12.680 --> 00:29:18.359
only see thirty point eight billion years
in the past because they don't know about

327
00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:22.839
the trillion years that's elapsed since we
were there. Yeah, a really really

328
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:26.960
interesting crush, fascinating and deep discussion, and you could go on for hours,

329
00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:32.079
and it sort of reminds me of
a discussion we had some time ago

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00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:37.559
about a theory that was put forward
that our existence is basically because of our

331
00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:41.880
consciousness. Yes, that is,
you know, we only exist because we've

332
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:49.319
created this scenario, if we can
call it that, And that's just too

333
00:29:49.599 --> 00:29:53.559
mind blood weird. But it's years
sound, isn't it. Yeah. But

334
00:29:53.640 --> 00:29:56.880
the other thing I thought was,
Okay, you know, we know the

335
00:29:56.200 --> 00:30:00.720
universe is thirteen point eight billion years
old, and if we've vani and you

336
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:04.839
know, it all happens again,
will they who become whatever they become and

337
00:30:07.400 --> 00:30:11.599
twinkle of time ahead of us know
anything about the fact that we existed or

338
00:30:12.240 --> 00:30:15.880
has it happened before? Yeah,
that's right. They might not know that.

339
00:30:17.279 --> 00:30:19.160
They wouldn't know that the universe was
older though, that just by I

340
00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:23.000
suppose, because you can you can
looking at the red shift and things like

341
00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:26.039
that. You can get the age
of the univer Yeah. So it did

342
00:30:26.079 --> 00:30:32.640
prompt another question in my mind.
When the Big Bang happened, did we

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in some form already exist, whether
it was molecular or whatever, we had

344
00:30:37.319 --> 00:30:41.119
to be around at the beginning.
Didn't we to be created or did we

345
00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:45.920
get created by a consequence of the
reactions that occurred thereafter? Yeah, so

346
00:30:47.079 --> 00:30:49.640
all the all the bits that well, yeah, in fact, no,

347
00:30:49.799 --> 00:30:56.920
you you're rice in the sense that
Okay, so we are mostly H two.

348
00:30:57.440 --> 00:31:02.480
So two thirds of what we're made
of is hydrogen, and most of

349
00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:06.680
that came from the Big Bang.
So your points is well laid that we

350
00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:12.279
are big bangers. We we've we've
basically got to atoms in our bodies that

351
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:18.079
were created a gazillion of the second
after the Big Bank, because you know,

352
00:31:18.200 --> 00:31:22.319
the Big Bang itself, the energies
were too high for for protons and

353
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:27.480
things to fall, but soon afterwards
they did. Yeah, um, well

354
00:31:27.599 --> 00:31:32.200
most of it. It's H two. A couple of my mate of coh

355
00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:41.960
that down, you know, helpit
the all right, take your Scott,

356
00:31:42.079 --> 00:31:45.960
you've I think you've opened up a
can of worms. We're going to get

357
00:31:45.960 --> 00:31:48.480
a lot of people on this,
probably on social media having a bit of

358
00:31:48.519 --> 00:31:53.480
a chat about it, because I've
noticed with social media that the element that

359
00:31:53.559 --> 00:31:57.920
the theory of time is often debated. Some people say, look, we

360
00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:01.240
only made it up. Humans created
time. There is this such thing,

361
00:32:01.880 --> 00:32:06.640
so it just goes on and on
and on. Thanks Scott. Let's move

362
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:13.079
on to the next question from Mikey, who's been a semi regular ass.

363
00:32:14.319 --> 00:32:17.279
Hey friend and Andrew. It's Mikey
from Illinois with another asteroid question for you

364
00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:22.839
guys. Last time we had talked
about you, guys, had answered a

365
00:32:22.920 --> 00:32:25.880
question about I would love to talk
to you guys, but we did not

366
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:32.200
talk in person. A question about
nuclear bombs and asteroids, and it got

367
00:32:32.240 --> 00:32:38.680
me thinking, if we did send
a bomb to redirect an asteroid on Earth,

368
00:32:38.799 --> 00:32:45.200
Ellie, the shockwave, I assume
be what would redirect or you know,

369
00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:52.480
cause damage to something here or in
space. There's no air, so

370
00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:59.680
what I guess I'm asking what is
before that pushes the asteroid and send it

371
00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:07.359
in an other direction if not air
being pushed. I hope that makes sense,

372
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:10.440
guys, and thanks for everything now. Worries Mikey. I think with

373
00:33:10.599 --> 00:33:15.519
the Dark Test it was kinetic energy, wasn't it. That Yes, that's

374
00:33:15.599 --> 00:33:22.319
right, Yeah, it was absolutely
But Mike is right actually because when we

375
00:33:22.519 --> 00:33:31.160
talked about asteroid that the idea from
observations that something like half of asteroids might

376
00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:37.440
be rubble piles. Don't really remember
that conversation. Yeah, And it turns

377
00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:42.400
out the Emirates, Yeah, it
turns out that they are more robust than

378
00:33:42.559 --> 00:33:49.680
solid asteroids. And so the the
thinking was, and I think we talked

379
00:33:49.720 --> 00:33:53.039
about the idea that if you let
detonated a nuclear bomb next to one of

380
00:33:53.119 --> 00:34:00.319
those, there might be more resistant
to being blown apart by the shock wave.

381
00:34:01.079 --> 00:34:07.119
But Mike is absolutely right. There's
a vacuum in space. It's it's

382
00:34:07.280 --> 00:34:15.840
it's not quite a vacuum. It's
an it it could be. Yeah,

383
00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:21.760
I think today we're on a road, but I think dysons are rather more

384
00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:29.719
than a vacuum there. You can
mop them with pops and all sorts of

385
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:36.920
fantastic. Anyway, notwithstanding all that, we do get shock waves in space

386
00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:43.760
because we see them all the time
in gravitational waves, no real shock waves

387
00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:47.920
through the interstellar medium. In fact, you know, in a way we

388
00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:52.960
think that's why what trigger star formation
is density waves, which should kind of

389
00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:59.199
shock wave they're a wave passing through
this rarefied gas in galaxies, But when

390
00:34:59.280 --> 00:35:05.760
it comes to an nuclear detonation,
I suspect the medium might still be the

391
00:35:06.199 --> 00:35:09.920
very low density residual gas that there
is in the Solar system. But I

392
00:35:10.440 --> 00:35:15.679
really should look more at this because
it could just be the blast of material

393
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:22.440
that is being expelled by the nuclear
weapon itself, the fact that it's you

394
00:35:22.559 --> 00:35:29.280
know, there's there's a blast of
material, and the radiation itself, because

395
00:35:29.360 --> 00:35:35.559
the radiation has a pressure, and
the radiation that comes from and by that

396
00:35:35.599 --> 00:35:42.960
I mean electromagnetic radiation as well as
subatomic particles, that's all gonna effectively impact

397
00:35:43.079 --> 00:35:45.880
the asteroid. I would like to
follow up a bit more on that,

398
00:35:46.119 --> 00:35:50.239
Mikey, because you've raised an interesting
question there. So I'm going to put

399
00:35:50.239 --> 00:35:54.880
an asterisk next to my nose and
find out about just what the mechanism would

400
00:35:54.920 --> 00:36:00.280
be when a nuclear bomb is detonated
next to an asteroid. Why is going

401
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:05.000
to shift its orbit? Yeah,
it's a good it's a good question.

402
00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:08.920
Um. I wonder if it would
be the same as setting off a bomb

403
00:36:09.039 --> 00:36:14.679
underwater? Is it a similar concept, except you know, you've got you

404
00:36:14.760 --> 00:36:17.440
do have a very dense medium there
that you contract with. So yeah,

405
00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:22.119
the water is pretty dumb. Um. Yeah, okay, good thing.

406
00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:28.079
That's definitely speaking of pressure. And
this is a sort of a side note,

407
00:36:29.280 --> 00:36:32.840
but I've been on the radio the
last few mornings and I've been keeping

408
00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:37.360
an eye on the barometric pressure.
Yeah. When when I was a kid,

409
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:40.400
they used to refer to very high
barometric pressure as an anti cyclone.

410
00:36:40.519 --> 00:36:45.800
But that you don't hear them say
that anymore. But this morning, while

411
00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:47.480
I was on air, I looked
at the barometer and it was a thousand

412
00:36:47.559 --> 00:36:52.880
and forty one, and that's really
high. I've never seen it that high.

413
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:57.800
So we did some searching around and
one of my audience members sent me

414
00:36:58.039 --> 00:37:05.719
a link to the Bureaus some bureau
data which indicated that the highest barometric pressure

415
00:37:05.719 --> 00:37:09.800
ever recorded in Australia was a thousand
and forty two. The highest ever recorded

416
00:37:09.800 --> 00:37:13.920
in the world was in Russia in
nineteen sixty eight, which was one thousand

417
00:37:13.960 --> 00:37:19.320
and eighty two, which is extraordinarily
high. Yet I thought, I don't

418
00:37:19.400 --> 00:37:23.400
remember never seeing the barometer hit a
thousand and forty in Dubbo where I am

419
00:37:23.719 --> 00:37:28.440
in all the time I've been reading
weather, and that's you know, twenty

420
00:37:28.639 --> 00:37:31.239
thousand years, twenty something years.
But the thousand and floyty wanted is what

421
00:37:31.320 --> 00:37:37.760
it hit this morning? That just
blew me away. We are certainly sitting

422
00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:45.440
in a high pressure region. I'm
going to be very rude and go and

423
00:37:45.519 --> 00:37:47.599
see what my barometer says. Really
No, okay, well that's not rude.

424
00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:54.320
Let's let's find out because but the
interesting difference I noticed was that because

425
00:37:54.360 --> 00:37:59.280
I was looking at the weather station
information on the roof of the radio station,

426
00:37:59.320 --> 00:38:01.800
we've got a weather station right on
top, and we're on top of

427
00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:06.360
a hill as well, so where
we're a little bit higher up than the

428
00:38:06.519 --> 00:38:12.119
airport, and the airport reading even
though it was high at Dubo Regional Airport

429
00:38:12.199 --> 00:38:15.400
was a thousand and thirty six point
six, So there was wide a difference

430
00:38:15.480 --> 00:38:22.159
between the two, which is hard
to explain because the lower down the lower

431
00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:24.280
the pressure, I think, or
is it the opposite, I don't know.

432
00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:28.840
Sorry, what did we do that? One thousand and thirty seven?

433
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:32.239
So that's high. Yeah, it
is very high, and mine's sort of

434
00:38:32.320 --> 00:38:37.239
corrected for sea level. I don't
know whether yours is trul don't if it's

435
00:38:37.320 --> 00:38:44.599
not that it's even higher because you're
sixty seven meetings. Yeah, yeah,

436
00:38:45.159 --> 00:38:49.480
well the radio station would be a
bit higher than that. Yeah. The

437
00:38:49.599 --> 00:38:52.639
airport reading was what I was telling
people when you stepped out. It was

438
00:38:52.679 --> 00:38:58.800
a thousand and thirty six point six
this morning, and I mean it fluctuates.

439
00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:00.400
It's never constant, end, it's
always no, that's right. Yeah,

440
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:04.039
who was going up down? Yeah, but I thought a thousand and

441
00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:09.719
forty one was yeah, way out
of there, quite quite amazing. I

442
00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:13.960
just wanted to mention that, by
the bye, because we're talking about pressure

443
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:17.360
and all that kind of Yes,
great stuff, I love. All right,

444
00:39:19.320 --> 00:39:23.119
Yeah, yeah, we've got one
more question. This comes from Graham.

445
00:39:23.920 --> 00:39:29.320
This one's a little bit out of
left field for it. Hell,

446
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:32.960
it's Graham from London. I like
your podcast a lot, listen to him

447
00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:36.840
all the time. It's fair to
say I'm a fan. I've got a

448
00:39:36.920 --> 00:39:42.159
quick question. Do you think it's
possible for a planet that evolves life and

449
00:39:42.280 --> 00:39:47.760
there's a watery surface on a significant
amount of it to evolve into a giant

450
00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:52.880
planetary? Eyeball? I think you
though, you know, mushrooms linking plants

451
00:39:52.920 --> 00:40:00.800
together over enough billions of times?
Well, U in the water, you'd

452
00:40:00.119 --> 00:40:05.360
in and everything like that own city, and it sounds clearer in my head

453
00:40:05.400 --> 00:40:10.159
and thatsbody come out of my mouth. But there could be giant planetary eyeballs

454
00:40:10.800 --> 00:40:16.840
in space stirring across the vast m
I think. I think it's clear.

455
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:22.559
I love the show. Keep going
and hello everybody out there, think you,

456
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:28.480
thank you very much. Grahams is
a fascinating theory as to whether or

457
00:40:28.519 --> 00:40:32.840
not a life form could grow to
a point where it became an eye the

458
00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:38.360
size for planet, or something to
that effect. We do have massive life

459
00:40:38.440 --> 00:40:42.360
forms living on Earth, and I'm
not talking about blue whales, but there

460
00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:45.280
is a particular forest, the name
of which escapes my mind at the moment,

461
00:40:45.639 --> 00:40:52.800
that covers thousands of square kilometers and
its technically one plant. Let's just

462
00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:55.840
spread itself out so it does.
You know, He's not He's not being

463
00:40:55.920 --> 00:41:00.119
silly. This This can happen at
least in that form, but could it

464
00:41:00.199 --> 00:41:06.920
go to another level? It's um, it's the Great Barrier reef a single

465
00:41:07.880 --> 00:41:10.679
It is classified as the biggest organism
on Earth, I believe, but I

466
00:41:10.760 --> 00:41:14.920
don't. But it's made up of
lots and lots and lots of little creatures.

467
00:41:15.119 --> 00:41:19.159
Yeah yeah, Whereas the forest is
just one. Yes, it's one

468
00:41:19.280 --> 00:41:24.360
plant. Yeah. And I think
there was another story I read where I

469
00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:31.039
think it was a fungus that was
also quite massive that was found somewhere in

470
00:41:31.119 --> 00:41:36.880
Europe, I think, and covers
quite a huge amount of ground. That

471
00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:39.360
might be the one I'm talking about. That's thousands of kilometers. The the

472
00:41:39.519 --> 00:41:45.880
aspen tree, I think is the
one, because um that's got it's about

473
00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:52.320
eight kilometers long. Yeah, that's
um. That's that's probably an example of

474
00:41:52.400 --> 00:42:00.440
what he's alluding to. Um.
So the Earth. So, a planet

475
00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:08.519
like the Earth, even if it's
covered with water, it's got to have

476
00:42:08.639 --> 00:42:15.880
a it's going to have a rocky
core. And so in the sense that

477
00:42:15.800 --> 00:42:22.519
you know, imagining a physical representation
of an eyeball, it's never going to

478
00:42:22.599 --> 00:42:28.920
happen that you've got something that's hollow
or at least filled with a fluid that's

479
00:42:29.239 --> 00:42:34.519
like transmitting. So so you're always
going to have a rocky ball with something

480
00:42:34.599 --> 00:42:37.239
on top of it. And in
the Earth case, it's water. In

481
00:42:37.400 --> 00:42:39.079
the case of many other objects,
it's water with a layer of ice on

482
00:42:39.199 --> 00:42:45.679
top. So they are common.
Yeah, And whether you could have an

483
00:42:45.760 --> 00:42:50.519
organism that arranges itself in such a
way that it actually becomes light sensitive.

484
00:42:50.559 --> 00:42:54.519
And I suppose maybe a better analog
might be a fly's eye. It's a

485
00:42:54.559 --> 00:43:00.400
fly's eye is lots of little lenses
that are coated on a very clish surface,

486
00:43:00.639 --> 00:43:06.000
each twel with its old reset.
There'd be something like that could evolve

487
00:43:06.239 --> 00:43:09.599
on the surface of the Earth.
That would be interesting. Yeah, very

488
00:43:09.679 --> 00:43:13.760
interesting. It's it's a great question, mate. It would make an awesome

489
00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:16.400
science fiction. Yeah, there you
go, there's an idea for you.

490
00:43:19.159 --> 00:43:22.199
I woke up last night trying to
think of a new angle on a science

491
00:43:22.239 --> 00:43:25.119
fiction story. But I've got other
projects going on. Oh yeah, yeah,

492
00:43:25.199 --> 00:43:28.960
that's right. It's not ready to
write a new one yet. Got

493
00:43:29.039 --> 00:43:32.960
to tell you a funny story though. I got an email the other day

494
00:43:34.280 --> 00:43:39.440
from Amazon. Now, two years
ago I released The Hitler Paradox, and

495
00:43:39.800 --> 00:43:43.119
when I did, they wrote to
me and said, look, we're not

496
00:43:43.239 --> 00:43:45.559
happy with the cover. It's um
you know, it's got a SWAS sticker

497
00:43:45.639 --> 00:43:50.920
on it, and we don't publish
hate symbols. Can you provide us with

498
00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:55.079
another cover? So it did.
They published it with the original cover anyway,

499
00:43:55.360 --> 00:44:00.400
so oh really yeah they did,
And so I thought, okay,

500
00:44:00.760 --> 00:44:04.880
that was your call. Yeah.
Well, last week they emailed me again

501
00:44:04.960 --> 00:44:09.639
and said, we've quality control systems
have picked up that you've got a swasticker

502
00:44:09.679 --> 00:44:14.639
on the cover. We will not
be offering this book for sale in Germany

503
00:44:14.679 --> 00:44:17.119
as it contravenes German law. And
I said, well, fair enough.

504
00:44:17.159 --> 00:44:21.360
And I wrote back and said,
you know you are the reason this has

505
00:44:21.400 --> 00:44:23.559
happened, because I did offer you
an alternative cover and you didn't use it.

506
00:44:24.760 --> 00:44:29.639
The reply was, our quality control
people have noted that there is a

507
00:44:29.679 --> 00:44:31.960
swasticker on the cover of your book. And I wrote back and said,

508
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:37.199
well, can I upload the alternative
cover again? And their reply was our

509
00:44:37.320 --> 00:44:40.440
quality controlled me, I've noted there's
a swasticker on the cover. I tried

510
00:44:40.519 --> 00:44:47.199
one more time and said, can
I change the carver? Our quality controlled

511
00:44:47.239 --> 00:44:51.760
people have noted there's a swasticker on
the cover and will not be for sale.

512
00:44:51.800 --> 00:44:55.320
And jerk, I thought, they
are they using AI to deal with

513
00:44:55.480 --> 00:45:00.880
people, because it can't be human
and if it is not worried about the

514
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:07.920
terminator ever happening, because it's a
pretty dumber AI that answers the separate inquiries

515
00:45:07.960 --> 00:45:13.880
with exactly the same phrase over and
over again. Dumb as a box of

516
00:45:13.960 --> 00:45:20.199
hammers. Anyway, I'm going to
keep trying. It's been fun. Thank

517
00:45:20.280 --> 00:45:23.440
you Graham, lovely lovely to hear
from you in a really interesting angle on

518
00:45:23.559 --> 00:45:28.679
that theory. And if you do
have questions for us, please pipe them

519
00:45:28.760 --> 00:45:31.280
through to us. Use some PVC
and just roll it up in a piece

520
00:45:31.320 --> 00:45:37.119
of paper and send it our way, or use a vacuum tube you need

521
00:45:37.159 --> 00:45:39.400
a really big one, but it'll
get here eventually. Or you can go

522
00:45:39.519 --> 00:45:45.000
to our website and send us a
message that way pretty easy. Space Nuts

523
00:45:45.159 --> 00:45:49.440
podcast dot com or space nuts dot
Io. There's a couple of ways you

524
00:45:49.480 --> 00:45:52.199
can send us messages. And yeah, we look forward to hearing from you.

525
00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:55.880
I'm sure you'll get plenty more.
And while you're there, have a

526
00:45:55.960 --> 00:46:00.519
look around. Don't forget about maybe
looking into becoming a patron. And we

527
00:46:00.679 --> 00:46:04.840
send a big shout out and thank
you to all our patrons. We have

528
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:07.400
many, and it is greatly appreciated. It keeps the lights on. In

529
00:46:07.480 --> 00:46:09.559
fact, I blew a light the
other day and I'd like to get a

530
00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:13.480
new one. Just about to go
to the shop and get one, So

531
00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:17.960
thanks for thanks for covering that for
us. Fred. We're at the end

532
00:46:17.960 --> 00:46:22.400
of the show. It's been a
really fascinating journey today. We've had some

533
00:46:22.559 --> 00:46:27.000
great questions and some great topics somewhere. So it's always good to explore the

534
00:46:27.079 --> 00:46:29.679
limits of well, first of all, the limits of what I know,

535
00:46:29.800 --> 00:46:34.840
which are relatively narrow of maybe the
limits of what science knows as well.

536
00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:37.159
Yes, indeed, all right,
good to catch up and we'll see on

537
00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:43.079
the next episode, I hope.
So yeah, okay, thanks, I'll

538
00:46:43.079 --> 00:46:46.880
be miffed if you have somebody else
or instead. Not a problem there.

539
00:46:47.920 --> 00:46:52.119
Thank you Fred, professor Fred what's
an astronomer at large? And thanks to

540
00:46:52.280 --> 00:46:54.440
Hugh in the studio who got up
early for us today but we were five

541
00:46:54.519 --> 00:46:59.239
hours late. And from me Andrew
Dunkley, thanks for your company. We'll

542
00:46:59.280 --> 00:47:02.280
see you on the next episode of
Space Nuts. Bye bye, Spacenuts.

543
00:47:02.599 --> 00:47:10.159
You'll be listening to the Space Nuts
podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,

544
00:47:10.400 --> 00:47:15.519
Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite
podcast player. You can also stream

545
00:47:15.559 --> 00:47:21.679
on demand at bites dot com.
This has been another quantity podcast production from

546
00:47:21.800 --> 00:47:22.760
Sites dot com.