00:00:00 - Introduction and Overview
Andrew Dunkley introduces the episode as an all-audience questions episode. He mentions the topics to be discussed, including fast blue transients, ghost galaxies, and the heaviest isotopes in planet formation.
00:02:23 - Fast Blue Transients and Galaxy Development
Derek asks about the cause of fast blue optical transient explosions, referencing the unusual shape of the explosion. Fred Watson discusses the mysterious nature of fast blue optical transients and the potential reasons behind their unique properties.
00:09:44 - Early Universe and Galaxy Evolution
Renny inquires about the development of mature galaxies like glass z 13 in the early aftermath of the Big Bang. Fred Watson explains the significance of glass z 12 as an early galaxy and addresses the possibility of wormholes and membrane theory in relation to galaxy evolution.
00:17:08 - Expansion of the Universe and Dark Energy
Dave from Calgary asks about the expansion of the universe and its acceleration. He questions whether the universe will ever slow down due to dark energy. Fred Watson discusses the concept of dark energy and explains why the universe's expansion is unlikely to slow down.
00:18:05 - Comparing Bullet Firing with Universe Expansion
Discusses the analogy between bullet firing and universe expansion, highlighting the differences due to space conditions. Emphasizes the uncertainty of the universe's future.
00:23:16 - Universe at Room Temperature
Explores the time when the universe was at room temperature, highlighting the challenges in observing this period due to cosmic microwave background radiation.
00:28:18 - Destruction of Black Holes
Examines the possibility of black hole destruction, explaining the slow evaporation process through Hawking radiation and the extreme conditions required for their destruction.
00:31:45 - Ghost Galaxies and Dark Matter
Considers the relationship between normal matter in ghost galaxies and the existence of dark matter, emphasizing the minor impact on our understanding of dark matter in the universe.
00:34:59 - Formation of Black Holes and Gravitons
Discusses the theoretical concept of gravitons and their inability to clump together to form black holes, highlighting the distinction between force carrier bosons and matter particles.
00:36:45 - Garrett's Question on Proto Earth Formation
Garrett asks about the differentiation phase of proto-Earth's formation and why heavier isotopes did not sink to the center. Fred discusses nuclear fission on Earth and how it impacts the planet's activity and warmth.
00:41:35 - Martin's Question on Habitability of Planets
Martin asks about the maximum number of habitable planets in a solar system and the possibility of habitable moons orbiting a gas giant. Fred discusses the potential for multiple habitable planets and moons within a star's habitable zone.
00:43:22 - Possibility of Multiple Habitable Planets
Andrew and Fred explore the physics behind the number of habitable planets in a solar system and the potential for multiple habitable objects sharing the same orbit. They also touch on the definition of habitability and life.
00:48:22 - Call for Questions and Social Media Engagement
Andrew encourages listeners to send in their questions for future episodes and highlights the importance of social media engagement. Fred expresses enthusiasm for diverse and unexpected questions.
00:49:34 - Conclusion and Farewell
Andrew thanks Fred and Hugh, the studio engineer, for their participation in the episode. He wraps up the show and invites listeners to tune in for the next episode of Space Nuts.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.
00:00:00
Hi there. Thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts, the
00:00:03
Astronomy and Space Science podcast. My name is Andrew
00:00:07
Dunley, your host. Coming up, we will be talking about, lots and
00:00:11
lots of things because this is an all audience questions
00:00:14
episode.
00:00:15
So this is where we throw it over to you and you throw a lot
00:00:19
of stuff at Fred and see if it sticks. We'll be talking about
00:00:23
fast blue transients, the cooling Universe and gravitons
00:00:27
amongst other things. Ghost Galaxies, the heaviest isotopes
00:00:32
in planet formation and so much more coming up on this episode
00:00:37
of Space Nuts Nuts.
00:00:46
432, 13345, 54321. Space astronauts report. It feels
00:00:53
good.
00:00:55
And to answer all of your questions with precision and
00:00:58
perfection is Professor Fred Wats, an astronomer at large.
00:01:01
Hello, Fred.
00:01:02
Hello, Andrew. How are you doing?
00:01:05
I'm feeling a lot better than you.
00:01:08
Yes. Yeah. It's like an exam. You know, it's, it's kind of
00:01:11
like going into an exam that you haven't studied for.
00:01:14
Oh, I, I did that a lot. I did that a lot.
00:01:18
I did two second science, mathematics at the University Of
00:01:21
Saint Andrews nearly got me, in the, in the end I passed it by
00:01:25
the skillet hunting.
00:01:28
And I wasn't so lucky in a lot of my exams. But, you know, I
00:01:31
did it to myself. I look back at my younger self and say, you
00:01:34
buff the whole.
00:01:35
Oh, yes. That's, that's absolutely right.
00:01:40
You wish you could have a time mirror where you could just go
00:01:42
and sort of tap on it. Your younger self appears and you go
00:01:46
listen.
00:01:52
Exactly. Yeah, I'm thinking of writing a book about that
00:01:56
actually.
00:01:56
Say that that would make a great science fiction novel. It's
00:01:59
probably already been done. Yeah.
00:02:02
Alright. We better get into it now. We've got some audio
00:02:06
questions. We've got some text questions. These are all pretty
00:02:09
well, brand newies. And we will start with a question from
00:02:14
Derek.
00:02:16
Hello Andrew. I'm Professor Watson. My name is Derek from
00:02:19
Kitchener Ontario in Canada, a longtime listener and first time
00:02:23
questioner, I have a question regarding the cause of fast blue
00:02:27
optical transient explosions, particularly the one called a T
00:02:30
2018 cow nicknamed the cow discussed in a previous episode.
00:02:36
This solar system sized explosion was considered odd due
00:02:39
to it being extremely flattened out like a pancake rather than a
00:02:42
typical sphere. Could this flatten shaped be caused by
00:02:46
extremely rapid spins say by a neutron star or perhaps two
00:02:50
objects spinning up until they're torn to pieces. Thanks
00:02:53
for the great podcast and books. I'm currently halfway through
00:02:56
Star Craving Mad there.
00:02:59
He's the person who bought it.
00:03:02
The, yes, I wondered who it was.
00:03:07
Yeah, the best thing about that book is his title, which I
00:03:11
didn't think of this morning. Sort of a staff in that tales
00:03:16
from a traveling astronomer that.
00:03:19
You love to hear from. Lovely to hear from Canada as well. Thanks
00:03:22
for sending your question in Derek Fast Blue Transients.
00:03:27
Yeah, we did talk about that recently and this, this disc
00:03:30
shaped explosion that has defied logic.
00:03:34
Has he got the answer?
00:03:36
Oh, well, actually, I think, I think he has I was just gonna
00:03:40
say the answer to Derek's question is yes, I think, I
00:03:43
think both the things that he highlights the possibility of it
00:03:51
being a rapid spinner or, or, you know, being something that's
00:03:55
disintegrating. Both of those could be correct.
00:04:00
I've got to remind myself actually, of the details of
00:04:04
that. I know we did talk about it, but to be honest, these
00:04:09
things come and go so quickly that I I've, I've only got, you
00:04:14
know, I've only got half a gig left of memory in my head. That
00:04:16
's not really enough for all these facts.
00:04:20
So, OK, we've, it's an object that is probably about 200
00:04:25
million light years away because it sits in a, in a galaxy, it's
00:04:28
at least special coincident with that galaxy CGCGCG 137068. And
00:04:37
it's, it is the, in a, in a sense it's the most local of
00:04:41
these, I should say they're called F bots by the way. And I
00:04:45
can't, we talked about that at the time. Fast blue optical
00:04:47
transients.
00:04:50
It's, I, I, in fact, it's, it's being hailed to some extent in
00:04:56
the literature as the sort of prototype of its class. Except
00:05:01
that it is a bit unusual. And the, you know, it's an object
00:05:06
that has a lot of mystery attached to it.
00:05:11
It's clearly an explosion. The transient itself is an explosion
00:05:16
that was II I think it was this the one that was known as the
00:05:22
brightest of all time boat. I can't remember whether this one
00:05:25
was given that title, but it's certainly up there with the
00:05:28
boat. And it's basically the estimates are 10 to 100 times
00:05:35
brighter than a normal supernova.
00:05:39
It's been you know, it's kind of one of these objects that is
00:05:46
that they're characterized by something called a Fred. I
00:05:51
thought I just drag this in. Do you know what a Fred is? I, I do
00:05:54
know it stands for, it's in physics really fast dries,
00:05:58
exponential decla exponential decay, fast drive exponential
00:06:03
decay.
00:06:03
And it's any signal that goes up very quickly and then, you know,
00:06:07
decays very slowly and, and in a way that covers all supernovae.
00:06:12
And, you know, the objects in that sort of class. I was just
00:06:16
looking online for a light curve for, Cocow. I sent 2018 cow,
00:06:24
usually called the cow. Let's see if I can find one cos that
00:06:28
would, yeah, here it is. That's, that's good.
00:06:33
I've got a, I've got a bolo meric light curve and it is
00:06:36
exactly that. It's a, it's a thread, it goes up very quickly,
00:06:40
and basically decays very slowly bolo meric is a measurement
00:06:48
taken across all wavelengths. I don't know whether you knew that
00:06:51
Andrew. It's, it's with me measured with a thing called a
00:06:55
barometer which looks, you know, it's a broadband detector.
00:07:00
Most of our detectors are limited to a specific wave band
00:07:04
but a barometer isn't, it's u usually used actually in the
00:07:08
microwave region of the spectrum. So, but it also, of
00:07:13
course, because it's a fast blue optical transient, it's got
00:07:16
optical optical emission as well. And I'm just looking now
00:07:21
at the way its spectra decayed.
00:07:26
It's basically a what's called a hot black body emission, which
00:07:33
that's the shape of the spectrum.
00:07:36
So I, you know, I think with, with FF bots generally and with
00:07:42
this object in particular, I, I think really, there's not that
00:07:47
much.
00:07:50
The, there's, there's, there's not that much hard and fast
00:07:55
astrophysics that means that there is a common view of what
00:07:59
they are.
00:08:01
They I mean, look quoting, for example, from our well known
00:08:07
source Wikipedia, the precise definition of what constitutes a
00:08:10
fast blue optical transient is currently contentious in the
00:08:14
literature, largely defined by the observational properties
00:08:17
rather than the underlying mechanisms or objects. And that
00:08:20
's because we don't really know what they are.
00:08:24
So it, you know, and, and the, the art that particular article
00:08:30
goes on to make the point that even even when you, you lump
00:08:35
them all together, when you look at the details of the, the
00:08:39
growing number of, of these, these events, there's such big
00:08:44
variations in their properties, even though they're all
00:08:47
classified as fast blue optical transients, they've got
00:08:50
different properties, different spectra, different light curves,
00:08:54
that's the up and down bit the amount of radiation it receives.
00:08:59
So it's saying, well, it says it 's potentially indicative of
00:09:03
different progenitor channels or explosion mechanisms. In other
00:09:06
words, all bets are off and I think Terry's contribution is as
00:09:10
good as anybody's OK.
00:09:12
So it might be under something. Yep.
00:09:16
Ok. Good, good suggestion.
00:09:18
Indeed. Alright. Thank you, Derek. Let's move on to a
00:09:20
question from Rennie who is a regular sender inner. Rennie
00:09:25
says, what's your thinking about Galaxies like glass Z or glass Z
00:09:30
13 and how they developed to such a mature state in the early
00:09:35
aftermath of the Big Bang.
00:09:36
Could it be they wormhole their way into our Universe from one
00:09:41
that was separated by a membrane? We can't understand
00:09:45
when possibly the fabric of that membrane was disturbed by our
00:09:49
Universe's beginning. That's come from Rennie. What do you
00:09:55
reckon?
00:09:56
So it's a lineman break galaxy that means it's it's spectrum
00:10:01
tells us that it's at a at a high red shift because the
00:10:06
ultraviolet features in its spectrum are moved into the
00:10:10
infrared. And I think so the Z 13 or Z 13, I guess refers to
00:10:15
its, oh, wait a minute. That's 12. I don't know whether that's
00:10:18
a numerical.
00:10:20
Yeah, I think thirteens it's red shift. Z So the red shift of
00:10:24
course, is a measurement of how red shifted the spectrum is. And
00:10:29
when you get up to 13, you're talking about you're looking
00:10:31
back to the very early phase of the Universe. Just give me a
00:10:36
minute. So, yes. All right, glass. I did that.
00:10:38
I know that's an acronym I haven't come across before,
00:10:41
which is the gris lens, a Amplified Survey from space. One
00:10:45
of the instruments using the James Webb telescope, the Grim,
00:10:49
by the way, Andrew. And I used to use these when I was a kind
00:10:54
of practicing astronomer is a combination of a grating and a
00:10:58
prism which is why it's called a grismer.
00:11:00
Both of those have the effect of splitting light into its rainbow
00:11:04
spectrum colors. And prism, we, we're all familiar with a great
00:11:10
thing we're perhaps less familiar with, but it's consists
00:11:13
of a lot of li lines ruled on a substrate, usually a bit of
00:11:16
glass which has the same effect of dispersing light.
00:11:21
The phenomenon was discovered by a Scotsman by the name of James
00:11:27
Gregory in the late 16 hundreds, he held up a s and he actually
00:11:32
was the professor of Astronomy in the university that I went to
00:11:36
and I was there shortly after him.
00:11:38
In the 17th century, he discovered it by holding a
00:11:40
seagull feather up to the sun and noticing that it split light
00:11:43
up into a rainbow of colors. That's aside on the technology,
00:11:47
which is my strength. Whereas the high red shift Galaxies are
00:11:53
something that I stand on the coattails of my colleagues. So
00:11:58
it's it's red shift, hang on a minute.
00:12:08
It, it's s yes. Ok. So that's why there's some confusion here.
00:12:16
It used to be called glass Z 13. It's now called Glass Z 12
00:12:22
because it's red shift of being has been re re re evaluated.
00:12:28
A red shift of 12 still means it 's one of the earliest Galaxies
00:12:32
ever observed dates back to maybe 350 million years after
00:12:38
the Big Bang. So we're talking about a very, very early galaxy
00:12:43
now, having established all that, would you mind reading
00:12:47
Rennie's questions again?
00:12:50
What is what is your thinking about Galaxies like glass said
00:12:56
13 or 12 and how they developed, how they develop, developed to
00:13:01
such a mature state in the early aftermath of the Big Bang?
00:13:04
Could it be they wormhole their way into the Universe from one
00:13:09
that was separated by a membrane? We can't understand
00:13:12
when possibly the fabric of that membrane was disturbed by our
00:13:15
Universe's beginning. So he's asking if we snatched this
00:13:19
Universe.
00:13:21
I get that. And that's a, that's a very nice idea. We, we don't,
00:13:29
there, there's a lot of study going on. It's a bit still a it
00:13:32
's kind of become again a hot topic of the idea of Wormholes.
00:13:37
We've got no evidence of the existence of Wormholes, but
00:13:40
they're still mathematically allowed.
00:13:42
And there's been a lot of recent research and in, in the fairly
00:13:47
mainstream, you know, physics realm, looking at how and why
00:13:54
they might, they might work and whether we are missing something
00:13:59
by kind of ignoring Wormholes.
00:14:03
I find that hard to believe that it could happen. I think what
00:14:09
we're seeing is the evolution of properties of Galaxies. Exactly.
00:14:17
Ren is absolutely right. This, this particular galaxy, it
00:14:20
surprised everybody cos it's only 350 million years after the
00:14:24
Big Bang and everybody thinks that the things that we see in
00:14:28
the galaxy, the the elements that you, that it really should
00:14:33
be older than that.
00:14:36
In other words, you know, have we got the date of the Big Bang
00:14:39
wrong now? That is unlikely because our observations of, you
00:14:47
know, the, the physics that tell us the date of the Big Bang are
00:14:51
pretty rock solid. And we've talked, we've talked about it
00:14:55
already.
00:14:56
Last time when we talked about ARN Arno Penzias, the person who
00:15:00
discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation with his
00:15:02
colleague, Bob Wilson. That discovery really set the seal on
00:15:10
our understanding of the age of the Universe. You combine that
00:15:14
with the, the Hubble flow, the the the fact that Galaxies are
00:15:18
moving away from us, which is what really started the idea
00:15:21
that there was a Big Bang.
00:15:23
But you combine those two together and you get
00:15:25
measurements which yes, there's slight discrepancies, there's
00:15:28
something called the, the, the Cosmological tension at the
00:15:31
moment because there's two slightly different values for
00:15:34
what's called the Hubble constant. But nevertheless, the
00:15:37
edge of the Universe is pretty solidly back at about 13.8
00:15:41
billion years.
00:15:43
And so I, I think the issue here is not a Cosmological one. It's
00:15:49
not that we've got the our picture of the Universe wrong,
00:15:52
it's that we've got galaxy evolution wrong that we, we are
00:15:56
not really understanding fully how you can produce the, you
00:16:05
know, the, the, the characteristics that we see in
00:16:07
an early galaxy like that in such a short time.
00:16:12
So it's, yeah, it's, it's an interesting conundrum but it's,
00:16:16
I, I think it's one that's completely resolvable. I don't
00:16:19
find it, one that needs esoteric explanations, like things
00:16:23
popping out through Wormholes, on the fabric of the membrane,
00:16:27
fabric of the Universe.
00:16:28
And that's what it might be if that's m theory that says that
00:16:32
the Universe might be or brain theory is sometimes called brane
00:16:37
that the Universe might be just sitting on one of many membranes
00:16:41
which each of which holds a Universe. Lovely theory. You get
00:16:44
a Big Bang, by the way, when membranes Bang together, Andrew.
00:16:47
Yes, I can imagine.
00:16:51
Well, I'm sure a lot of people still speculate over that
00:16:54
possibility, but it's probably something else we're missing in
00:16:58
galaxy development early on. But thank you, Rennie. Let's go to
00:17:03
an audio question from Dave. Hey guys, it's Dave.
00:17:06
From Calgary Alberta there. I'm British but I live in Canada,
00:17:10
hence the accent. But I have a question about the expansion of
00:17:14
the Universe. I'm 99.9% sure I'm wrong about my theory, but I've
00:17:20
never found an answer to explain why I'm wrong and I'm hoping you
00:17:24
guys can help me out.
00:17:25
So obviously the Universe is expanding and it's speeding up.
00:17:30
My question is, is, will it, why won't it ever slow down? And
00:17:35
I've heard that the dark energy is making it speed up. But my
00:17:40
theory was similar to how a gun, a round out of a gun, speeds up
00:17:46
before it gets to a certain point and Ben starts to slow
00:17:49
down.
00:17:51
Could that happen with the Universe or what's the reason
00:17:54
why that won't happen with the Universe? I'm guessing it's to
00:17:57
do with dark energy, but I'd love to know your answer to it
00:18:01
and probably explain it to me perfectly. Thank you very much.
00:18:05
Thank you, Dave. Couple from Canada today, which is nice.
00:18:11
It's probably, a long bow to draw to compare the firing of a
00:18:16
bullet with the expansion of the Universe because the bullets
00:18:18
affected by the curvature of the earth and gravity and
00:18:23
atmospheric conditions which all add up to stop with the bullet
00:18:29
eventually. That doesn't exist in space, does it?
00:18:33
No. Dave's question is, is a good one and, actually I'm gonna
00:18:39
be in Canada in about two months. So it's nice to have two
00:18:42
Canadian questions. The, so that, I mean, the bottom line is
00:18:50
Dave's right to question this because we, we can't guarantee
00:18:56
what the Universe is gonna do.
00:18:58
You know, we don't have any, any sort of, control over that all
00:19:05
we can do is observe what it's doing now and, and through the
00:19:09
magic of the fact that we s you know, that, that we can look
00:19:12
back in time, we get a good idea of what it's done in the past.
00:19:15
So, I think at another log compared ss an analog of the
00:19:24
kind that Dave is thinking of would be better served for the
00:19:28
expansion of the Universe, not by a bullet but by a rocket.
00:19:32
Because that this is the thing that we think is happening. And
00:19:36
we talked about this a couple of weeks ago with the Cosmological
00:19:39
constant and the equation of state and all that stuff there.
00:19:44
The, the idea of dark energy is that space itself has what might
00:19:53
be called a vacuum energy. It's just got a, an energy of its own
00:19:56
and the energy is in some way proportional to the volume of
00:20:01
the space. That's what seems to be happening. Even though the
00:20:06
numbers, as we heard a couple of weeks ago don't actually tie up
00:20:09
exactly.
00:20:10
But it seems to be that as space gets bigger, the energy of, of
00:20:16
space gets bigger too. Because the, the this vacuum energy that
00:20:22
this sort of repulsive force that's pushing space apart is
00:20:26
proportional to the space volume itself.
00:20:30
And so what you've got is something that is unlike a gun
00:20:34
which is propelled down the, down the barrel and then doesn't
00:20:38
have any propulsive force, keeping it going and that's why
00:20:42
it slows down and it's air resistance, I guess is the, is
00:20:45
the main contributor to that. But all the other things that
00:20:48
you mentioned, Andrew Kovi of the earth and spa and gravity,
00:20:53
they all play a part too.
00:20:55
But if you think of a rocket, what you've got is AAA basically
00:21:01
a motor that is, is actually running for a long period. And
00:21:07
it's keep, he's providing that energy. But also with a rocket,
00:21:12
certainly one that's leaving the surface of the earth.
00:21:14
What you've got too is that as the the thrust of the rocket,
00:21:20
which is constant be because it 's determined by the chemistry
00:21:24
of what's going on in the combustion chamber, the thrust
00:21:27
is constant, but the acceleration increases because
00:21:31
the mass is going down as, as the rocket goes, goes along,
00:21:35
you're burning up fuel.
00:21:36
So it's lighter. And so it gets more of, yeah, so more of an
00:21:40
acceleration and the so that's really a better analog, I think
00:21:48
for what's going on with the accelerated expansion of the
00:21:53
Universe. But as I've said, we don't know, we, we simply don't
00:21:58
know what the Universe is gonna do.
00:22:00
We thought until the 19 nineties that it was definitely gonna
00:22:05
slow down because of all the material in it that that would
00:22:09
have a gravitational influence that would tend to break the
00:22:12
Universe and that its acceleration would be slow,
00:22:14
sorry, its expansion would be slowing down. But that is not
00:22:18
the case.
00:22:20
Ok. So watch this space Dave because, you know, it might sort
00:22:24
itself out in a couple of weeks.
00:22:28
Well, if it does, that's good. Cos we talk about it on Space
00:22:30
Nuts. Oh, no. By the way, the Universe in 10 billion years
00:22:34
time is gonna stop.
00:22:36
Yes, let's get off. All right. Thank you, Dave. This is Space
00:22:41
Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson.
00:22:47
Ok. Let's take a short break from the show to tell you about
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the show space notes. Ok, Fred. We'll go to another question
00:25:55
from the Netherlands.
00:25:57
After the Big Bang, the Universe started to cool. How long after
00:26:01
the Big Bang was the Universe at room temperature? And how long
00:26:05
was the Universe at room temperature? And can we set a
00:26:09
telescope to zoom in on that moment? Thanks for the answer.
00:26:12
Kind regards Jost from the Netherlands. Does he mean actual
00:26:19
room temperature or the, the the Universe's interpretation of
00:26:23
room temperature?
00:26:23
I think, I think he means room temperature. Let me just see if
00:26:28
I can answer this precisely. I can give, I can give a hand
00:26:33
answer.
00:26:35
And certainly we can't tune the telescope to look back on it and
00:26:39
I'll tell you why in a minute. But let me just see if I can
00:26:42
bring up a cooling curve for the Universe. That would actually
00:26:47
give us a time when the temperature was room
00:26:53
temperature. Here we go. I've got loads and loads of cooling
00:26:57
curves. Yeah, and there's an old one.
00:27:02
So, yes, so it may well be, that it's longer than I thought that
00:27:10
the Universe, is, is actually older. I was gonna say it was
00:27:15
probably within the first few minutes. And the, of course, you
00:27:21
can't, you can't see to within the first few minutes of the
00:27:25
Universe.
00:27:25
Cos we can't see anything when the Universe was less than
00:27:29
380 years old. Cos that's the age of the Universe at the
00:27:35
level of the cosmic microwave background radiation beyond
00:27:38
which we can't see. So we've got this veil that's drawn over a
00:27:41
Universe younger than 380 years.
00:27:47
It, it is in the region of a million years by the looks of
00:27:51
it, million years, it's before the formation of Galaxies. And
00:27:57
it's so it's, you're still in a, in a, yy, you're not quite,
00:28:03
still in a radiation dominated Universe. But you are close to
00:28:08
that.
00:28:09
So, I think it's, it's longer than I thought it was and it
00:28:15
looks as though it's of order of the same length of time as our
00:28:21
look as the time it took for the Universe to become transparent
00:28:26
because that's, that's the time that we're looking back to in
00:28:29
the cosmic microwave background radiation, you're looking
00:28:32
completely baffled. Andrew.
00:28:38
Well, I, I've found, a conflicting article that says
00:28:41
that, during a very brief window between 10 to 17 millions years
00:28:47
after the Big Bang, the temperature of the cosmic
00:28:50
microwave background was about 80 °F close to room temperature
00:28:55
from a lob.
00:28:58
Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, he's a name to reckon with, he's, a
00:29:02
very controversial figure. Just tell me what the number was. No,
00:29:07
tell me what the number was there that you said read that
00:29:09
bit again.
00:29:11
During a very brief time window between 10 to 17 million years
00:29:16
after the Big Bang, the temperature of the CMB was
00:29:19
around 80 °F.
00:29:21
10 to 17.
00:29:24
That's not a brief interval. That's 7 million years.
00:29:27
It is. It is. And I, I found I did find another article that
00:29:31
said 6 million. So, yeah.
00:29:35
So, well. So I'm saying in the region of a million, he's saying
00:29:39
in the region of 10 million in cosmology, that's the same
00:29:41
thing. So, that's interesting, you know, it's a really
00:29:46
interesting question though. I didn't get the questioner's
00:29:49
name. Andrew.
00:29:50
I don't that was Jost. Jost that 's from the Netherlands.
00:29:54
Yeah.
00:29:57
It's a really the homework folder if you like. Yeah, we
00:30:00
should, we should try and tie it down a bit more. But Avis
00:30:03
probably right. He is a, he, I think he's still the director of
00:30:08
the Howard Smithson, Ifa, the Institute For Astronomy, one of
00:30:12
the most renowned astronomical entities in the Universe.
00:30:17
Sorry, in the, in the, in the world, possibly as well. But I
00:30:22
always looking for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.
00:30:29
He's the gentleman who thinks Umu AUA was a bit of a
00:30:32
spacecraft that flew through through the solar system.
00:30:35
Indeed. All right. Well, we'll follow that one up for you, You,
00:30:39
but there are some people who speculate or believe it was
00:30:43
probably 10 to 1510 to 17 million years after the Big Bang
00:30:47
and lasted quite a long time. Thanks for your question. Let's
00:30:51
go to Brian. Oh, look, it's a black hole question.
00:30:54
This is Brian POWs from Columbus, Georgia, my stepson
00:31:02
and I were talking about black holes and he asked me a
00:31:05
question. He's 10 years old, by the way, can a black hole be
00:31:10
destroyed? What do y'all think? By the way? We love your
00:31:15
podcast? We listen to it on the way to school every morning.
00:31:18
Cool on Can a black hall be destroyed?
00:31:25
Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I, I would
00:31:29
suspect. Yes, but it'd have to be very extreme circumstances.
00:31:36
So, so yes, so the, the sort of standard answer to this is yes,
00:31:41
but under very own extreme circumstances. And so, we know
00:31:47
from Stephen Hawking's work in the 19 seventies that's been
00:31:51
verified. By analogs rather than by observation.
00:31:56
But we know that black holes can evaporate, by they release what
00:32:02
's called Hawking radiation, which is electromagnetic
00:32:05
radiation. It's very, very weak radiation, however, and takes a
00:32:11
very long time for the black hole to evaporate altogether.
00:32:17
In fact, longer than the current age of the Universe for pretty
00:32:21
well all black holes there may have been some tiny, tiny, tiny
00:32:25
ones that evaporated early on in the Universe. But but the, the,
00:32:29
the evaporation times is the evaporation rate is so slow that
00:32:33
the time is very long.
00:32:35
So, that's the answer is the answer is yes, that they can be
00:32:39
destroyed because they don't last forever. They last nearly
00:32:42
forever. Numbers like 60 billion years are, you know, the ones
00:32:47
that I've, I've come across, I think I wrote about that in one
00:32:50
of the books about, how many, how long it would take a an
00:32:53
earth sized black hole to evaporate and it's a huge, huge
00:32:56
number.
00:32:59
But whether, you know, conditions in the early Universe
00:33:05
when things were so extreme, whether if you could throw a
00:33:11
black hole into that early Universe, it would survive. That
00:33:15
's a different question. I suspect, I mean, it, you know,
00:33:20
the, the, the, the, the some of the thinking is that the those
00:33:25
extreme conditions in the early Universe came from a black hole.
00:33:29
Anyway, Roger Penrose idea that the that, you know, this
00:33:32
formation of black holes in space giant black holes are big
00:33:36
bangs. And so that tends to shed a bit of light on that. But I
00:33:42
think for, for for Brian and his grandson, I think the answer is
00:33:51
yes, they can. But it's a slow process.
00:33:55
Ok. There you go. Let's go to our next question. Thanks Brian.
00:34:00
In regards to your, it was a grandson or nephew. I can't
00:34:03
remember.
00:34:05
Sorry, I probably got it wrong.
00:34:08
That's perfectly ok.
00:34:09
Your relatives made, we just made Brian a lot older than he
00:34:12
probably is.
00:34:14
Sorry, sorry, Brian.
00:34:17
But you know when you're talking about the age of the Universe,
00:34:19
it's not much of a difference. Mark has sent us a question with
00:34:24
regard to the recent mention of the ghost galaxy such as Aztec
00:34:28
71.
00:34:30
If it turns out that there are many far infrared visible
00:34:34
Galaxies in the Universe, would the presence of all their normal
00:34:38
matter significantly reduce the need for the existence of so mu
00:34:42
so much dark matter? Thanks for the wonderful podcast, Mark. He
00:34:46
's from Bloomington, Indiana.
00:34:50
Ghost Galaxies and infrared Galaxies, presence of normal
00:34:55
matter significantly reduce the need for the existence of dark
00:34:58
matter. So much dark matter.
00:35:00
Yes, that's right. I think I'm just remembering our chat about
00:35:05
that that it's it's a a galaxy that in normal telescopes is
00:35:11
invisible. Because it's such, it 's such a dusty galaxy.
00:35:19
And they, that, I guess the idea is that, this has been, was it
00:35:26
observed by the, yes, observed by the James Roy telescope? That
00:35:30
's right. That's the story that we did, back in December.
00:35:34
So, I think the physics of this particular galaxy as tech 71 are
00:35:40
fairly clear cut in that it is real matter that is obscuring
00:35:45
it, it's dust, it's the normal smoke like material that we know
00:35:51
permeates Galaxies, our galaxy in our galaxy, you could see it.
00:35:54
Certainly the dust lanes in the, in the milky way, there was dark
00:35:58
clouds in the milky way are just the same sort of dust that we're
00:36:01
talking about here.
00:36:03
But it it, it, so, so it's, it's normal matter that is
00:36:08
contributing to its invisibility. So there is
00:36:14
certainly an interaction though with, with dark matter because
00:36:17
Galaxies tend to be rich in dark matter. And I, I suspect that
00:36:26
that, that any dark matter confusion that there is because
00:36:32
of the fact that we can only see this galaxy in the infrared.
00:36:36
I suspect that is I think, yeah, I think it's it, it's a minor
00:36:43
detail compared with our general understanding of dark matter,
00:36:46
which actually comes not just from looking at individual
00:36:49
Galaxies but from the structure of the Universe.
00:36:52
The the, you know, we can actually probe the geometry of
00:36:56
the Universe which leads us to information that's about the
00:37:00
amount of dark matter that there is in the Universe and that's
00:37:03
consistent with what we see in individual Galaxies. So I don't
00:37:06
think there's, there's an issue there, but it's a nice thought.
00:37:11
Good on you. Mark. Thank you so much. This is space now. It's
00:37:14
Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson.
00:37:22
Space Nuts. Ok. Fred. We've just got a few more questions to go
00:37:27
before we wrap this one up. And we didn't get the name of this
00:37:31
listener because it it, it cracked up at the beginning. So
00:37:35
apologies. But we got the general gist.
00:37:37
Here from Perth again. I was listening to your episode on the
00:37:41
oldest black holes, these super massive black holes that
00:37:45
occurred for very start earlier in the start of the Universe.
00:37:49
And I was just thinking that if gravitons existed, could they
00:37:53
have been an elementary particle formed in the black hole and the
00:37:56
Big Bang? And could they have come together to form the first
00:38:00
black holes?
00:38:01
Thank you. Bye. Thanks for the question. So, did you get the,
00:38:07
the Yeah, good. I was trying to remember what he said.
00:38:13
So, so yeah. So if gravitons existed, could, could they clump
00:38:18
together to form black holes? And I think the answer is no,
00:38:26
because gravitons if they exist would be bosons which are force
00:38:32
carriers and not is it, leptons, the other kind that make up
00:38:38
matter and you need matter to make black holes. So, so I think
00:38:44
that is, is the answer. Actually, I should check that.
00:38:47
I'm not talking rubbish gravitons are theoretical,
00:38:54
aren't they?
00:38:55
Yes, they are. Yeah. But yeah, no, actually leptons is the
00:39:01
wrong word for what I'm, what I'm trying to say. But basically
00:39:06
bosons are force carriers and the other kind aren't and you
00:39:10
need the other kind. You need the other kind to to, to form
00:39:15
black holes. I'm sorry, I throw, throw in the electro leptons
00:39:18
which are actually a different sort of, it's a different
00:39:21
category of elementary particles.
00:39:23
But you get the idea that they're the, they're the wrong
00:39:26
kind of leaves if I can put it that way as British railways
00:39:30
used to say when the trains were late or the wrong kind of leaves
00:39:33
leaves on the track. So the the gravitons I don't think could
00:39:39
clump together to make a black hole. I'm not a, I'm not a
00:39:42
particle physicist, but that's the way it would look to me.
00:39:47
Fair enough. Alright, thanks for the question.
00:39:51
Yeah, we're getting a lot of pretty heavy duty ones today.
00:39:54
This one comes from Garrett in, I love, I love where Garrett
00:39:59
lives. Dripping Springs in Texas. That sounds like a fun
00:40:05
place.
00:40:06
I'm going there. I'm going there next month. Oh the month after
00:40:13
next cos that's near where the eclipse path is. So we're gonna
00:40:17
be in drip springs passing through. Very beautiful.
00:40:20
Yeah, I'm sure it is. He says during the differentiation phase
00:40:26
as proto earth accreted out of the collapsing disc of dust.
00:40:29
While a lava glob form, the elemental species were able to
00:40:35
rise and fall to an equilibrium depth within the Gluck ball.
00:40:40
This is all official lover speech here. Each according to
00:40:44
its atomic weight with the heaviest isotopes also being the
00:40:48
least stable. I might have expected everything.
00:40:52
Bi I like U 235 to sink to the center of the core with the
00:40:57
weight of the entire mass of the planet pressing on all sides
00:41:00
till boom. Clearly, this did not happen. Why?
00:41:07
How do you know it didn't happen?
00:41:11
I, I look, look I, sorry, I didn't get the name there. Was
00:41:15
that Garrett? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, sorry, Garrett. So
00:41:21
there, there certainly is nuclear fission taking place
00:41:27
underneath the surface of the earth as we speak. There are
00:41:31
natural nuclear reactors which are basically what, what Garrett
00:41:35
's talking about.
00:41:37
They're in the probably in the crust actually rather than the
00:41:41
mantle. So they're quite near the top and that might come from
00:41:45
later bombardment of the earth by prot planets or planet
00:41:50
decimals that delivered those high density materials. To the
00:41:55
surface of what was by then the differentiated earth.
00:41:59
So reactions do take place and, and I, and they are constantly
00:42:04
doing that. But I, I think the difference is we don't get the
00:42:08
explosive chain reaction that Garrett's thinking of something
00:42:12
that blows up and maybe there just isn't enough of the
00:42:15
material to do that or the energies are not high enough.
00:42:20
I, I don't know the answer to the question. It's a, it's a
00:42:23
good one. But, nuclear fission does take place within the
00:42:28
earth. We, we actually think that the core is reasonably
00:42:34
active in this regard and it's one reason why it's still war.
00:42:38
So, it's more like perhaps, should I say it's more like a
00:42:43
nuclear reactor in a power station than a nuclear reactor
00:42:47
in a, in a fission bomb, an atomic bomb.
00:42:51
Oh, that's so, yeah. So that's, that's the short answer. And
00:42:57
knowing what the mix of these fissile materials is that would
00:43:01
actually give rise to such a situation is the subtlety that
00:43:04
I'm not across. But it's a, it's a great question.
00:43:09
And clearly there, well, as far as we know, there wasn't a boom,
00:43:14
it's, but yes, but it, but it, but it's not, you know, the
00:43:18
question with, with Merry because fission is taking place
00:43:22
and it is one reason why we think things like orphan planets
00:43:27
are visible and these are planets that seem to exist
00:43:30
without any star.
00:43:32
We can see them in the infrared region of the spectrum because
00:43:34
they're warm. That warmth is thought to come from this. Yeah,
00:43:39
wi within the fission processes, nuclear reactions deep within
00:43:43
their cause which is not nuclear fusion, which will turn it into
00:43:46
a star but nuclear fission which makes it warm.
00:43:50
Interesting.
00:43:52
I, I don't, I don't know how I'm drawing this connection but
00:43:56
Garrett wasn't there an early steam engine named a Garrett?
00:44:00
It's not early, it's was developed in the twenties. I
00:44:06
think it's a, an articulated steam locomotive that Garrett
00:44:12
locomotives and they were used here in Australia. They were
00:44:13
used.
00:44:14
Them between Sydney and Dubbo.
00:44:16
Oh, there you go.
00:44:18
Yeah, that's why I remember it came up in our archival news
00:44:21
segment that I do on the radio every day. Yeah. The Garrett
00:44:24
steam engine. Yeah. There you go. Garrett. Big, big. Yeah.
00:44:28
Yeah, they were, they were certainly big and powerful.
00:44:32
Thanks Garrett. Our final question comes from guess who?
00:44:36
Hello, space, not Martin Vermin Gorin here, writer
00:44:42
extraordinaire in many genres. And today's question is, how
00:44:49
many habitable planets could you get in a single solar system?
00:44:58
Like what might the maximum be and bonus follow up question.
00:45:03
Could you have more than one habitable planet orbiting?
00:45:09
Not the parent star but a gas giant? So you could have, could
00:45:14
you get like two or more moons of the gas giant of a gas giant
00:45:22
orbiting the, parent star. And one thing that I can set your
00:45:29
minds at ease about, I will never be asking for advice on
00:45:35
telescopes.
00:45:37
Because I brought up the subject with my wife and she told me
00:45:41
about a friend of hers whose marriage started downhill and
00:45:46
ended in divorce. When her husband started buying all these
00:45:50
amateur Calton can't wait for your answer. On the habitable
00:45:55
planet thing. Bing Glor over.
00:46:00
And, Martin, thank you so much. Always good to hear from him.
00:46:07
Very entertaining as usual. All right. So, yeah, how many
00:46:11
habitable planets? And could you have more than one orbiting a
00:46:16
star or a gas giant?
00:46:19
Yeah, look, you could throw any number up and you might be right
00:46:21
or wrong.
00:46:24
Yeah, the, there's physics, which would determine, you know,
00:46:29
how many habitable planets you might have in how many planets
00:46:36
you might have in the habitable zone of a star. And,
00:46:41
intuitively, I'm thinking, you know, that, that it certainly
00:46:46
could be more than one.
00:46:48
We, we, we think, well, that's not as daft as it sounds
00:46:53
because, you could, you know, if you, if you put a, a planet in
00:46:58
the, so the, the, the, the habit habitable zone around the star
00:47:01
is not very wide, that's the thing, you get too close and it
00:47:05
's too hot, get too, too far away and it's too cold and the
00:47:09
earth sits right in the sun's habitable zone as you.
00:47:11
And it really upsets really upsets. Bears.
00:47:16
Well, it would. That's right. Especially if there's coming
00:47:18
threes. So that's why you need the goldilocks. So, the, but
00:47:25
I'm, I'm so, yes. So, the orbital dynamics of an object
00:47:31
being joined by another object within the same zone of, a, a
00:47:36
AAA star's habitable zone, might mean that, you know, one just
00:47:42
gets kicked out straight away because they, they interact
00:47:45
gravitationally.
00:47:46
But when you think about it, we do know that there are ways that
00:47:51
objects can share orbits. And most notably, when you think of
00:47:58
a planet, like, let's say, Jupiter, even though Jupiter's
00:48:01
not in the habitable zone that's accompanied by two swarms of
00:48:04
asteroids, 60 degrees ahead of it and 60 degrees behind it in
00:48:08
its orbit called the Trojan asteroids.
00:48:11
And they basically are centered on the Lagrange points, the two
00:48:15
L four and L five Lagrange points. So that means that you
00:48:22
can have more than one object sharing the same orbit as long
00:48:28
as they're in particular geometrical relationships.
00:48:32
So, I think the answer is yes, you could, I don't know what the
00:48:36
maximum number is. But I think you could have more than one
00:48:41
object that might be maybe not quite planetary in size, but big
00:48:46
enough to, to be within the habitable zone, if you could,
00:48:49
you know, if you, if you could set up a base there or something
00:48:52
like that.
00:48:53
I, I imagine that, that most stars, except for maybe the
00:48:59
super volatile ones, would have some kind of goldilocks zone. So
00:49:03
within each there could be habitable planets. So, we,
00:49:07
you're talking squeals?
00:49:09
Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. That's right. In terms of, the habitable zone.
00:49:13
That's right. There was another aspect of Martin's question
00:49:17
which I didn't quite get cos he talked about moons going around
00:49:20
red giants and moons go around planets, not stars. So I wasn't
00:49:25
quite sure what he was getting out there. Did you?
00:49:29
No, I didn't catch it but II I, maybe he means moons that are
00:49:33
orbiting planets going around. Yeah, I mean, could you, could
00:49:38
you have a habitable planet and a habitable moon would be the
00:49:41
same. Maybe, perhaps, maybe any combination is possible, isn't
00:49:46
it?
00:49:47
Well, that's one thing that we're learning as we discover
00:49:50
more and more exoplanets. You know, we used to think the solar
00:49:53
system was the, the typical system of planets. If other
00:49:57
planets existed, then we started discovering other planets and
00:50:00
none of them looked like the solar system.
00:50:03
It's very well ordered compared with many of the ones that we're
00:50:08
observing. Part of that might be a selection effect though.
00:50:11
Andrew because it's easy to, to discover big plants, not so easy
00:50:15
to discover small.
00:50:17
Yes. Which are usually the habitable ones, or potentially
00:50:21
habitable ones. I, I suppose you also have to, you know, draw a
00:50:25
line under what is defined as habitable, habitable for humans.
00:50:30
Alright. Well, that reduces the odds significantly but habitable
00:50:33
for something that's alive. Yeah. Could be many. But then
00:50:38
you've got to define what alive is.
00:50:41
Well, that's right. Definition of life. Yes, we have.
00:50:46
Good luck with your telescope. Martin. Thank you so much for
00:50:50
sending in your question.
00:50:51
It's it's an interesting one is that and I think he's right. It
00:50:55
can lead to all kinds of because Astronomy and certainly when it
00:51:00
comes to buying telescopes, it's totally addictive and you just
00:51:04
get what's called aperture fever, you've got to have a
00:51:06
bigger one to show a bit more.
00:51:09
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Martin. Thanks to everyone who sent in
00:51:12
questions. Really appreciate it. Please keep them coming. You can
00:51:16
do that via our website Space Nuts, podcast.com, Space Nuts
00:51:20
dot IO and click on the A MA tab to send us a text or audio
00:51:23
question or click the, send us your voice message on the right
00:51:28
hand side of the home page and have a look around while you're
00:51:30
there.
00:51:31
And maybe you know, if you're one of the social media
00:51:34
followers, subscribe on YouTube or any of our other platforms,
00:51:39
the more subscribers the better. But that wraps it up for another
00:51:44
show, Fred. Thank you so much.
00:51:46
It's a pleasure, Andrew. And I look forward to more settled
00:51:50
stories in the next, in the next few weeks.
00:51:55
I don't know about you but I love the potlucks.
00:52:00
Yes, I know you don't.
00:52:02
It's not that I don't, it, It embarrasses me because it
00:52:05
reveals my levels of ignorance about certain topics.
00:52:09
Oh, gosh. No, I don't think so. I think it's you know, the
00:52:13
people are throwing curveballs all the time. You can't hit them
00:52:16
all.
00:52:17
I like to. One wants to know about it.
00:52:22
See you.
00:52:23
Alright. Thank you, Fred. See you soon. Cheers.
00:52:25
Bye bye, Fred Watson Asor Room are large and thanks to Hugh in
00:52:29
the studio. Let me just check and see nobody home. Alright.
00:52:34
And from me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for joining us. Hope you
00:52:36
can catch us on the very next episode of Space Nuts.
00:52:40
Bye bye to the podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
00:52:50
IHeartRadio or your favorite podcast player. You can also
00:52:53
stream on demand at bits.com.
00:52:55
This has been another quality podcast production from
00:52:58
fights.com.