#401: Titan's Troubles & UN's Satellite Summits: Life on Ice Moons and Space Traffic Control

Hi there, Thank you for joining us yet again on another episode of Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host, and good to have your company. Got a couple of things to talk about on today's show. Not all good news, I'm afraid. One in relation to Saturn's moon Titan. They've released some new information about the potential for life on Titan and that doesn't augur well. Unfortunately. They've been crunching the numbers and looking at the elephants and they've basically come up with an elephant in a room that they don't like the look of. That all makes sense, promise you that. And we are also going to the United Nations because there's been an agreement to talk about something that needs to be talked about so that they can talk about it again and then maybe make it about talking about whatever they're going to talk about at the first meeting that they're going to talk about. That all makes sense as well. That's all coming up on this episode of Space Nuts Channel ten nine, Ignition, Space Nuts three two Space Notes. As I reported, real good and joining me to unravel quite literally all of that is Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large. Hello Fred, Hello, Andrew, how are you doing. I'm confused. Well, join the club. Yes, No, I'm all right, I'm alright. Are you okay? Yeah, much better than I have been, Thank you. Now that the antibiotics have got rid of the it's technically called rickets here, but it's usually also known as a spotted fever. That describes it perfectly. And it was caused by a tick bite. Yeah. So yeah, that is nasty. It's been a long haul, really, hasn't it. I mean it does, it's been about three weeks. Nasty, nasty. Let us get stuck into the news of this episode, and our first story concerns Titan. Now, Titan held a lot of promise in terms of potential life because we know that it's got all those elements for creating life, plus you know, probably a subterranean ocean or a suber ice ocean. That could mean that the mix is right to create potentially life. And of course there's a big mission going there in the not too distant future. And the people who published this study were actually a little bit worried that what they discovered might put a torpedo in the mission, but it's probably going to do the opposite for other reasons, But let's sort of just get down to tintas. Titan probably looked like one of the best prospects for life beyond Earth, and now they are starting to suggest that's probably not true. What's happened? Ye, yeah, so, And I think the kind of slightly depressing bit of this is that it may well be that what has been evaluated for Titan will apply to the other ice moons like Europa, Enceladus and now Mimas, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. Yes, all have sub ice oceans. So this is a study by an astrobologist Catherine Nisch, and what she's shown is that the sub ice ocean on Titan. So remember the model of Titan, it's a rocky world. It's a big world. It's bigger than Mercury, which has an ocean overlaying the rock and ice on the surface of that. And on the surface of the ice there are other liquids which are with hydrocarbons. That's another story which we might touch on in a minute as well. But what Catherine has done is looked at how material from the surface of Titan, which is known to be rich in hydrocarbons, how that might filter down to the subsurface ocean. And the basically the outcome is that it is very very slow indeed, and you know, not something that might might make for a a prebiotic mix in the oceans of Titan, the sub ocean. And I'm putting that succinctly. But basically the story is this excuse me, and I should say this study is published in the journal Astrobiology. It's all about how you know, this transfer from the surface, which is gone to be organic rich down to the ocean. And so what has what the modeling looks at is the fact that comets, which will have impacted Titan like they have done the Earth and probably more so in the early history of Titan, hits the surface. The heat of impact melts the surface, so you've got a pool of liquid water for a little while that's got the surface organics mixed with it. And what she has done then is said, okay, first of all, how many comets are going to strike Tighten every year, and that gives you an idea of the flow of water rate carrying these organics from the surface to the interior. But then to work out just how they will get down through the ice. I mean, there are all kinds of unknowns in this, I have to say, Andrew, because we don't actually know how thick that ice layer is, and we don't know what the kind of consistency of what's underneath it is. It may be the sort of slush because we're talking about very low temperatures, but that ocean is known to exist because of this phenomenon of if you stand on tighten, your longitude changes, and that's because the surface is moving with respect to the interior core. Anyway, what they discovered was that every year, I think it's every year. Let me just make sure I'm saying the right thing here. Yeah, so this is every year, every year you would get roughly seven and a half tons of glycine, which is the simplest of the amino acids and is one of the constituents of proteins in living organisms. And I'll leave you to draw the line with the elephant there, but seven point five tons of glycine we're going to filter down to the ocean. Now, the ocean is we think at least twelve times the volume of the Earth's ocean, So seven and a half tons per year into that isn't going to cut the mustard when it comes to forming life, which is the equivalent to the mess of an African male elephant. That's very much that's where we're drawing the analogy an elephant in the room. Yes, that's right. So one elephant's worth of glycine per year going into an ocean twelve times the volume of Earth oceans. You can see the difficulty there, aren't you. It's going to be very, very dilute. Indeed, Now that's that's for a world that is rich in surface organic surface chemicals containing carbon, whereas the other icy worlds that we just mentioned, europeaganymye Enceladus, they're virtually no carbon compounds on their surface. And so you know, if Titan's subsurface moon is not going to be habitable because of this very poor flow of good stuff down from the surface, then it's going to be worse for the other, you know, the other ocean worlds, the other ice moons of the Solar system. So, actually, Catherineiche summarized it very nicely. This work shows that it is very hard to transfer the carbon on Titan's surface to its subsurface ocean. Basically, it's hard to have both the water and the carbon needed for life in the same place. And so that's as you said, there is still much to learn about about Titan. The Dragonfly mission, which will launch a double quad cocktail lander on Titan twenty twenty eight. It's not that far down the track, going to take a few years to get there, but that'll be exciting when it happens. So we're still excited about Titan, but this kind of is a bit of a downer when it comes to the sub sub ocean, So sorry, sub ice ocean. Well, the question for me is how do they know they're most likely to be right because they've had to make assumptions on several levels in releasing this paper. They've had to assume a certain number of comments, a certain amount of material, And how do we know that the interior of the planet didn't already contain all that exactly that that is a very good question because like all science, you're working on assumptions. You know, you're making these assumptions about what the constituents are with. The assumptions are always ba on the best understanding that we have, but may not be the right answer, and that's the beauty of science. You know, something might turn up next week that says, oh, wait a minute, we've got the comic flux wrong. Oh wait a minute, we've done the maths wrong. That's not usually the maths that have been done wrong. It's usually that one of the assumptions might change because of new discoveries. So it's like all particular astrobiology, you're pulling together strands from many, many different fields of science, and you're making a conclusion on the basis of that. Now, you did you did mention, you did mention liquid hydrocarbons on the surface. So what's the story? Like, I know, I know that exists, but how is it relevant to this story? Well, my take on this is less specimistic because one of the things that has excited astrobiologists in the past, certainly in the early days of the Cassini Huygen's mission when we landed a spacecraft on the surface of Titan, the fact that so the argument that niche Ander colleagues are making very much on standard biology as we know, it's water based life with carbon as the sorry carbon based life with water as the working fluid. And that's certainly true of all life that we know. We know of nothing that works differently, but there have been speculations that you could have a different basis of life, and there were certainly ideas put forward back in the nearly two thousands which suggested that maybe they were. There were organisms, again carbon based organisms, but ones that use liquid natural gas as they're working fluid, the ethane and methane which might breathe hydrogen and eat a settling, which is another another carbon containing pound. And there was a bit of a little bit of a flush of excitement about that when when Cassini discovered that both the stylene and carbon sorry acetylene and hydrogen a bigie pad, they're both depleted near the surface of these hydrocarbon lakes. Now, that observation might have gone away, it's not something I've heard about for a long time, but it does mean that we we shouldn't limit ourselves to looking at life as we know it Jim, because that's you know, water based, carbon based life on a on a water on a water working fluid. There might be other possibilities and titan might be a place where it exists. Okay, so we can't absolutely rite it off, but the evidence based on certain mathematical assumptions does sort of tip a bit of water apple on the on the on the Titan theory, cold water too, definitely cooled. I think I've got a solution though. Let's go to Titan and build a room. I reckon if we go in that, inside that room, we will find an elephant on its way down through the artist fit. Maybe it's got to be a bit of a disappointment for people. Even though they're saying, oh, no, no, you know this this new horizon, other dragonfly, sorry, mission, We'll go ahead, go ahead, We're still excited. There's so many more questions to answer. Well, that's right, but it's got to be a bit of a gut punch to hear this. Yeah, yes, it's it's science. Yeah, it's science. You know. We we take we roll with the falls is done it but you know, and once again, Titan is a fast interest, not just because of the possibility of there being life there. It's a huge interest. It's unique. It's the only world in the entire universe that we know other than the Earth where there are liquid pools of liquid pools of liquid, and its hydrocarbons are on water, which are in equilibrium with the atmosphere. So you've got this weather cycle there you get methane and ethane rain there will be Andrew get this, there will be methane and ethane rainbows on Tysan, which will have a different radius from rainbows on Earth because it's water that causes our water droplets that cause our rainbows. It'll be water, sorry, methane ethane droplets that cause theirs. And they've got different refractive indices stuff like that. It's going to be fabulous for Dragonfly. Yeah. Well, how long is that going to take to get there there? Yeah, that's the problem. A long time. Yeah. So even though the launch is what twenty twenty eight, by the time it gets there and I'm you know, it gets down to business, it'll be much much later. Yeah. I'm not sure what the orbital trajectory is. There will be slingshots involved, I'm sure, but I don't know what the details are anyway, Yeah, something still to look forward to. And it's not you know, it's an interesting comment I see as a yes, as a comment on our journey towards seeking life elsewhere in the universe. Indeed, if you'd like to read that story in full, you can find it on the site tech Daily website. This is space N's Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred what's an Let's take a short break from the show to tell you about our sponsor, nord VPN. Now, I've talked to you very very regularly about virtual private networks and the benefits that you gained, particularly if you're using Wi Fi devices in a public place, to protect you from scammers or hackers, or just generally protect you in an overall sense. But another thing that I've claimed in the past is the speed at which nord VPN can operate even when you're using a server in another country. So I'm going to prove it right now. I'm going to do a speed test on my own internet service. I have not got NordVPN connected right at this moment, so I'll pick the server. 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It's well worth getting, not only for your peace of mind, but also for your continuity of service. And I stand by it. I've been using it for a very long time, very happy with it and all those other services that go with it that I find really valuable. So where do you get it all right? Nord vpn dot com slash space nuts. That's gnord vpn dot com Space Nuts. There's a special deal for you, heavily discounted price, an extra four months, and it's their birthday, so they're offering all sorts of bells and whistles along the way. Check it all out at NordVPN dot com slash space nuts and click get the deal and don't forget. They have a thirty day money back guarantee. Now back to the show, Space Nuts the second half of our program FRED is dedicated to bureaucracy. Not I'm probably I'm probably being a bit too tough. But it's finally come to pass that the United Nations has put on an agenda for a meeting later this year. The they we'll be looking into the issue of concentrations of satellites or satellite constellations or whatever you want to call them, because as we speak, there are over eight thousand satellites in orbit around Earth, and there are plans to send up many, many, many many more. Even Rwanda wants to get in on this. They announced a few years ago now that they would have put three three hundred thousand satellites in orbit. SpaceX wants to put sixty thousand up there, and there are so many others that want to add to that number, and it's starting well, it's beyond becoming a concern for those who use telescope, visual telescopes and radio telescopes, because you want to keep the skies dark and quiet, and having hundreds of thousands of satellites orbiting the planet or in geostationary orbit probably would make that difficult. It's a challenge. So this story goes back really to twenty twenty nine. Sorry, doesn't go back to tonight. See I'm still not well enough. I felt very old there for a moment. Yeah, it goes back to twenty nineteen. In fact, May twenty nineteen when the first transch of Stalink satellites were launched and astronomers were taken by surprise, and when they realized that SpaceX had approval for another, well another twelve thousand of them, they started to get upset. So that's the backstory. Now, this is a story that I've been very closely involved with, Andrew, because it's part of my job to help to counter this issue. And since that time there's been a lot has happened. Astronomers grumbled like Matt to start with, but they have since then had many many conferences, done a lot of work on actually evaluating the risk to astronomical observation. And you're quite right, it's both optical telescopes and radio telescopes which were affected by this. So all of that has led a couple of years ago to the formation by the International Astronomical Union, which is the sort of governing body of astronomy, of something that is called the Center for the Protection of the dark and quiet sky from the effects of satellite constellations, usually abbreviated to the CPS. It's a lot easier to say. In fact, it's a lot of colleagues and friends of mine who are involved with that. So that's at one level, and that organization, the CPS, one of its it does many things. It does, you know, works out how you can remediate observations that have been affected by satellite transmissions, whether they're radio or satellite reflections. In the case of optical telescopes, They've done a huge amount of work on that. There is also a strong part of the organization which is about liaising with the space industry, which, in the body the bottom line, is one of the most important ones because the space industry is the key to this, and in particular the biggest basically the person or the organization with the most investment in this so far is SpaceX with Starlink, and I'm very glad to say that SpaceX has been one of the foremost, if not the foremost company to engage with astronomers and look at the problems and how you fix them. And indeed there are some really good people working within the Starlink organization who are actually also members of the CPS the IAU Center. So there's a lot of there's a good news aspect to this story. The less good news aspect was something I was closely involved with this time last year. I just in fact, I was just returning from a couple of weeks in v where the Science and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space had just finished its annual two week meeting, and during that meeting we were very kind of urgently trying to get this issue of the deleterious effects of satellite constellations on astronomy onto the agenda. The permanent agenda of kupwas the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. That proved difficult because everything in the UN works by consensus. It's not a vote. Everybody has to agree, and there were certain nations which will would not agree to this agenda item. And I came away it was the United States one of them. The United States was not one of them, No, it was other countries who were constantly in the news because of wars and things of that sort. So it was all about, you know, it was all about trying to push this through we were very disappointed at the end of that couple of weeks that we didn't make it through with the agenda item. There was a full meeting of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of out of Space rather than their Scientific and Technical Subcommittee, which is what I was involved with. That full committee met in June and the hope was that they would push it forward there too. That didn't happen either because of another country that objected, and in fact that's where it stood. And you might remember, but in October I was sort of meeting in La Palma in the Canary Islands, which was actually an International Astronomical Union meeting where we discussed this again and there were glimmers of hope there that we could see a way forward to take this issue onto the agenda of the UN. And Okay, so in the meeting that's just gone, which I wasn't at, and in fact it was an in person only meeting so I couldn't even log in online. But my colleagues from the Australians Base Agency were there, fantastic people who are right across this issue, and in the end it was agreed. So there is actually a very nice International Astronomical Union press release, which is headed as you said, United Nations agrees to address the impact of satellite constellations on astronomy. And so the agenda item, which will come up now for the next five years and that is pretty amazing for UN issues, has the title dark and Quiet Skies, Astronomy and large Constellations addressing emerging issues and challenges. And I hope that I might be involved with that work down the track. I'm not sure whether that's going to happen, but it's certainly very close to my heart to be able to do that. So that step forward now, as you have kind of indicated at the start of this segment, the wheels of the UN turned very slowly, indeed, and this is an issue on which essentially nimbleness is really the watchwork, because you know, the industry is moving ahead so quickly. But I do believe that what the UN agreement now will do is it just adds that little bit more gravitas to what we're already doing in the astronomy world, engaging with the space industry, looking at how things can be improved and how we can, you know, how we can mitigate the effects of these mega constellations because the bottom line is the mega constellations are actually doing good things now. You know, they are providing Internet services where they would never have been there before. And we've seen examples with the wars that are going on at the moment how those services are invaluable. There is the industry itself, I should just start as a PostScript to this, is concerned about the crowding of space because you know, the Castler syndrome haunts us all one big collision and you've suddenly got so much debut that space becomes unusable. Exactly. Yeah, I have a devil's advocate question. Okay, the UNS now agreed to put this on the agenda and discuss it and look at the problem over the next five years. How much power have they got to actually deal with it when the time comes? Well, the time has come, but how much power have they got? So they do have power in the sense that it may well be that another body that sort of sits under the UN, which is the International Telecommunications Union, and that's the body that actually allocates frequencies and basically say yes, you can launch your spacecraft. And there is there is thinking which I think is shared across the board that that you know, their mandate needs to be tightened up, that the ITU needs some revision in the way it deals with with requests for orbital launches and orbital slots, and and that that can be done. That's something that will probably be encouraged by the fact that this, uh, this agenda item has gone ahead. If I may just segue from that andrew to another story that kind of highlights really what we're talking about, and that is the announcement again from SpaceX that they are going to d orbit one hundred of its older Starlink satellites in order to sort of clear the air a bit. It's to to basically get rid of a threat for collisions because I think these are the older I think this is among the first group of the Starlink satellites. They're what they're called the Version one satellite, and so over the next few weeks they're going to deorbit one hundred of them. Now, exactly as you've said, Stalink already has more than five thousand of these in orbit, but the later versions are actually I think more sophisticated in their collision avoidance capabilities and things of that sort. So you know, SpaceX announced in an X tweet mix my metaphors there that this is the right thing to do to keep space safe and sustainable, which is really what it's all about. And I have to say, and I've said this already, but yes, SpaceX they're starlink constellations are certainly the biggest offenders in terms of numbers, but they are also the ones that have come closest to the party by things like the Visa SATs, which we're aiming to darken the satellites. We now have reflective coatings on the satellites that can deflect the beams of light from the Sun. Rather than those beams being scattered down to Earth where they become visible in twilight, you beam them straight out into space and make the satellites invisible. It reduces their brightness, and they're also engaging in some quite stringent mitigation properties in regard to radio astronomy as well. So in that regard, you know, it's a good news story. It is one that's still a difficulty. Astronomy will never be the same again with all this satellite constellation interference, but we're learning how to deal with it, and I think forging very good relationships with the space industry. I hope the space industry is listening to this too. Let's hope the UN works faster than our roads and traffic authorities here in New South Wales, who have just agreed that we should register horse drawn vehicles keys. All right, all right, I can't help myself sometimes. Yeah, it is interesting news and you can find out more at the International Astronomical Union dot org website. That wraps it up. Fred. Just a reminder too, if you want to listen to Space Nuts Q and A that will be coming up on Monday. It'll get downloaded to your respective platforms automatically if you subscribe to us, and if you're a follower on YouTube, don't forget to hit the subscribe button below. Thanks Fred, We will catch up with you real real soon. Sounds great, Andrew, talk soon. Fred Watson an Astronomer at Large and he joins us every week on Space Nuts, and I hope you'll join us again very very soon. We'll catch you then, from me Andrew Dunkley. Bye BYEPA Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at bites dot com. This has been another quality podcast production from fights dot com,