#455: Starship to Mars, Expanding Galaxies & Starliner Returns

Hello again, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts, where we talk astronomy in space science. My name is Andrew Dunkley. Coming up, we are going to look at Starliner yet Agaenjie. It's getting a guernsey in just about every episode of late but well there's been plenty to talk about, let's face it. Also another spacecraft, which is the product of space X, looks like it's going to be doing missions to Mars in the not too distant future. What's that all about? Well, it's one of those great dreams of a great man, and we'll see what he's got in mind. There's also suggestions that our galaxies are bigger than we thought, much much bigger. Why how what's. It all mean? And a passing star might have been causing a little bit of disruption around that trans Neptunian area. We'll talk about all of that on this episode of Space Nuts. Intact and guided in Channel ten nine Ignition Space Nuts or three. Two more new ones Space Nuts and I've reported meals good. And here to discombuberate all of that and to brush off brush turkeys is Professor Fred what's an astronomer at large bread? Although Andrew yes, you've you've just touched on the on the nerve that's affecting us all at the moment in brush turkey egg laying season everywhere, so you've. Got you've got them scratch scratching around your backyard literally literally. Yes, they dig up everything to try and build a nest and it's uh, you know, there are protected species, they're probably endangered actually there so we're very fond of brush turkeys, but what they do to your garden is pretty serious stuff. So we just tried, I've actually tried contacting their solicitor and things of that, so just to see whether that has an effect. But we'll see. Yes, they're damn ugly though for it. I mean, they're endangered and they're protected and then Australian natives. But they look like a cross between a traditional turkey in a vulture. Yes, yeah, that's actually a really good description they do. And you know they've got the brain of an ant as well, so they're not you know, they're not gifted in I mean when you compare them with some of the other species that we have around here, particularly the self a crusted cockatoos, which have got the intelligence of a primate intelligence. Yeah, they are very extraordinary creatures. We've sent a note to them as well about leaving their droppings on our outdoor furniture, but that's still. A matter for the legal fraternity. Well, I'd be surprised if they haven't destroyed your furniture. They like chewing things. They do like chewing things. Yeah, but they've been o case I think that. Yeah, Yes, I love I love soulpha crested cockatoos. We've got squeeens of them out at the golf course. But they're not loved when you're just in the middle of your downswing and one of them. Goes, oh yeah, that did they go? If you're studying next one the nearly drive your ear drums out there, oh yeah, they're loud. They are super loud. Okay, Anyway, what wildlife issues aside. Let's let's talk about Starliner for a change. Some good news at last. Yeah. So, Starliner, the you know, the spacecraft that we've been talking about solidly for the last two and a half months, three months, actually years, has made a textbook return to Earth at the end of last week, disconnected from the International Space Station. All twenty seven of its thrusters worked perfectly because that was the big ticket item, whether the thrusters were reliable or not. Uh and yeah, backed away from the spacecraft, fired its rockets to re enter and touch down completely safely, exactly on target, in a huge vindication, as some of the media are reporting, a huge vindication for Boeing's engineers. And I think there's been a lot of back patting all around, which is great, including the two astronauts left behind on the space. Stations, Williams, and I feel I feel terrible for them. They were full of congratulations to the to the Boeing engineers who they've worked with very closely, obviously for a long period of time, not just while they've been in space. You know. They they they reconcile themselves to another however, many months cities in space, quite some time ago, and so they had already made peace with the whole issue. Yeah, they're full of congratulations a NASA too. You know, we had reports of a bit of friction between Boeing NASA about this, and certainly there was some robust discussion we believe, in meetings, but nothing like what might be blown out by the tabloid media. And so yeah, I think I think this congratulations all, yes, it is. Good news and push. The two star Liner astronauts are still on the ISS and will be there probably till early next year, and by the time this podcast is released, star Liner would have been on the ground for probably nearly a couple of weeks. But it's worth mentioning that they brought it back safely. All is well. It just didn't have any passengers. It was just auto auto piloted back to Earth, which is extraordinary in itself the way they do that these days, with all these different spacecraft. They don't need humans to make them go up and down, but they do need humans to push the magic buttons that are just there. For decoration, I think. But yeah, no, seriously, though it's good to have it back, there must be a collective sigh of relief. Okay, yes, let's move on to another spacecraft, and this one is the brainchild of space X, the Starship Mega Rocket, which they say in the next couple of years will be sending missions to Mars, initially unpersoned, but ultimately leading to people going to Mars. This is actually a plan that might we talked about before, and people are saying it's a bibe duram. It will never happen, but they're certainly looking seriously at elong Musk's plan of putting a city on Mars is still going there. Yes, so that's right. That's the whole motivation for developing Starship Andrew. And it's quite remarkable. It is remarkable hardware. So it's two parts to it. The first stage booster, which is called the super Heavy, and then the upper stage, which itself is fifty meters tall, and that's the second stage, known as Starship. And unlike most spacecraft and certainly the Falcon nine series that Elon has developed, which has a first stage and then a separate second stage and then the payload itself, with Starship, the payload is built into the second stage, and so it is really quite different sort of architecture for the spacecraft from others. So what we have is a tweet from a baby pardon a space X sorry an X whatever it's called message formerly known as a tweet from Elon Musk on on Saturday the last week, as we are speaking, a post, that's the word I want a post A post times. Yeah, And so what he's saying is what his target timelines are for the first space staff Starship missions to Mars, and it is two years. That is exactly as you've said, uncrewed missions to start with with trials to land on Mars, and he's talking about that happening in two years and then two years later. And you know, he's partly limited by the physics of getting to Mars, which you can only do every twenty six months. That's when the two or the orbits of the two planets bring them into the right kind of alignment, so that when you get to the other end of the trip, Mars is where you want it to be rather than somewhere else in its orbit. So that happens every twenty six months, so two years time and uncrude mission to Mars are perhaps several and then in four years time he's talking about sending people to Mars, and his quote is flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self sustaining city in about twenty years. Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness. As we will no longer have all our eggs. Literally and metaphorically actually says metabolically. On one planet that's got a boat. Look, it's elon Muscart is finest in terms of big vision stuff. I think the rest of the world is looking on and saying, in your dreams, because there's so many unknowns about getting humans to Mars. It's something that we are simply faced with, real, real difficulties that brute force and ignorance is just not going to cut it. So I think we'll see slippage perhaps from that. But what's interesting to us as space watchers, of course, is seeing that technology evolve. Just a final footnote about this, Andrew. The starship has had four flights so far, and the last one basically achieved all that was hoped to achieve, and the fifth one is being planned, and I think the fifth one is the crucial one because they will return the spacecraft, this starship back to Earth on a soft landing, rather than just losing it into the ocean, which is what's happened before. Yeah. Look, people might be laughing behind his back and saying this is just a pipe dream, But if you don't have people that dream big, you probably don't achieve things at the high end of the spectrum. I'm sure because you don't hear about it in the history books, but I'm sure people laughed at the right brothers and everyone else was attempting to fly. Back in those days, I probably thought it was a huge jack. You'll never do it. It's impossible. Yeah wow now lookers, Yeah, and you know I mean ten years as well. Maybe. Yeah, ten years ago it was thought to be impossible to reuse a booster your first stage rocket, and that is now totally routine. It was twenty fifteen, I think, the first successful booster landing. And you've only got to look at the track record with Tesla. Vehicles as well. This streaming big can achieve great things. Notwithstanding the one Tesla vehicle that's floating out there in space. Some Yeah, the one that was on its way to Mars but actually overshot and is knowing the ice as well. I think. So that's a salutary left of. The Yes, yes, it's probably looking for a parking space station. Well with a charger on it. With a charger, yes, that could be. It could be an issue. But look, I think Elon Musk is a remarkable man. I know he gets ridiculed and gets he cops a lot of flak, but he has done some incredible things in the space science world that probably wouldn't have been attempted this soon by many other people. I know that he's not the only one, but he's getting all the headlines and he certainly knows how to get the story out there and get the interest of the public. I don't doubt that he will ultimately achieve this. Maybe not this quickly, but how quickly has he perfected these rocks? But what I do? Whatever? What if he did? What if in four years time we're talking about people walking on Mars with a. Staffship parks in the background. It's not impossible. No, it really would be. It would probably be the achievement of the century because it would be twenty years ahead of when NASA plans to be there, at least ten years ahead, and it would be a private venture that would be even more remarkable. Yeah, I wish him well and I hope we get to see it. I think it would be fantastic, And yes, I wish him nothing but success. I'm sure most people do. And you've got to also think about the brave people that will be doing this, because it's not like you crossing the Atlantic for the first time, or crossing Bass straight for the first time, or any of those kinds of ventures that we heard about one hundred years ago. But it's. A giant leap, a much giant, a giant leap than the Moon, and that was a huge jump, So it's all very exciting. Maybe I can good go ahead and sorry. It will also reinvigorate interest in space science, so it'll breed a whole new generation of scientists, and then it will just keep going. I think the I mean the point where I think many space watchers and astronomers and philosophers, perhaps I can put it ethicists where they diverge from Elon is sentenced. The flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with a goal of building a self sustaining city in about twenty years. That I think transgress is what we the way we ought to think about the way we treat mathers, And it's part of Elon's philosophy of believing the Earth is doomed and that we need to, you know, have a have a lifeboat. Mars is not our lifeboat, and what we have to do is fix our planet, you know. And if you want to have a lifeboat, build it. You build a megastructure rather than going and trashing another planet. That's my all this Now, I know. You've got issue with with occupying other worlds, but you know the time will come where more powerful people probably end up making those kinds of decisions. And it sounds like Elon's made his decision. And mining on the Moon, whether you like it or not, that's probably going to happen too. Yeah, and that's I think a different issue I think you can argue for from an ethical point of view. I'm not sure about colonizing. Mars though, so, I mean, I have no problem with humans going to Mars, but the model I think we should adopt is a bit like Antarctica, where it's scientific and research purposes mainly rather. Than Yeah, but nobody, nobody can wholly own it or occupy it. Yeah, that's a fair point. Okay, Yes, very interesting story and if you want to read up on that, it's on the space dot com website. This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Space Nuts. Now, Fred, we have talked quite a few times and received a lot of questions about the impending merger of the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies, but now there's a story that suggests they are already touching each other due to this discovery that the galaxies are bigger than we thought. How so. So, and this is a great story because it's got a very strong Australian connection. Scientists from Swinburne University down there in Melbourne, and they it's interesting from a number of points of view. One is that swinburn University has a deal with the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The two Keck telescopes are both ten meter telescopes are on Mona Kaya, the tallest mountain. It's not really a mountain, it's a shield volcano, but it's still one of the highest points on the planet Earth on the big island of Hawaii. Mount Oka. So the Keck telescope is. A ten meter telescope that has very very fine sensitivity. It can penetrate deep into the interspace, not just looking at very distant objects, but looking at fainter things in the you know, in the near field, things that are around our own galaxy, so other galaxies in the what you might call the middle distance. So what this team has done is they've. Used this sort of invested time on the one of the two Keck telescopes and looked at the gas that surrounds galaxies, and in particular a galaxy which rejoices in the name of Iras zero eight three three nine plus six five one seven. That's one of the galaxies that they've looked at, and what they've done is checked for glowing gas around the galaxy. So you know, we we when we look at galaxies look at pictures of galaxies, which many of us do all the time. What we're looking at mostly is the stars and often glowing gas as well. The pink blobs in the spiral arms of galaxies are pink clouds of glowing hydrogen. The old joke is that hydrogen. Is just like people, when it gets excited, it glows pink, but the mechanisms different. So they've instead looked at glowing oxygen and looked at it at very very great distances from the centers of these galaxies, and basically they find it goes much much further than anybody had expected. And this is a real achievement because this gas is ten thousand to one hundred thousand times fainter than the brighter parts of a galaxy, So you know, that's just penetrating really deep into the fainter regions of the universe and so yeah, so what they've discovered is that perhaps each each galaxy has this shroud of gas that extends maybe one hundred thousand light years into space. Now, one hundred thousand light years is what we usually think of as the diameter of the disc of our galaxy. So you know, if you basically double that in size, you've got the new version of what galaxies are, like how big they are, and they are colossal. And is it true that because of this, they believe that Andromeda and our galaxy are already touching technically. Speaking, yeah, they yes. I mean this Andromeda galaxy is about two and a half million light years away from hours. If you've got one hundred thousand light years of gas worth of gas in each of those galaxies, they're not actually touching, but they may well be interacting the you know, the extremities, because gravity operates over great distances, so they may be already tugging at one another, if I can put it that way, with these. Sailos of gas. So yeah, I think it's very a fair point to say that collision with Drumwind has already started. Hold onto your hearts, every. Wow, gosh, and we were sitting here, you know, we were going to wait that couple of billion years. Yeah, we thought were in the diary, but I don't have to now it's happening now. I know these gas surrounds have been previously discovered. We're talking, you know, seventy odd years ago that they were discovered, but it's only because of a new piece of equipment they've been able to really analyze them today. Is that accurately It's it's. Yes, it's one of the the Keck telescopes are equipped with very very fine auxiliary instrumentation and one of them is the instrument that's been. Used to do this. It's it's basically it's got what's called an image slice on it and that does exactly what the name applies. It takes an image, slices it up, but then for each slice you can get a separate spectrum. We in Australia have similar technologies on certainly the Angle Australian Telescope, but we don't use we don't slice the images. We break them up into pixels by using fiber optics. So it's a different technique that has the same basically the same outcome. But the thing about the image slicer is you can make them incredibly sensitive, and that's why they've been able to get the spectrum of oxygen out to these great distances from the galaxy at those incredibly faint levels. So, yes, it's all about the technology that is now available on these mouthless telescopes incredible. So beyond the extremities of the spiral arms of our galaxy and well other galaxies, even without those sorts of structures, there is a guess halo that stretches out that far. Again, is that basically that's correct? Yeah, And perhaps the most startling outcome of the research that these scientists have done on this is that those gas halos, when you add them up for all galaxies, they probably make up, they believe, between seventy and ninety percent of the normal matter in the universe. You know, Now, the normal matter is the stuff that's not dark matter or dark energy, and we you know, we know that we think of normal matter as being about five percent of the mass energy budget of the universe, and we usually think of that as being in stars, stars, of the glowing stuff, the stuff. You can see. But actually what they're saying is that much more of it is in these galaxy halos seventy to nine. So does that change the ratio? Does that change the formula of what. You know? No, it doesn't. What it changes is the ratio within that five percent, which is normal matter. So what we're saying is that rather than you know, half of it being stars, now for it being gas, most of it is gash. And that's a new aspect of this whole study. Mm okay, Wow, that's intriguing. And then they think this applies to just about every galaxy. Yes, it's incredible. Quite a discovery it is. And yeah, you know, all credit to the team, and just to give a give a shout out to the instrument as well, the image light so that we mentioned. It's called the Kech Cosmic Web Imager, and it's pretty dramatic stuff. And it proves my theory forred that the universe is built on baked beans. Well that's naturally what what we what your mind goes to, really, isn't it. Yes, does there's that much gas? Yes? Fascinating story and you can read more about that on the Conversation website. This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. MUDs. Let's get into our final chat, Fred, This one is about disruption in the extremities of our Solar system due to a passing star. So what happened and when? Quite a long time ago, I figured it might be before you and I were born. Uh, it's so it's a good question. Actually, I'm not sure that they can pin down when this happened, but I should have another the paper, because we've got the paper in Nature magazine which goes into details of this very nicely. H And what what the what they are doing? The scientists involved with this work, who are principally in Europe. If I remember at the University of Leiden comes into my mind. Yes, the Leiden University is where this research has been done. So what have they done. They've looked at the trans Neptunian objects, which we've talked about a lot because they are implicated in the idea of planet nine. And I'll get to that in a minute. But there this group from Leiden University have done a huge number of computer simulations to see why these trans Neptunian objects have such which highly inclined orbits. When you think about the you know, the the orbital plane of the Solar system, the one that the planet's lying there that's pretty flat. I think Mercury is the one that sticks out most. But the trans Neptunian objects are not like that. And I should mention that the main Belt asteroids mostly sit within the in the plane of the planets as well, And that all comes about, of course, because of the way planets are formed from a rotating disk of material, the protoplanetary disc. But when you look really a long way out to the trans Neptunian objects, objects further away than Neptune, they're tipped over at all kinds of angles. In fact, some are vertical almost, and there's one or two that are so far angled that they're going the wrong way round, they're actually going in the wrong direction. And so the scientists at Leiden have questioned what it is that has caused this, and there's simulations. Basically they tell them that a star of about point eight solar masses, so eighty percent of the mass of our Sun, flew past at quite a close distance, a distance of one hundred and ten astronomical units. Now we know that an astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. One hundred and fifty million kilometers, so it's one hundred and ten times that is about sixteen point five billion kilometers, about nearly four times the distance between the Sun and Neptune. So that passage of a star, and they suggest billions of years ago, without pinning down exactly when it was. What they find is that that tipped up many of these orbits and disturbed them so that we've got all these inclined orbits. But they also believe that this explains some of the peculiar orbits of moons of the outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Some of those moons go the wrong way round, and they've always been it's always been suggested that they've been captured asteroids, basically captured trans Neptunian objects that strayed into the inner Solar System and got captured by these planets. And so what the laden scientists are saying is that it maybe the same event when the star flew by the Solar system not only disturbed all these outer asteroids to put their orbits at high inclined angles, but also flung some of them into the inner Solar System. Where they were captured as moons. So it's a very very neat story. It makes sense though, when you think about it. Absolutely it makes perfect sense. It's exactly the kind of gravitational disturbance that you think. Might do that. So, oh, bless you. Yes, let's Judy going off. That's with the good old hay fever. I guess still. Yeah, Now, I mentioned planet nine a minute ago. That great theory that I think was been had that around into twenty sixteen or thereabouts if I remember rightly, and that's saying. That, yes, we've got. Very elongated orbits out in that out of Solar System region, but there's some of them aligned in a way that's suspicious that there's another planet out there. So the paper that we're talking about now, which in Nature Astronomy is called the Trajectory of the Stellar Flyby that shaped the Outer Solar System. It's a very nice title. That paper is. Very briefly includes. A mention of planet nine, and I'm going to read the paragraph that it's in. It says, eventually, high inclination trans Neptunian objects could be crucial when deciding between different hypotheses. Retrograde trans Neptunian objects themselves, and that's ones that go backwards in their orbits provide a challenge for the planet instability model. Adding a distant planet in brackets, planet nine appeared to solve the problem. This combined model can account for retrograde trans Neptunian objects and with certain parameters, But it says however, distant highly inclined trans Neptunian objects, if they exist, may provide a challenge also for the planet nine model. So what they're saying is planet nine actually helps in their theory. Yeah, you know, maybe it's a combination of both this passing star and a planet. That we have not yet discovered in the depths. So to put it in super scientific technical speake, we had a Solar system sized bull in a china shop. Yes, I think that sums it up very bovinely. If I can use the car jumped over the moon, the ball in the china. Shop, all did the rest. Yeah, Oh, it's a great it's a great story and if it holds true, which it certainly, the mathematics works could answer a lot of questions and add a bit more, a touch more weight to the potential for a planet nine, which I like, I wanted to be there. I do. Yes, if you'd like to follow up on that story. It's a it's a good read, but it's super technical, so my brain went snap. Nature dot com has that story. That brings us to the end. Friend, Thank you so much for your presence. Yet again, it's always enlightening. Better than and darkening, isn't it, which is what we talk depending on where you are. Yes, no great stuff on you. Thanks for having me, always a pleasure. Fred Wat's an astronomer at large. And thanks to Hugh in the studio. We've got a question about here the other day. I'll try and tackle that in a future episode. And from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. Catch you on the very next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast. Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at bytes dot com. This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.