Extraterrestrial Explorations: From Earthrise to Black Holes
In this exciting episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson embark on a cosmic journey, exploring the search for extraterrestrial life and the wonders of black holes. From the iconic Earthrise image captured by Apollo 8 to the latest discoveries in astrophysics, this episode is filled with fascinating insights that will leave you pondering the mysteries of the universe.
Episode Highlights:
- The Search for Life on Europa: The episode kicks off with a discussion about the European Space Agency's JUICE mission, which aims to explore Jupiter's icy moons. Fred shares how the mission tested its radar instrument on the famous Anders Earthrise Crater, linking past and present in the quest for signs of life beneath the icy surfaces of moons like Europa.
- The Enigma of Blazars: The conversation then shifts to the intriguing discovery of OJ287, an exotic double black hole known as a blazar. Fred explains the unique characteristics of this cosmic phenomenon, including its crooked jet of material and the implications of having two black holes interacting in such a dynamic way.
- Betelgeuse and Its Potential Companion: The hosts delve into the latest findings regarding Betelgeuse, the famous red giant star in Orion. Fred discusses the discovery of a potential companion star using advanced speckle imaging techniques, raising questions about the dynamics of binary star systems and what this could mean for our understanding of stellar evolution.
- Cultural Perspectives on Constellations: Throughout the episode, Heidi and Fred reflect on the diverse interpretations of constellations across cultures, highlighting how different societies perceive and name the stars, adding a rich layer of storytelling to our understanding of the night sky.
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Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another fun and exciting
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 episode of Space Nuts, the
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 podcast that is out of this world.
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:12 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 3, 2, 1. Space nuts astronauts
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 report it feels good.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 Heidi Campo: And joining us today is Professor Fred Fred
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 Watson, astronomer at large.
00:00:29 --> 00:00:30 How are you today, Fred?
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 Professor Fred Watson: Um, I'm very well. Probably a
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 bit better than you are, because I hear you
00:00:36 --> 00:00:37 haven't been too well lately, and I hope
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 you're feeling a little bit better, a little.
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 Heidi Campo: Little under the weather, which is probably
00:00:41 --> 00:00:42 why I forgot to introduce myself.
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 I am your. I am your.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:46 Professor Fred Watson: I should.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 Heidi Campo: I am the host of this episode. My, uh, name
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 is Heidi Campo. I am filling in for Andrew
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 Dunkley, who is our regular host, who is on a
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 cruise around the world right now, and he's
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 having just the time of his life. Um, you
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 know, yeah, I've been better. I've been
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 worse. Uh, I think this is just. I've
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 been battling a fever. But the good thing
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 about podcasting is we can do this at a
00:01:10 --> 00:01:11 distance.
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, in fact, a distance almost equal to the
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 Earth's diameter. It's quite a long way that
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 separates us. Not quite, but getting
00:01:19 --> 00:01:20 on that way.
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 Heidi Campo: Yeah, it's, uh, it's always my. My evenings,
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 your mornings, my summer, your winter. It's
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 opposite in so many ways.
00:01:27 --> 00:01:28 Professor Fred Watson: All wrong.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:28 Heidi Campo: But.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 Professor Fred Watson: But, uh, we're on the same. We're on the same
00:01:30 --> 00:01:30 page.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:31 Heidi Campo: We are.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 And. And one thing that I think everyone
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 around the world can be on the same page on
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 is everybody is always
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 fascinated with extraterrestrial life
00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 and the search of it and the question of, is
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 there life outside of our little
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 blue marble that we live on? And it
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 looks like our first story today is kind of
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 talking about just that, um, they're
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 scanning the famous. The Earthrise
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 crater on a mission to find
00:02:01 --> 00:02:02 alien life.
00:02:03 --> 00:02:04 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, that's right.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:04 Heidi Campo: Um.
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 Professor Fred Watson: Ah, I love this story because it links
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 two very different eras in
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 space flight. Um, it goes back
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 right to the beginning of human flight in
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 space, uh, when on
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 the 24th of December,
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 1968, uh, William
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 Anders, one of the three astronauts orbiting
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 the moon on the Apollo 8 mission. Apollo 8
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 was a mission that did not land on the moon,
00:02:31 --> 00:02:32 but it was the first time humans had
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 circumnavigated the moon. Uh, he took
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 that amazing image of the
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 gibbous Earth, the Earth, uh, sort of partly
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 illuminated, rising above the limb of the
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 moon. And, um,
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 I, uh, remember that so clearly. Um, Heidi,
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 I know it's long before your time but it
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 was so exciting, Christmas Eve, really
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 special, uh, that we got this image
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 back with some very appropriate words as well
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 from the crew of Apollo 8. And it was, you
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 know, it was the dawn of human spaceflight
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 going to the moon. It was really. We thought,
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 um. We thought there would be no end to this,
00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 that we'd be living on the moon by the
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 1980s. It was an amazing
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 time. Uh, so as I said, I remember it with
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 great excitement. You probably picked that up
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 already. Uh, now, um, in the foreground of
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 that image is a large crater. Um,
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 it's about 40 kilometers or 25 miles
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 across. Uh, it was known as
00:03:31 --> 00:03:34 Pasteur T, Named after Louis
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 Pasteur, uh, Pasteur T. Not, uh,
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 quite sure what the T was. I think it was
00:03:39 --> 00:03:40 because there's probably a different one with
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 a different letter as well. Um,
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 um. But, uh, following
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 the image and the fame and the iconic
00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 nature that that image, uh, taken by Apollo 8
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 astronauts, um, produced, uh,
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 that, uh, crater was renamed,
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 uh, Anders Earthrise, named after William
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 Anders, who is the astronaut who took the
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 photo. And I've just checked and I'm sorry to
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 say William Anders is no longer with us. He
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 passed away just over a year ago in June
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 2024. But an
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 exciting life he led. Uh, and so
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 here we have this, uh, wonderful crater, well
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 known, perhaps the best known of all lunar
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 craters, even though it's not one of the
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 biggest by any means. Uh, but what has
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 happened now, uh, to link it with
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 spaceflight today and to link it with your
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 intro, uh, which, uh, is
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 all related to astrobiology and the hunt
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 for evidence of living
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 organisms beyond our own planet. Uh, and one
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 of the space missions that has that,
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 uh, very much in mind is a European one.
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 It's not a NASA mission. It's a European
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 Space Agency mission. It's called juice.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 Juice, um, is an acronym for the Jupiter Icy
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 Moons Explorer. Not quite sure what happened
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 to the M in that, uh, in that acronym, but
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 never mind. JUICE is a good name. Launched,
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 uh, back in, uh, 2023, uh,
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 and on its way to Jupiter with a few, um,
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 slingshot maneuvers. Uh, it's, uh, going
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 to reach Jupiter orbit in
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 2031. Uh, and,
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 um, why are we talking about that in relation
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 to the moon? Because, um,
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 the spacecraft, uh, it's actually almost a
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 year ago now, actually, um, flew past the
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 moon, uh, and used that,
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 uh, encounter of JUICE
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 with the moon to test one of the
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 primary pieces of equipment on board the
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 spacecraft. And it's something called rime,
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 another acronym, uh, not R H Y
00:05:44 --> 00:05:45 M E. That Would have been too complicated.
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 Complicated. It's Rime, um, uh, the
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 radar for icy moon exploration.
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 And rime is a device that uh,
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 will, we hope, uh, when the spacecraft is in
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 orbit around Jupiter, uh, it
00:06:00 --> 00:06:03 will test the level of
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 um. It will basically examine the
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 structure beneath the icy surface of
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 moons like Europa. Um, it won't be in orbit
00:06:12 --> 00:06:13 around Europa, it'll be in orbit around
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 Jupiter. But it will make many flybys of
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 Europa. And in doing that, it will use the
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 RHYME instrument to probe
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 what's underneath the ice of uh,
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 ice, um, moons like Europa, probably some of
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 the other ones as well. Uh, Ganymede
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 and uh, Callisto are both also thought to be
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 ice moons of this kind. A moon with an
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 icy surface overlaying a global ocean
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 which overlays a rocky body, the sort of moon
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 itself. Now in order to test
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 the RIME device, this radar for icy moon
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 exploration, you need radio, uh,
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 silence because it's very, very sensitive. So
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 uh, what they did was uh, the
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 mission controllers, they switched off all
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 the other instruments on board, uh,
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 Juice to test rime and
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 tested it on. Yes, you've guessed it.
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 Uh, the Anders Crater, the
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 Anders Earthrise Crater. Uh, so that
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 was the zone on the moon that they tested
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 the radar with. Uh, and as far as
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 I understand it came out absolutely
00:07:19 --> 00:07:20 perfectly. Um,
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 the performance of the instrument was uh,
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 as expected. And it looks as though
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 we will find, um,
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 uh, when Juice gets to Jupiter in
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 2031, that it's going to work for.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 Probing the suburbace region of uh,
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 of Europa's ice fields.
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 Heidi Campo: Well that is just fantastic. So we're
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 not quite sure yet, but that information
00:07:49 --> 00:07:50 is coming. What do you think?
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, um. You mean
00:07:56 --> 00:07:57 what do you think they're going to find when
00:07:57 --> 00:07:58 the spacecraft gets to Jupiter? What's it
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 going to find? What do you think I think it's
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 going to find? Well, the first thing it'll
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 find is layers in the ice.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 It will probably show
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 a stratified ice formation.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 Um, what would be brilliant would be. And I
00:08:14 --> 00:08:15 don't know whether it's capable of doing this
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 if it could probe down to the
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 lowest layer of the ice where there's an
00:08:22 --> 00:08:24 interface between the underneath of the ice
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 crust and the top of the briny
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 ocean, uh, uh, on which the
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 ice crust flows and it's liquid too. And it's
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 kept that way because of the pressure of the
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 ice on top and probably the tidal
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 heating. Um, all of Jupiter's moons,
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 especially IO, the volcanic one, they're all
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 subject to being squashed and squeezed by the
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 huge gravity of Jupiter itself. And so,
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 um, that warms up the core and keeps the
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 ocean liquid. Whether we'll see fish swimming
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 in the ocean, uh, I think that might be
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 a step too far. But what it might reveal
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 is what the depth of the ice is.
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 It might tell us what we would need to do to
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 go and sample that water directly, how much
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 ice we'd need to drill through. It may even
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 tell us about the constituents of the
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 ocean itself, give us some indication of just
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 how briny it is. I
00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 think it would be, again, a step too far to
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 find it penetrating down to the rocky
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 seabed of that ocean, because
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 that's where we expect to find
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 hydrothermal vents. And they are thought to
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 have been the cradle of life on Earth. Maybe
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 they are the cradle of life on Europa,
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 Callisto and Ganymede as well. So lots to
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 imagine, uh, in the time between now and
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 2031. Uh, I hope Space
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 Nuts is still going strong in
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 2031. And I hope you feel better by then,
00:09:50 --> 00:09:51 Heidi.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 Heidi Campo: I hope I feel better by then too.
00:09:58 --> 00:09:59 Professor Fred Watson: Space Nuts.
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 Heidi Campo: Well, our next story is one, uh, that I think
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 everybody's going to be really excited about
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 because everyone here on Space Nuts is, seems
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 to be obsessed with the same thing
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 and that is black holes. And
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 this is not just any
00:10:16 --> 00:10:18 black hole. This is a
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 exotic. And then it's called a
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 blazar. And it's an extreme
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 double black hole. What? I didn't even know
00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 that you could have like a double black hole
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 situation going on. But it's a good thing
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 that we have you, an astronomer, to
00:10:34 --> 00:10:35 explain that to us.
00:10:37 --> 00:10:40 Professor Fred Watson: No, well, I'll do my best. Um,
00:10:40 --> 00:10:43 uh, so once again, going back to,
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 I'm not going quite back as far as, um, the
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 Apollo 8 mission, but, um,
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 uh, the blazar is
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 a fairly new term, uh, that
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 has been coined probably within the last 20
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 or 30 years. Um, when I was a young
00:11:02 --> 00:11:03 astronomer at the Royal Observatory in
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 Edinburgh, uh, they were a big time topic
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 because nobody knew what they were. We had no
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 idea that they were black holes back then.
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 Uh, um, we called them Bl Lac objects.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 And Bl Lac is an abbreviation for Bl
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 Lakerti, uh, which is a
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 name for a variable star because that's what
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 they were classified as, an extreme variable
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 star, a star that varied in its brightness.
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 Uh, but once we realized that these are
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 actually black holes squirting out jets
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 of material that, uh,
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 aligns with the Earth and so looks
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 very bright, then they were
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 renamed blazars. Uh,
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 and it's quite nice because The BL is still
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 part of BL lac blt. Okay,
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 so this particular one has uh, the
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 wonderful name of OJ287,
00:11:52 --> 00:11:54 which is perhaps notable only for its
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 brevity, uh, but it's a good name.
00:11:57 --> 00:12:00 Uh, and it's. It's got, um,
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 the uh. Basically the
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 object has the distinction
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 of producing a jet of material
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 which is not quite aligned with our
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 own planet, very nearly aligned with it,
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 but it's crooked. Uh,
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 it's a jet of material that looks like a
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 corkscrew. Uh, it's got
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 kinks in it basically. And the
00:12:26 --> 00:12:28 uh, deductions that have been made
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 because of the crooked jet of material
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 coming from this blazar is
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 that it is, um,
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 actually not one black hole that is doing
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 all the activity. It's two.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 And just to recap, uh, when a black
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 hole is in, um, the center of a
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 galaxy, a supermassive black hole, uh, it
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 has an accretion disk around it, a disk of M
00:12:55 --> 00:12:56 material that's swirling around the black
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 hole that gets very energetic, can emit X
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 rays, radio waves. But some of that material
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 doesn't get sucked into the black hole. Some
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 of it basically gets focused into one of,
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 uh, well, a pair of jets going, uh,
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 vertically perpendicular to the accretion
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 disk, um, which are focused by magnetic
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 forces. Now, um, the normal name
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 for one of those is a quasar, uh,
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 which is an acronym for a quasi
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 stellar source. Um,
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 uh, and a quasar, uh,
00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 is basically a single black hole emitting a
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 jet of material which, uh, we see very
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 brightly, uh, from our vantage point
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 on Earth. So, um,
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 uh, basically a blazar
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 is one of those, but seen head on. So it's
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 directly. The material is directly
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 being aimed at, uh, the Earth. It's a special
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 kind of, uh, quasar.
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 Now the, uh, crooked jet tells you
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 that there's something else going on. And
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 the observers who have done this research,
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 uh, and really looked at
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 the hypothesis for what's happening
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 is that it's not one black hole, but
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 two. Uh, one of them
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 has, um,
00:14:15 --> 00:14:17 basically a huge mass,
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 18.35 billion
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 solar masses. So 18.35
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 billion times the mass of the Sun. It dwarfs
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 the one at the center of our own galaxy,
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 which is about 4 million times the mass of
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 the Sun. But this 18,
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 uh,.35 billion solar mass black, uh,
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37 hole is at the center of
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 activity there. And that's what's shooting
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 out the jet. But, um, it has another
00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 one going around it which is probably less
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 massive. I don't know that there's an
00:14:47 --> 00:14:49 estimate for the mass of the second one. And
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 it's in a very elongated orbit around the
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 main black hole. And every 12 years it
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 actually, uh, gets close enough to the main
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 black hole to sort of
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 steam through the accretion disk of the big
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 black hole and essentially grab some
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 of the material from that disk and
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 basically produces its own jet of
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 material, uh, and becomes a double
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 quasar for a short time. Uh, and
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 then, um, it fades away.
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 And, you know, observations of, um, this
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 object, OJ287, have been a
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 mystery until now. Um, back in
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 2021, there was a huge increase in
00:15:29 --> 00:15:32 brightness that only took 12 hours. Uh,
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 that's quite extraordinary, uh, you know, in
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 something as compact as that. Uh, so
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 we've got a, uh, theory that, um. And I
00:15:41 --> 00:15:43 might just add that it's very nicely
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 expounded, uh, on thespace.com
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 website by, uh, Keith Cooper, who's written
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 an article on this. Uh, and I
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 think, uh, the bottom
00:15:54 --> 00:15:56 line is that this object will continue to be
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 observed. We'll find out more about black
00:15:58 --> 00:16:00 holes. We'll discover more about double black
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 holes like this one. Um, my question,
00:16:03 --> 00:16:06 uh, to the astronomers who've made this, uh,
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 research would be, is there any chance of the
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11 two merging? Because we do know that black
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 holes merge. We see their gravitational wave
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 signals. Uh, and maybe that would
00:16:16 --> 00:16:17 be something that, down the track might
00:16:17 --> 00:16:19 happen. We might get a merger between
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 OJ287 and its companion black hole.
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 Heidi Campo: I mean, the images are truly incredible. If
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 you guys are able to, um, look
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 this up, I really encourage you because it
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 really. I can't quite describe it, but
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 it almost looks like, um, like you. Can
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 you. I can't describe it. It looks like they
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 are connected though. Like you can see like
00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 there's this spiraling energy between them.
00:16:43 --> 00:16:44 It's really interesting.
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 Professor Fred Watson: Okay, we checked all four systems, and.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:51 Heidi Campo: Being with a go Space nets, I also wanted to
00:16:51 --> 00:16:53 ask you, were you really thirsty when you
00:16:53 --> 00:16:55 were looking at, um, the articles today?
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 Because I realized juice is in all of them.
00:16:58 --> 00:17:00 With the first one, um, juice, the
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 acronym. And then this one's OJ 2,
00:17:03 --> 00:17:06 8 7. And then the very
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 last OJ orange juice. And the very
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 last article we have is, uh,
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 some people pronounce it Beetlejuice,
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 but Beetle. Guys, um, we were
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 talking about this before we logged on,
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 um, and you told me the
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 French way of pronouncing beetle.
00:17:27 --> 00:17:27 Geist.
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 Professor Fred Watson: Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse.
00:17:30 --> 00:17:31 Heidi Campo: And then what was the German?
00:17:32 --> 00:17:34 Professor Fred Watson: Well, I don't know whether the Germans say
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 it, but it would be Bettel Goiser, I guess,
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 in German, but we often call it
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 Betelgeuse because that's the easiest way to
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 do it. But, uh, what a lovely comment to
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 make, Heidi. I hadn't spotted. I had not
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 spotted that link between the three stories.
00:17:49 --> 00:17:50 That's brilliant.
00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 Heidi Campo: Well, I'm just sitting here listening to you.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 I'm like, wait a second. Every article today
00:17:54 --> 00:17:55 mentions juice.
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So it's a very juicy episode of
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 Space Nuts today.
00:18:01 --> 00:18:02 So, um, and that's a lovely segue to the
00:18:02 --> 00:18:04 final story as well, which is about
00:18:04 --> 00:18:06 Betelgeuse or Betelgeuse or whatever you want
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 to say. Uh, I copy. Um, Patrick
00:18:09 --> 00:18:12 Moore, that great science communicator, uh,
00:18:12 --> 00:18:14 in the United Kingdom, sadly no longer with
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 us. But he encouraged many, many people to
00:18:17 --> 00:18:19 take up astronomy as a hobby and
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 another large number to take up astronomy as
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 a career. Including the person talking to you
00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 now. Uh, he pronounced it Betelgeuse. He
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 made it French. Um, but Betelgeuse is as good
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 as any. And why is it in the news? Because
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 for a long time, this star, I should
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 say it's the reddish star, uh, on
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 Orion's shoulder. And that's the
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 constellation of Orion, which is very
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 familiar to all of you people in the Northern
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 Hemisphere. Uh, and so it's
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 the star on his right shoulder, a red
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 giant star, very gigantic star, probably
00:18:53 --> 00:18:56 pretty unstable. Maybe we'll turn it into a
00:18:56 --> 00:18:59 supernova within the next 10 years or so.
00:18:59 --> 00:19:02 Something to look forward to. Um, but, um,
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 now we see Betelgeuse, uh, in a different
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 place because our view of Orion is upside
00:19:08 --> 00:19:10 down. Uh, and, um, people tend to notice more
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12 the three stars of Orion's belt, which we
00:19:12 --> 00:19:14 call the base of the saucepan. It's very
00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 confusing, Heidi. Um, um, but, um,
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 it doesn't matter where it is. The main thing
00:19:20 --> 00:19:22 is, if I remember rightly, it's about 500
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 light years away. I can't remember the exact
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 figure, but it's something like that. Uh, and
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 it's thought there's been a suspicion
00:19:29 --> 00:19:32 for many decades that it has a companion
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 star. Now, companion stars are not at all
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 uncommon. Uh, in fact, probably more
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 stars in the galaxy are double stars. So they
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 have a companion. They're a binary object,
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 uh, than single ones. Um, our sun
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 is a bit unusual in that respect because it's
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 definitely a single star, at least to the
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 best of our knowledge so far. Um,
00:19:53 --> 00:19:55 this, however, is a putative,
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 uh, discovery. Sorry, a discovery of a
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 putative satellite. Uh, star
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 of Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse Uh,
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 which has been detected with the Gemini North
00:20:07 --> 00:20:10 Telescope in Hawaii, one of the eight meter
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 class telescopes. That is at the summit of
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 Mauna Kea, the mountain on the Big island
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 there. Um, and uh, the
00:20:17 --> 00:20:19 thing that interests me about it, um, because
00:20:19 --> 00:20:21 we don't really know much about what's
00:20:21 --> 00:20:23 discovered except there's a faint blob
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25 showing up next to Betelgeuse, which is
00:20:25 --> 00:20:28 thought to be the companion M. But the method
00:20:28 --> 00:20:30 used was something we call speckle imaging,
00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 um, which is a way of trying to tease
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 out detailed information in an image
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 in spite of the turbulence of the atmosphere,
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 um, sort of blurring the image out,
00:20:42 --> 00:20:45 uh, as the, as the light comes through it. If
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 you can take very, very short exposures, you
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 know, perhaps a thousandth of a second,
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 take an image lasting that long, you'll
00:20:53 --> 00:20:56 freeze the turbulence of the atmosphere. And
00:20:56 --> 00:20:58 by doing that, it's possible to tease out
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 much, uh, more detail. This technique called
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 speckle imaging. And that's how this object
00:21:03 --> 00:21:06 has been found. The reason there is
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 still some doubt about whether it's a real
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 companion or not is because as I understand
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 it, over the time that this object has been
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 observed, um, Betelgeuse and
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 its companion, there's been no apparent
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 movement of the companion. Uh,
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 and if you've got something in orbit around
00:21:25 --> 00:21:28 another star, uh, this close as it seems
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 to be, you would expect to see some motion of
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 the image of the object. We see that with one
00:21:33 --> 00:21:35 or two of the exoplanets that have been
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 discovered. Of the 7 odd
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 exoplanets that we know, there's only a
00:21:41 --> 00:21:42 handful that have been seen by direct
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 imaging. Most of them, uh, it's by
00:21:45 --> 00:21:48 deducing their presence from other evidence.
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 But one or two have been shown, uh, by direct
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 imaging and you can see their motion around
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 the parent star. That's why we know those
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 planets are real. Now you would expect the
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 same thing to happen with a star and a
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 companion star like we're talking about now.
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 But, um, so far, as far as I know, no
00:22:05 --> 00:22:08 motion has been detected. And
00:22:08 --> 00:22:09 once again, if you want to read about that,
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 there's a great article on the sky and
00:22:11 --> 00:22:12 Telescope website.
00:22:13 --> 00:22:15 Heidi Campo: Well, and I'm looking at this one too. I
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 realize now that I probably say this about a
00:22:17 --> 00:22:19 lot of our articles, but this is also such a
00:22:19 --> 00:22:21 beautiful image. Um, and the one here.
00:22:22 --> 00:22:25 So this, this photo is, that's the technique
00:22:25 --> 00:22:27 they used is the really short,
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 um, that is just stunning because
00:22:31 --> 00:22:32 you, it's.
00:22:32 --> 00:22:34 Professor Fred Watson: So what, what they do is they, they take
00:22:34 --> 00:22:36 really short exposures and then they kind of
00:22:36 --> 00:22:38 stack the good ones, the ones that are
00:22:38 --> 00:22:40 showing what they expect to show. They stack
00:22:40 --> 00:22:42 them up to build up what we call the signal
00:22:42 --> 00:22:45 to noise ratio in the image to make it, uh,
00:22:45 --> 00:22:48 an image that's got some credibility to
00:22:48 --> 00:22:50 it rather than just, you know, just noise.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:52 But yes, you're right. It's a stunning image.
00:22:52 --> 00:22:55 Heidi Campo: Yeah. Usually you don't, um. I
00:22:55 --> 00:22:57 don't know what it is about it. There's just
00:22:57 --> 00:22:59 so much detail in it. It almost looks,
00:23:00 --> 00:23:02 I don't. Just different from a lot of the
00:23:02 --> 00:23:04 space images that you see. And it's really,
00:23:04 --> 00:23:05 really beautiful to me.
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08 But I also had another thought, um,
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 when you introduced this to how you mentioned
00:23:10 --> 00:23:13 how Orion's upside down for you. And it made
00:23:13 --> 00:23:16 me remember, um, I think this was
00:23:16 --> 00:23:19 episodes quite a ways back where we talked
00:23:19 --> 00:23:22 about how different cultures refer to the
00:23:22 --> 00:23:24 Moon and different genders. So like, I've
00:23:24 --> 00:23:27 always. People, people in the US we always.
00:23:27 --> 00:23:30 I hear the Moon referred to in the female.
00:23:30 --> 00:23:31 Then you're like, oh. And then I think you
00:23:31 --> 00:23:34 mentioned, um, Aboriginals mentioned it in
00:23:34 --> 00:23:37 the masculine. And then it made me really
00:23:37 --> 00:23:38 think. I'm like, wait a second. Are there
00:23:38 --> 00:23:40 totally. There's probably totally different
00:23:40 --> 00:23:43 constellations in every other culture? And
00:23:43 --> 00:23:44 this would probably be a whole other episode
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 and a whole other tangent. But how did we
00:23:47 --> 00:23:49 come up with the universal
00:23:49 --> 00:23:52 constellations that astronomers worldwide
00:23:52 --> 00:23:53 use?
00:23:55 --> 00:23:57 Professor Fred Watson: Um, yeah, the short answer is they're derived
00:23:57 --> 00:24:00 from, I, uh, think ancient Babylonian
00:24:00 --> 00:24:02 constellations. They go back a very, very
00:24:02 --> 00:24:05 long time, uh, and were
00:24:05 --> 00:24:07 adopted by the Greeks and Romans. And I think
00:24:07 --> 00:24:10 it was Ptolemy who basically produced the
00:24:10 --> 00:24:12 first map that recorded them. That's 2
00:24:12 --> 00:24:15 years ago. And so that's, uh, in what
00:24:15 --> 00:24:17 you might call Western culture that was
00:24:17 --> 00:24:20 rooted to existence very early on. And
00:24:20 --> 00:24:21 those constellations that we're all familiar
00:24:21 --> 00:24:24 with in the world of astronomy, uh, uh,
00:24:24 --> 00:24:27 um, they're basically taken from that
00:24:27 --> 00:24:30 era. But you're absolutely right. Uh, other
00:24:30 --> 00:24:32 cultures have their own
00:24:32 --> 00:24:35 constellations. Here in Australia, um, there
00:24:35 --> 00:24:38 are something like 450 different nation
00:24:38 --> 00:24:40 groups within Australia. So individual
00:24:41 --> 00:24:44 groups of Aboriginal people, uh, are,
00:24:44 --> 00:24:46 uh. And they have their own constellation.
00:24:46 --> 00:24:49 They have different languages as well. Uh,
00:24:49 --> 00:24:52 these first nations people in Australia are a
00:24:52 --> 00:24:54 very diverse and,
00:24:55 --> 00:24:57 um, interesting set of cultures.
00:24:58 --> 00:25:01 So constellations vary from one part of
00:25:01 --> 00:25:03 Australia to another. The traditional first
00:25:03 --> 00:25:04 nations constellations, they're quite
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 different, uh, and have different stories.
00:25:07 --> 00:25:10 Um, one of them I could just mention in the
00:25:10 --> 00:25:12 context of Orion. Um, I can't remember where
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14 this comes from, but it's one of the language
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 groups. It may be uh, in Northern Victoria,
00:25:17 --> 00:25:20 which is one of our states in Australia. But
00:25:20 --> 00:25:22 they see Orion as a canoe
00:25:23 --> 00:25:26 with three brothers in it, uh, which are the
00:25:26 --> 00:25:29 three stars of the belt sitting right in the
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 middle. And, um, what we know as the
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 Orion Nebula, that faint patch which
00:25:35 --> 00:25:37 in the northern tradition is Orion's sword.
00:25:38 --> 00:25:40 Um, they see that as a fish that these three
00:25:40 --> 00:25:41 brothers have, of course.
00:25:41 --> 00:25:42 Heidi Campo: Oh, that's so cute.
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 Professor Fred Watson: You know. Yeah. Uh, and there are other style
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 groups that don't relate to ours. Um,
00:25:48 --> 00:25:51 uh, I might just mention why I studied this
00:25:51 --> 00:25:54 and it goes back 20 years. Um, I
00:25:54 --> 00:25:56 work sometimes with a very well known
00:25:56 --> 00:25:58 classical music composer in Australia, Russ
00:25:58 --> 00:26:01 Edwards, who's produced some fabulous music
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 in his career. Um, but he and I
00:26:04 --> 00:26:06 collaborated on his fourth Symphony, which is
00:26:06 --> 00:26:08 a choral work. So it's got actually two
00:26:08 --> 00:26:11 choirs singing. And what I did for the words
00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 was to take a journey right through the sky
00:26:14 --> 00:26:16 from the far northern horizon here in
00:26:16 --> 00:26:18 Australia, down to the south polar star,
00:26:18 --> 00:26:21 which is called Sigma Octantis. Um, and,
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 um, in doing that, um, I tried
00:26:24 --> 00:26:27 to pull together the western star names and
00:26:27 --> 00:26:30 constellations with their first nations
00:26:30 --> 00:26:32 equivalent. And it was quite a difficult job
00:26:32 --> 00:26:34 because there are so many different cultures
00:26:34 --> 00:26:36 in the aboriginal population of Australia.
00:26:37 --> 00:26:40 But we did it. Uh, and, um, it actually won
00:26:40 --> 00:26:42 a major award. The CD that was made won a
00:26:42 --> 00:26:43 major award.
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 Heidi Campo: So beautiful.
00:26:45 --> 00:26:48 We're gonna maybe. Maybe we'll see if Huw can
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 find that symphony and we can have that be
00:26:51 --> 00:26:52 our exit music for this episode.
00:26:54 --> 00:26:55 Professor Fred Watson: Well, you never know. He might.
00:26:55 --> 00:26:55 Heidi Campo: He might.
00:26:56 --> 00:26:57 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yeah. ABC cd.
00:26:57 --> 00:26:59 Heidi Campo: He's pretty incredible. But this was a great
00:26:59 --> 00:27:02 episode. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:27:02 --> 00:27:05 And we will catch you, you
00:27:05 --> 00:27:07 guys, later with our next
00:27:07 --> 00:27:10 episode, which will be a Q and A episode.
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 Until then, see you guys next time.
00:27:12 --> 00:27:15 Andrew Dunkley: Hello, Fred. Hello, Heidi. Hello, Huw in the
00:27:15 --> 00:27:16 studio. Andrew, again.
00:27:16 --> 00:27:19 And since I spoke to you last, we have, uh,
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 been sort of halfway around the UK
00:27:23 --> 00:27:25 from Ireland, uh, in
00:27:26 --> 00:27:28 Cob, Uh, near County Cork.
00:27:28 --> 00:27:31 Uh, from there we went across to Liverpool
00:27:32 --> 00:27:35 and then, uh. No, Edinburgh. Edinburgh.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:37 Sorry, Fred, I nearly left out Edinburgh. My
00:27:37 --> 00:27:39 goodness. And then, uh, we went down to
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42 Liverpool and then around to Dover, then
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 across to Norway, which is where we
00:27:44 --> 00:27:47 spent today in Bergen. And it's been
00:27:47 --> 00:27:50 a fabulous trip. Uh, unfortunately, Fred did
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53 not get to go to the Royal Observatory
00:27:53 --> 00:27:55 in Edinburgh, but, um, did
00:27:56 --> 00:27:58 see a heck of a lot of the place. That castle
00:27:58 --> 00:28:00 is remarkable. I mean,
00:28:01 --> 00:28:03 it stands out like a sore thumb, but, uh,
00:28:03 --> 00:28:06 a very good sore thumb, if I can put it to
00:28:06 --> 00:28:09 you that way. But, uh, I can see why. Ah,
00:28:09 --> 00:28:11 so Many people love Edinburgh, Fred. Uh, I
00:28:11 --> 00:28:14 know you spent a, uh, great many years
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 there and uh, I think you were
00:28:17 --> 00:28:20 educated in that um, part of the world or I
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 know you worked at the Royal Observatory.
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 Um, yeah, fabulous.
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 Um, uh, Cove was brilliant in Ireland
00:28:28 --> 00:28:30 and we, we uh, did a lot of uh, things
00:28:30 --> 00:28:32 connected with the Titanic because the last
00:28:32 --> 00:28:35 passengers uh, to board the
00:28:35 --> 00:28:37 Titanic did that, uh, in um,
00:28:38 --> 00:28:40 in Cove. And most of them were
00:28:41 --> 00:28:44 Irish, um, immigrants headed for the
00:28:44 --> 00:28:46 United States and none of them made it.
00:28:47 --> 00:28:47 Professor Fred Watson: It.
00:28:47 --> 00:28:50 Andrew Dunkley: Well, not most of them didn't make it, which
00:28:50 --> 00:28:53 is a very sad tale that most people are very
00:28:53 --> 00:28:55 much aware of. Then to Liverpool where we um,
00:28:55 --> 00:28:58 visited the Beatles quite literally. We went
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 to all of their houses and uh, did
00:29:01 --> 00:29:04 quite, quite a bit. We actually did a taxi
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 tour of Liverpool visiting the major
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 beetle sites and I highly recommend that.
00:29:09 --> 00:29:12 It was just fabulous. Strawberry Fields.
00:29:12 --> 00:29:15 Um, gosh, all their houses, their
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 schools, uh, Penny Lane, uh, you
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21 name it, we saw it. And um, that was just
00:29:21 --> 00:29:24 a terrific day. Uh, one of my
00:29:24 --> 00:29:26 highlights. And then, uh,
00:29:26 --> 00:29:29 uh, in Dover we went to the castle and went
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31 through all the siege tunnels and the World
00:29:31 --> 00:29:34 War I and World War II tunnels. I didn't
00:29:34 --> 00:29:35 know. I thought I knew everything, but I
00:29:35 --> 00:29:38 didn't know that they coordinated the
00:29:38 --> 00:29:41 evacuation from Dunkirk from the tunnels
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 underneath Dover Castle. So there you are.
00:29:44 --> 00:29:46 And then today we're in Bergen and we
00:29:46 --> 00:29:49 went uh, looking at fjords
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 and waterfalls and I must say
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 Norway has got to be one of the most
00:29:55 --> 00:29:57 picturesque countries I've ever seen.
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 It is just dotted with beautiful little homes
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 on the sides of mountains overlooking fjords.
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 Uh, and these things are enormous. I think
00:30:05 --> 00:30:08 their biggest ones. 179 kilometers long and
00:30:08 --> 00:30:11 900 meters deep. And we had a quick
00:30:11 --> 00:30:13 look at it today. Uh, yeah, beautiful
00:30:13 --> 00:30:16 harbour, Bergen. And we continue uh,
00:30:16 --> 00:30:19 our trek, uh, up the coast, uh, to
00:30:19 --> 00:30:21 Shalden tomorrow. And then we're going to
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 cross into the Arctic Circle in a
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 few days and visit North Cape, the
00:30:26 --> 00:30:29 northernmost point of Europe,
00:30:29 --> 00:30:31 mainland Europe. So looking forward to that.
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 Uh, still quite a few stops to go. A uh,
00:30:34 --> 00:30:37 couple of two or three more weeks on board. I
00:30:37 --> 00:30:39 think probably three. Uh, but hope all is
00:30:39 --> 00:30:42 well with everybody. Uh, we've got, got our
00:30:42 --> 00:30:44 fingers crossed for the northern lights, but
00:30:44 --> 00:30:46 it's not a good time of year and the
00:30:46 --> 00:30:49 forecasts uh, at best are 50, 50,
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51 but mainly May, may be
00:30:51 --> 00:30:54 opportunistic in Greenland. So
00:30:54 --> 00:30:56 I'll keep you posted. All right, until next
00:30:56 --> 00:30:58 time. Take care. See you soon.
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