In this intriguing episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson delve into the captivating world of cosmic enigmas. From the potential resolution of the 'missing matter' mystery to the groundbreaking findings linking Earth's magnetism and oxygen levels, this episode is packed with revelations that will spark your curiosity about the universe.
Episode Highlights:
- Fast Radio Bursts and Missing Matter: The episode kicks off with a discussion on fast radio bursts, their origins, and how they may help astronomers account for the elusive missing matter in the universe. Fred explains the significance of these brief bursts of radio waves and their role in revealing the intergalactic medium's composition.
- Understanding Neutron Stars: Heidi and Fred take a moment to clarify the difference between neutron stars and our sun, exploring the fascinating life cycle of stars and the unique characteristics of neutron stars that lead to phenomena like magnetars and fast radio bursts.
- Proba 3 Mission and Solar Eclipses: The conversation shifts to the European Space Agency's Proba 3 mission, which aims to study the sun's corona using two satellites. Fred shares how this innovative approach allows scientists to observe the sun's outer atmosphere in detail, akin to a solar eclipse, and the potential for citizen scientists to engage with this data.
- Link Between Magnetism and Oxygen: The episode concludes with a discussion on a recent study revealing a mysterious correlation between Earth's magnetic field strength and atmospheric oxygen levels over the past 500 million years. Fred emphasizes the implications of this finding for understanding life processes and the search for extraterrestrial life.
For more Space Nuts, including our continuously updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
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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.
(00:00) Welcome to Space Nuts with Heidi Campo and Fred Watson
(01:20) Discussion on fast radio bursts and missing matter
(15:00) Clarifying neutron stars vs. our sun
(25:30) Insights into the Proba 3 mission and solar corona
(35:00) Exploring the link between Earth's magnetism and oxygen
For commercial-free versions of Space Nuts, join us on Patreon, Supercast, Apple Podcasts, or become a supporter here: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another exciting episode of Space
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 Nuns. I'm your host for this season,
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 Heidi Campo. And joining us is Professor Fred.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 Watch it. Fred Watson,
00:00:11 --> 00:00:12 astronomer at large.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 Professor Fred Watson: Actually, that's quite a nice, uh. It's quite a
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 nice epithet. It should be Fred watching,
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 uh, because I watched the universe. Fred watching
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 here loud and clear. Looking forward to speaking
00:00:25 --> 00:00:27 again, Heidi.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 Heidi Campo: We, uh. We, uh. We're off to a great start. No,
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 that's. That is fun. We are. We are. We are all
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 observers in this universe. And you are
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 listening to space nuts.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 10, 9. Uh, ignition
00:00:43 --> 00:00:43 sequence.
00:00:43 --> 00:00:45 Professor Fred Watson: Star space nuts.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 Generic: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Space
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 nuts. Astronauts report it feels good.
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 Heidi Campo: Um, today we have some very interesting
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 articles. Uh, we're. We're kind of kicking things off. It's a.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 It's kind of a mystery episode. I feel like this is a
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 very, very detective heavy
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 episode. We've got mysteries
00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 being solved, we have mysteries unsolved,
00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 and we have clues to mysteries.
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 So our first article this week is we are
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 talking about a mystery that,
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 uh, might be solved. So this is, uh.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 We're looking at what this is, is the home
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 address for some missing matter.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Um, uh, it's a
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 story that, um, I find really
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 interesting because the
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 groundwork for this work was laid down five years
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 ago here in Australia, um,
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 with, um, work that's
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 been carried out on something you and I have spoken about
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 before. Briefly. Uh. Briefly is the
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 word, because we're talking here about fast radio
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 bursts, uh, which are things that have
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 only been known in the last. It's getting on for
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 20 years now since the first observations were made. But,
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 uh. But they're still relatively new
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 in the armory that
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 astronomers can bring to bear on the universe.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 And what they are is pretty well what
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 the name says. They're bursts of radio
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 radiation. These are detected with radio telescopes, not
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 visible light telescopes. Uh, and they
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 are. Fast, uh, is probably a misnomer.
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 Uh, short would be a better word.
00:02:29 --> 00:02:32 Uh, but they, uh. Because they only last for
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 typically a millionth of. Sorry, uh, a millisecond,
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 a thousandth of a second, thereabouts, roughly.
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 Often they've got structure in them as well, which is
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 interesting when you look at the profile of the intensity
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 of that millisecond burst spread out. If you
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 can magnify the, uh, sort of time
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 domain, you can see that there are features in that, uh,
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 peaks and troughs, uh, squashed into that
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 millisecond. So very, very
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 fascinating objects. Their origin
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 is still not certain. Um,
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 I think the best guess of my colleagues who
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 work on this kind of thing is that they are
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 flares on magnetars. And
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 magnetars are highly magnetized
00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 neutron stars. And these things
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 apparently are able to have flares on their
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 surface which can be very intense.
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 These radio bursts are very, very bright
00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 in the radio spectrum. So that's
00:03:28 --> 00:03:29 one thing.
00:03:29 --> 00:03:30 Heidi Campo: Real quick, Fred. I'm sorry.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:31 Professor Fred Watson: No worries.
00:03:31 --> 00:03:34 Heidi Campo: I have noticed, um, based on the questions lately, that we are
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 getting a lot of new listeners lately. Can you,
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 um, maybe specify to some of our newer listeners the difference
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 between a neutron star and
00:03:43 --> 00:03:44 perhaps our star?
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 Professor Fred Watson: I can, um. Yeah, sorry. That's a really good
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 question and a really good point to make. Um,
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 so, um, neutron stars are, uh,
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 stars that have reached the end of
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 their life, their hydrogen fuel, which
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 is what powers stars like our sun that's being
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 powered by hydrogen fuel. As we speak.
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 That fuel has run out on
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 a neutron star. And
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 the stars are really interesting because there's a
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 constant battle going on between,
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 uh, the radiation that is coming from
00:04:20 --> 00:04:23 these nuclear processes, which is pushing outwards, and
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 gravity, which is pulling inwards and trying to compress, uh,
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 a star like the sun. So it achieves a balance between,
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 uh, radiation and gravitation.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 And so you can imagine what would happen if,
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 at the end of a star's life, um, the
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 radiation stops because the nuclear
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 processes have actually changed. They don't stop, but they
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 change. What's going to happen is gravitation wins
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 and compresses, uh, the star down. And
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 that, uh, sometimes happens explosively in
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 the case of what we call a supernova, an exploding star. And
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 so one possible remnant from
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 such an event is a neutron star,
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 uh, in which, uh, the
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 thing has collapsed. And the only thing
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 that's stopping that central
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 core of the
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 X star, the star that is now no longer a star.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 The only thing, um, that stops it
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 collapsing completely to a black hole, uh,
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 is the outward resistance of the neutrons
00:05:24 --> 00:05:26 within it. Um, and so those
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 neutrons have an outward pressure, and that
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 limits the collapse. Uh, so what you
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 have is a star that used to be perhaps like our
00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 Sun. 1.3. Probably more actually, in the case of a
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 neutron star, because they're bigger than the sun anyway.
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 1.32 million kilometers
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 across. Suddenly, uh, it's collapsed to something,
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 um, 10 kilometers, 7 miles
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 across, uh, but with
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 incredibly high density. And all sorts
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 of unusual phenomena take place in those stars. They
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 are generally magnetized. Um, many of
00:06:00 --> 00:06:03 them squirt, um, beams of radiation
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 out, um, and because they're rotating, those Beams
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 have this sort of lighthouse effect that we see them
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 flashing. Uh, but we believe as well
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 some are so highly magnetized that they form a different
00:06:14 --> 00:06:17 species, though what are called magnetars. And
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 apparently they have flares on them. Uh, and
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 these flares are what we think gives rise to fast radio
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 bursts. So that's
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 where the science is. Uh,
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 astronomers have been now observing these fast
00:06:31 --> 00:06:32 radio bursts for
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 best part of a decade. Uh,
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 and, uh, one or two of them repeat,
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 which are a bit mysterious because it suggests that
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 something's rotating because you get this repeating
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 appearance of the burst. Uh, often
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 though, they just come out of nowhere. Uh, and there
00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 are several radio telescopes in the world that are actively
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 looking for these objects. One of them is
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 down, uh, here in Australia,
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 uh, the ascap, the Australian Square Kilometer Array
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 Pathfinder. And that actually was one of the ones that
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 contributed to the work that was carried out that I
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 mentioned a minute ago, uh, about five years ago.
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 Um, in looking at how
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 what these fast radio bursts might tell us about
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 not just magnetars, but about the
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 space through which the bursts of radiation
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 travel. Because we now know that
00:07:26 --> 00:07:28 most of these radio bursts take place in very distant
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 galaxies. They're galaxies that are, ah, you know,
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 where distances are measured in billions of light
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 years. They're a long, long way off. And so the
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 radio bursts have traveled through a lot of
00:07:40 --> 00:07:42 empty space. Apparently empty.
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 Um, and so I'm getting near the story
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 here. This is the introduction to the story. We're
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 nearly there. Um, what we
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 find with fast radio bursts is that the
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 bursts are, ah, um, dispersed.
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 That's the technical term, which is a little bit
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 like the way a prism breaks up the light
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 of the sun or a white light into a
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 spectrum, spectrum of colors. The same
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 sort of thing happens as radio waves travel
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 through space. You've got this spike of radiation,
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 but as it goes through space, this
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 dispersion phenomenon takes place. And the result
00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 is, uh, that the different
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 frequencies are spread out in time. So,
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 um, if I remember rightly, I'm not a radio astronomer,
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 the, um, short wave,
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 the higher frequencies arrive before the lower
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 frequencies. Is that right? I think that's right.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 Yes, it is. Um, and the
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 high frequencies are high first. But this burst,
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 um, in different frequencies, it's still a spike of
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 radiation. But you're now looking at almost like
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 you've dispersed it into a spectrum.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 You're looking at different frequencies.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 And so the lower frequencies arrive later.
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 Now that tells you
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 something about the space that the
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 radio waves have been traveling through. Because there
00:09:06 --> 00:09:08 is what we call the intergalactic medium. Uh,
00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 and that is basically a very
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 rarefied, um, gas, if
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 you like. Although you're talking about one atom per cubic
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 meter or thereabouts. It's that sort of
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 rarefaction. Uh, but there's enough of it. Because
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 you're coming through these great distances. There's enough of that
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 gas to have the effect of dispersing this
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 radiation. So the amount of dispersion
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 tells you how much gas there is. That the
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 radio waves have traveled through. And that was the
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 breakthrough made about five years ago. By a
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 team of Australian scientists. Led by
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 a, um, fantastic young gentleman called
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 J.P. marchant. I think it was Jean Pierre,
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 um, uh. A wonderful radio
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 astronomer in Western Australia. A young man,
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 uh, two weeks after this breakthrough paper
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 had been, uh, released, he died.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 Uh, an absolute tragedy, this huge
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 breakthrough. Yeah. And uh, I think he had a heart
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 attack, if I remember rightly.
00:10:11 --> 00:10:12 Heidi Campo: It, uh, was probably the paper.
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 Professor Fred Watson: Whatever it was, um, it was.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 It absolutely rocked the Australian astronomical
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 community. This new knowledge that had been created.
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 And he was the lead author on the paper. Sadly, he
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 died. Um, however, that
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 work has now been carried on at other
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 radio astronomy observatories.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 Which brings us to the story today. And
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 this is a paper that has been released, um,
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 by astronomers at the center for
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 Astrophysics, uh, the Harvard
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 Smithsonian center for Astrophysics, cfa. Uh,
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 and what they've done is they've taken this work a step
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 further. Because they've looked at many, many more fast
00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 radio bursts. As you'd expect, these things are coming,
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 um, um, um, are being constantly
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 observed. Um, and what they've done is
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 they have looked again at, uh.
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 The structure or the
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 constituents of the intergalactic medium.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 The space between the galaxies. And exactly
00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 as the Maaschant, uh, uh, uh, work.
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 Um, proposed five years ago. They're able
00:11:19 --> 00:11:21 to use this as a measure
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 of just what the. What the contents of
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 the intergalactic medium are. Ah,
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 and they find that it is enough to account
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 for what we call the missing matter. Now, this is
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 not dark matter that we're talking about. This is normal matter.
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 Um, protons, electrons. The normal
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 stuff which we are familiar with. Which in fact,
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 uh. Is only something like 20% of
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 the amount of matter in the universe. The rest of it
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 is the dark matter. That's something else. But
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 even that normal matter that we know about. When we
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 look at the calculations as to what should emerge
00:11:57 --> 00:12:00 from the Big Bang. The um, event in which the universe was
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 formed, we can't find enough of it.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 That's why we call it the missing matter. But
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 it now Turns out that this
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 combined set of researchers looking at the
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 intergalactic medium find that there is enough matter
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 in the intergalactic medium to account for that
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 missing matter. So this is a problem solved. As
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 you said at the beginning. Yeah, the two
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 things absolutely dovetail together. The predicted
00:12:26 --> 00:12:28 amount of matter in the universe is now exactly what
00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 we find when we include this intergalactic
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 medium. So it's amazing research. It's,
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 um, very fitting that it should be our lead story on
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 this edition of Space Nuts, because, um, as I said, it's
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 got an Australian content. The thrusters now moved to
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 other observatories, but we have this global picture
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 now, uh, of what dark matter can tell
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 us. Sorry, what, uh, fast radio burst can tell
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 us about. Not dark matter, but the missing matter of the
00:12:55 --> 00:12:55 universe.
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 Heidi Campo: Oh, that's wonderful. Uh, this reminds me
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 when I'm trying to do math unsuccessfully, and I'm
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 trying to find why I can't get the right answer and I forgot to carry the
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 one. It turns out it was there the whole time.
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 The answer was right there. I just forgot to grab
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 that one little piece to pull it in to get the correct
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 answer. But they solved such a complex,
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 uh, problem. And isn't that kind of funny
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 sometimes the answers are right there in plain sight.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. It's in plain sight.
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 Heidi Campo: But it's like you said, one atom per.
00:13:28 --> 00:13:29 What did you say it was?
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 Professor Fred Watson: 1 cubic meter? It's something like that. It's
00:13:32 --> 00:13:35 that kind of level. It's very. A few atoms per cubic
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 meter, perhaps. Um, but yes, uh,
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 it's in plain sight. But you need.
00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 The thing that's made this possible, this detection possible is
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 the fact that these bursts of radiation are so short,
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 they're milliseconds. And that means that as they're
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 dispersed, uh, into different frequency bands
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 as they pass through the, the, the universe, um, you still
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 can, you can detect this dispersion of the
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 frequency bands, whereas with a constant radio signal, you
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 wouldn't, you wouldn't do that. Um, you know that you've
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 just got us radiation coming all the
00:14:08 --> 00:14:10 time. There's nothing to tell you whether the, whether
00:14:10 --> 00:14:13 the, um, lower frequencies are slower than the
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 faster frequencies. There's nothing to tell you that.
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 Yeah. Wonderful detective work. Yeah.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:22 Heidi Campo: Oh, yeah, it's fantastic.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 So by these radio, uh, astronomers then.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 So they do radio astronomy. What is your specialty?
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 And then if you're not. So I also, I also, I have to make
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 a joke, you know, it's not Space nuts if there's not a few dad jokes. And I've
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 Been. I have not been holding up my end of, um,
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 filling Andrew's shoes. So you may not be a radio
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 astronomer, but technically you are an astronomer on the
00:14:43 --> 00:14:44 radio.
00:14:45 --> 00:14:48 Professor Fred Watson: That's correct. Yeah. I like it. I
00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 like it. Yes. Your dad jokes will go far,
00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 Heidi. Um, uh, so
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 my specialty, um, and
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 really my work now is in sort of policy and things
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 of that sort rather than observing. Uh,
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 but yes, for 40 years I guess
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 I was, um, in fact more than that, nearly 50 years, I
00:15:08 --> 00:15:10 was an optical astronomer. And that means I use
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 telescopes that look at visible light, um,
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 so giant telescopes that have a very
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 shiny mirror at the base of them. In fact, the one I used
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 principally was the, um, 3.9 meter
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 Anglo Australian Telescope, uh, which we
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 celebrated the 50th birthday on last year.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 Heidi Campo: Oh, happy, happy birthday, telescope.
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 Professor Fred Watson: 0G and I feel fine space
00:15:34 --> 00:15:35 nuts.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 Heidi Campo: So with the, uh, ESA's Probe 3
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 mission, that telescope, would that count as a big
00:15:41 --> 00:15:42 mirror telescope?
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, um, it's a small mirror telescope.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:46 Heidi Campo: Okay.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 Professor Fred Watson: Um, but it is an optical telescope. That's right. So
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 it's looking at visible light and lovely, uh, segment segue
00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 there to the next story, Heidi. Um, so
00:15:55 --> 00:15:58 this again, you know, needs a little bit of
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 background to, uh, get over its
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 significance. But this, I think is a
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 fantastic story, uh, because,
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 um, it kind of means, um, that
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11 you can make an eclipse of the sun anytime you like.
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 Uh, as you know, eclipses, ah, are rare.
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 Um, well, in any given place on the Earth,
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 they're a rare phenomenon. Uh, that's to say
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 when the moon exactly blots out the
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 disk of the sun or blacks it out. Uh, that
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 means the Moon's shadow on the Earth's, uh, surface passes
00:16:31 --> 00:16:33 over different places. Uh, we call it
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 the path of totality because that's
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 where you see a total eclipse. And that's only narrow. It's only
00:16:40 --> 00:16:43 50 to 100 kilometers wide, um, 30
00:16:43 --> 00:16:45 to 60 miles, I guess, something like that.
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 So, uh, um,
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 ah, it's a rare phenomenon at any one place. And
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 that's why, uh, when eclipses come along, people
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 chase all over the world. Uh, everybody here in Australia,
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 or certainly the state I'm in, New South Wales,
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 are, uh, looking forward to July 2028, when
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 an eclipse, um, will be seen from this
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 state. And in fact, the Moon's shadow will
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 pass directly over Sydney. So Sydney's going to be
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 the center of the world's astronomers for,
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 um, a short time. In 2028 it is
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 already, of course, but, uh, in a different sort of way.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 Anyway. One of the reasons why
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 scientists Asked so keen
00:17:26 --> 00:17:29 on watching eclipses is because when the
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 moon's disk blots out the visible
00:17:32 --> 00:17:34 disk of the sun, what you see is
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 the sun's outer atmosphere. It's corona.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 And, uh, this is a, it's a almost
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 ethereal glow around the sun
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 which has got structure in it that comes from the
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 magnetic field of the sun, uh, that
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 dictates what the corona looks like. There are many
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 mysteries, uh, that we don't understand about the
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 corona. One is why its temperature is so high.
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 Uh, the sun's surface temperature,
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 around 5 degrees.
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 This is degrees Celsius, the temperature
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 of the corona, about 15 million degrees.
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 Um, you're talking about this huge difference
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 between the bit that we can
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 see and the bit that is invisible
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 except when you have an eclipse.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 That's because it's very faint compared with, you know,
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 with the disk of the sun. Uh, and the mystery is, why
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 is the corona so hot? So, uh, the corona.
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 And it's thought to be. We actually think it's all about magnetic
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 fields again. Anyway, the corona is an
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 interesting area of study, but you
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 can't see it unless you're in an eclipse.
00:18:42 --> 00:18:45 Now the problem, you might think, okay, well, why don't we make a
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 telescope with a little disk that blots out the
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50 light of the sun so that you can see the corona
00:18:50 --> 00:18:53 around it. And there are such telescopes, they're called
00:18:53 --> 00:18:56 coronagraphs. That's the name,
00:18:56 --> 00:18:59 gives away what it's for. They only work
00:18:59 --> 00:19:02 where they really only work in a vacuum
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 because the atmosphere tends to, um, scatter
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 the light and blocks out the view of the
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 corona. So one or two very high mountain
00:19:11 --> 00:19:14 sites have had coronagraphs used on them, and you can
00:19:14 --> 00:19:15 also use them in space. But
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 they have their limitations.
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 And this gets us to the story that you mentioned,
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 Proba 3. This is actually two satellites
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 which are operated by the European space agen.
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 Um, and they are about, if I remember rightly,
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 150 meters apart. Uh,
00:19:33 --> 00:19:36 they are arranged so that one
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 has a sort of disk, one has
00:19:39 --> 00:19:42 got a disk on it. Um, it's disk shaped, if I can
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 put it that way. And if you line that up with
00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 the sun as seen from the other
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 spacecraft, which has a telescope on it, probably
00:19:50 --> 00:19:53 with a shiny mirror in there somewhere, um,
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 and that lets you blot out the sun's
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 disk. And it gives you the best view
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 that we have outside a solar eclipse
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 of the solar corona. Uh, and the reason
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 why this is in the news at the moment is because
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 we're just starting to see the first images from this
00:20:11 --> 00:20:13 Prober 3 mission. It's a European Space Agency
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 mission, uh, and we can see the uh,
00:20:16 --> 00:20:19 corona, uh, of the sun in great
00:20:19 --> 00:20:22 detail, just as we would if we were
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 watching an eclipse from the uh, Earth. Uh,
00:20:25 --> 00:20:28 and so this is a step forward. It's a new
00:20:28 --> 00:20:31 technology. Uh, it is going to allow us to
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 monitor the Sun's corona um,
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 in real time, uh, and for a long period. I think
00:20:37 --> 00:20:39 they're proposing, uh, is it 1000
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 hours of observing of the Sun?
00:20:42 --> 00:20:45 Yes, it will create about 1 hours of
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 images over its two year mission and anyone
00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 will be able to download the data. So it's
00:20:51 --> 00:20:54 a uh, really interesting step forward by the European
00:20:54 --> 00:20:57 Space Agency and the scientists who are working uh, on
00:20:57 --> 00:21:00 this piece, um, of equipment to let us see the Sun's
00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 corona over the next two years in great detail.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:07 Heidi Campo: It's fantastic. I'm looking at the images right now and
00:21:07 --> 00:21:10 I've got to say, um, some of
00:21:10 --> 00:21:12 you may get this reference. It looks just
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 like the um, late 90s, early
00:21:15 --> 00:21:17 2000s Windows media player
00:21:18 --> 00:21:19 visualizers.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:20 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 Heidi Campo: Doesn't it? It's got such a,
00:21:23 --> 00:21:26 interesting hue to it. I feel like I could be listening to like
00:21:26 --> 00:21:29 early 2000s techno music with these images.
00:21:30 --> 00:21:32 Professor Fred Watson: We can probably provide that somewhere
00:21:33 --> 00:21:34 some space techno.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 Heidi Campo: My other question, since this will be um,
00:21:37 --> 00:21:40 available to the public, would this be a good
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 opportunity for any citizen scientists
00:21:43 --> 00:21:46 to tap into and are there any programs that you know
00:21:46 --> 00:21:49 of that people may want to be paying attention to if they
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 are interested in getting involved in citizen science?
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's a great question. And um, you know there
00:21:54 --> 00:21:57 is a wonderful array of citizen
00:21:57 --> 00:22:00 science projects which are ah, related to
00:22:00 --> 00:22:01 astronomy, um,
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 um, various ones. The zooniverse is the
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 sort of, um, I guess you've probably heard of the
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 zooniverse, which is a kind of cluster of
00:22:11 --> 00:22:14 citizen science projects, um,
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 that um, brings to bear
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 the resources of our citizen uh, science
00:22:20 --> 00:22:23 scientists, uh, to bear on astronomical
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 data. And you can bet your life that there will be,
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 I don't know, uh, particularly that this is the
00:22:29 --> 00:22:32 case, but you can bet your life that there will be people
00:22:32 --> 00:22:35 poring over these coronagraph Images from Probe
00:22:35 --> 00:22:38 3 looking uh, to see what we might discover
00:22:38 --> 00:22:41 about the solar corona. Um, it is
00:22:41 --> 00:22:43 uh, I think it's a, uh, really,
00:22:44 --> 00:22:47 if I can put it this way, it's a project that is ripe for
00:22:47 --> 00:22:49 exploitation with citizen science.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:53 Heidi Campo: Yeah, and I'm such a, you guys have probably heard me talk
00:22:53 --> 00:22:56 about citizen science programs on here before because I'm such a
00:22:56 --> 00:22:59 big advocate for everybody getting involved
00:22:59 --> 00:23:02 Because I, uh, you know, don't save it for the
00:23:02 --> 00:23:05 brilliant people with the PhDs. We love you, Fred. You're
00:23:05 --> 00:23:08 wonderful. But if we can export some of this work
00:23:08 --> 00:23:11 to the whole pool of talent, and
00:23:11 --> 00:23:14 I've always learned this, the more I get involved in the space industry
00:23:14 --> 00:23:17 is don't let. Don't let you know, don't be
00:23:17 --> 00:23:20 the person to tell yourself, no, I can't do that. Let somebody else
00:23:20 --> 00:23:22 tell you. Just start pursuing it. If you're
00:23:22 --> 00:23:25 interested in it, get involved. There's so many
00:23:25 --> 00:23:28 opportunities and there's so much to learn.
00:23:28 --> 00:23:31 We still have more questions than
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 we have answers. So there is absolutely.
00:23:33 --> 00:23:36 Here's a pun. Here's another pun. I'm. I got two for them today.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:39 There's space for you. There's space for you to
00:23:39 --> 00:23:42 get involved in space. We need
00:23:42 --> 00:23:45 your help. So citizen science program programs,
00:23:45 --> 00:23:48 um, are a fantastic way
00:23:48 --> 00:23:51 to get involved. And I think this is
00:23:51 --> 00:23:54 a little bit more of my bumpier segue. Unless you had something you
00:23:54 --> 00:23:54 wanted to say, Fred.
00:23:54 --> 00:23:57 Professor Fred Watson: No, no, I'm just a big fan of cities and science as well. I
00:23:57 --> 00:24:00 think it's fabulous what is achieved by that.
00:24:00 --> 00:24:03 Um, and I wholeheartedly agree with your
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 comments there, Heidi, but, yeah, ah, I think you had a
00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 nice segue coming up there, which I probably ruined now.
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 Heidi Campo: Oh, no, I think it was going to be a pretty bumpy one. So this is.
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 Okay. Um, I will say I do know that actually,
00:24:14 --> 00:24:17 um, some. I remember because I
00:24:17 --> 00:24:20 got some, um, they called it the NASA
00:24:20 --> 00:24:23 TOPS program. TOPS Standard for something.
00:24:23 --> 00:24:26 Open science repository, something like that. But it's,
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 um, it's just a casual certification
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 that you can get online from. It's an official NASA thing that
00:24:32 --> 00:24:35 you can get and just put it on your LinkedIn. But they just talked
00:24:35 --> 00:24:37 about a lot of different citizen science programs.
00:24:38 --> 00:24:41 And I believe I remember reading, if I, If I read
00:24:41 --> 00:24:43 this correctly, a, um. Lot of
00:24:43 --> 00:24:46 breakthroughs have happened with hurricane
00:24:46 --> 00:24:49 technology and, um, early
00:24:49 --> 00:24:52 detection of hurricanes through citizen science. Because
00:24:53 --> 00:24:56 that was one of the first places that we
00:24:56 --> 00:24:58 tapped into citizen science. Don't quote me
00:24:58 --> 00:25:01 on the decades. I'm terrible at my history. But the first,
00:25:02 --> 00:25:05 um, cited use of citizen
00:25:05 --> 00:25:08 science was the former
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 belief was that wind
00:25:11 --> 00:25:14 always moved one direction because if you're
00:25:14 --> 00:25:16 standing in the wind, it's coming at you one direction. And
00:25:16 --> 00:25:19 this guy was the I. And I. I wish I had his name. I'm
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 so sorry. But he was like, hey, I think wind moves
00:25:22 --> 00:25:25 in different patterns. And so what he did
00:25:25 --> 00:25:28 is he, um, had a weather event and he had
00:25:28 --> 00:25:31 People posted all over the place
00:25:31 --> 00:25:34 and he's like, tell me which direction the wind was moving.
00:25:34 --> 00:25:37 And they reported back to him and he discovered
00:25:37 --> 00:25:40 that yes, the weather was not always. The wind
00:25:40 --> 00:25:43 was not always moving one direction. So that was uh. I don't know if you
00:25:43 --> 00:25:44 know more about that story.
00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 Professor Fred Watson: I don't know that but that exactly. It's uh,
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 you know, it, that's. It's wonderful when people have
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 an idea like that and managed to muster
00:25:53 --> 00:25:56 the resources that um, he clearly did and
00:25:56 --> 00:25:59 get the results. And citizen science is a lot like that.
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 Okay, we checked all four systems and.
00:26:03 --> 00:26:05 Heidi Campo: Team with a go space navigation. Yeah.
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09 So here's my bumpy segue to the last
00:26:09 --> 00:26:12 article. Um, I guess we can say if we're keeping it
00:26:12 --> 00:26:15 with the detective, uh, metaphor for this episode is this is
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 a clue. So we had the first
00:26:18 --> 00:26:20 story was we've solved something. The second
00:26:20 --> 00:26:23 one is we have um. Well I
00:26:23 --> 00:26:26 guess the second one was the clue. And this last one is there is a
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29 mystery. This is a open case
00:26:29 --> 00:26:32 yet to be solved, which is a mysterious
00:26:32 --> 00:26:34 link between Earth's magnetism
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 and oxygen. So this is
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 an open mystery. We don't know the answers.
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 Professor Fred Watson: We don't uh, um. And it
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 is um, really quite a significant
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 result Heidi, that um,
00:26:49 --> 00:26:52 uh, has come from scientists. Actually
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54 One of them is at my alma mater, the University of St.
00:26:54 --> 00:26:57 Andrews in Scotland, Scotland's oldest university,
00:26:58 --> 00:27:00 founded in 1413. I was there shortly afterwards,
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 as I always tell people. Um, um.
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06 It's uh, the university uh, of um,
00:27:06 --> 00:27:09 of St. Andrews and also uh, scientists at the
00:27:09 --> 00:27:11 University of leed. So this is work in the uk.
00:27:12 --> 00:27:15 Um, the story is
00:27:16 --> 00:27:19 uh, basically uh,
00:27:19 --> 00:27:21 that we have this trend,
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 uh, that is detectable um
00:27:25 --> 00:27:28 by techniques that
00:27:28 --> 00:27:31 are uh, quite um,
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34 remote from what we do in the world of astronomy.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:37 Uh, it's um, what was it?
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42 Biogeochemistry I think was one of them.
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 So what scientists have looked at,
00:27:45 --> 00:27:48 uh, what you might call proxies,
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 uh, um, things that tell you
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 about something else. And uh, for
00:27:54 --> 00:27:57 example one of the examples is this, uh,
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00 if you look back through the geological
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 record you can find evidence
00:28:03 --> 00:28:05 in the geological strata of
00:28:05 --> 00:28:08 periods where there were lots and lots of
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 wildfires, um, what we call bushfires here in
00:28:11 --> 00:28:14 Australia, forest fires elsewhere.
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 So you can find evidence of that. And
00:28:17 --> 00:28:20 the scientists are saying that is a proxy
00:28:20 --> 00:28:23 for the number of these wildfires, is a
00:28:23 --> 00:28:25 proxy for the amount of oxygen that was in the
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 atmosphere at the time. Because
00:28:28 --> 00:28:31 uh, wildfires spread much more readily
00:28:31 --> 00:28:34 if you've got an oxygen rich atmosphere than they do
00:28:34 --> 00:28:35 if you've got less.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:36 Heidi Campo: Oh, interesting.
00:28:36 --> 00:28:39 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So it's that kind of work that's been
00:28:39 --> 00:28:42 done. Also, um,
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44 something that's a little bit more directly measurable,
00:28:45 --> 00:28:48 uh, is the history of the Earth's magnetic
00:28:48 --> 00:28:51 field. And that's one of the ways that we know that the
00:28:51 --> 00:28:53 Earth's magnetic poles reverse every,
00:28:54 --> 00:28:56 probably three or four times every million years, something like that.
00:28:57 --> 00:29:00 Uh, so the, the magnetic field of the Earth is something that we
00:29:00 --> 00:29:03 can get from the alignment of grains of
00:29:03 --> 00:29:06 crystals in rocks. Um, and
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 that tells you, you know, how well these are aligned,
00:29:09 --> 00:29:12 tells you about the intensity of the magnetic field.
00:29:12 --> 00:29:15 Excuse me. So this group of scientists.
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 Sorry, I've got, uh, an oxygen rich,
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21 uh, throat at the moment. It's wanting to come. So
00:29:21 --> 00:29:23 these groups of scientists have looked at something
00:29:24 --> 00:29:27 that nobody would have expected, uh, to
00:29:27 --> 00:29:30 correlate, but they find that
00:29:30 --> 00:29:32 there is a correlation between,
00:29:33 --> 00:29:36 and this is looking back over half a billion years.
00:29:36 --> 00:29:39 So they're looking back in time over 500 million years.
00:29:39 --> 00:29:42 When you plot the strength of the Earth's, uh,
00:29:42 --> 00:29:45 magnetic field over that period and compare
00:29:45 --> 00:29:48 it with the amount of oxygen in the Earth's
00:29:48 --> 00:29:51 atmosphere over that period, the two
00:29:51 --> 00:29:53 graphs match very, very closely.
00:29:54 --> 00:29:57 Um, there's clearly a link, uh,
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 between the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere,
00:30:00 --> 00:30:02 the intensity of the magnetic field.
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 The mystery is,
00:30:06 --> 00:30:09 is that link telling you that
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 more magnetism means more oxygen and,
00:30:12 --> 00:30:14 or more oxygen means more magnetism?
00:30:14 --> 00:30:17 Or is it telling you that there is something else going on
00:30:18 --> 00:30:21 that affects both the magnetic field and the
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 oxygen as well, and affects them both
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 in the same way? So some other process that
00:30:26 --> 00:30:29 we don't really understand yet. So
00:30:29 --> 00:30:32 a really big mystery, but the reason why I'm
00:30:32 --> 00:30:35 mentioning this on, um, space knots is that
00:30:35 --> 00:30:38 it feeds into our understanding
00:30:38 --> 00:30:40 of what might, uh,
00:30:40 --> 00:30:43 constitute places where life evolves elsewhere in the
00:30:43 --> 00:30:46 universe. Because we know, ah, most of the oxygen in
00:30:46 --> 00:30:48 the Earth's atmosphere actually comes from
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51 biological processes. It's what we call a
00:30:51 --> 00:30:54 biomarker. Somebody looking at the Earth from outside and
00:30:54 --> 00:30:57 seeing that much oxygen, uh,
00:30:57 --> 00:31:00 if they have life of the same kind that we have,
00:31:00 --> 00:31:03 they could say, yes, that's a biomarker that is marking,
00:31:04 --> 00:31:04 uh.
00:31:04 --> 00:31:06 Heidi Campo: Similar to K2 18B, right?
00:31:06 --> 00:31:09 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. That's right. Although
00:31:09 --> 00:31:12 it was, uh, what was it? Dimethyl
00:31:12 --> 00:31:15 sulfide was the biomarker that was
00:31:15 --> 00:31:17 caused for the exoplanet
00:31:17 --> 00:31:20 K2.18b, which is still of great
00:31:20 --> 00:31:22 interest to astrobiologists. We don't really know
00:31:23 --> 00:31:26 first of all whether that, uh, um, finding
00:31:26 --> 00:31:29 of dimethyl sulfide is real. Or whether
00:31:29 --> 00:31:32 it's being confused with some other molecule.
00:31:32 --> 00:31:35 The signature in the spectrum that the James Webb
00:31:35 --> 00:31:38 telescope took, um, and we don't actually know whether that
00:31:38 --> 00:31:40 is genuinely a biomarker
00:31:40 --> 00:31:43 in an environment different from the Earth's. So
00:31:43 --> 00:31:46 lots of questions attached to that too. But
00:31:47 --> 00:31:49 this new finding, the link between magnetism and
00:31:49 --> 00:31:52 oxygen, whatever causes it, uh,
00:31:53 --> 00:31:55 may be something that will feed into
00:31:56 --> 00:31:58 the understanding of the way life processes work,
00:31:59 --> 00:32:02 uh, by astrobiologists and perhaps will tell
00:32:02 --> 00:32:05 us more about the kinds of places that we might look for
00:32:05 --> 00:32:08 extraterrestrial life, uh, when we get the
00:32:08 --> 00:32:11 next generation of giant telescopes with big shiny
00:32:11 --> 00:32:13 mirrors. Uh, and the biggest shiny mirror of all is
00:32:13 --> 00:32:16 going to be the European Extremely Large Telescope.
00:32:16 --> 00:32:19 Should come online in 2028. Its mirror is
00:32:19 --> 00:32:21 39 meters in diameter.
00:32:22 --> 00:32:24 It's huge. Anyway.
00:32:24 --> 00:32:27 Heidi Campo: Yeah, well, I mean, uh,
00:32:27 --> 00:32:30 this is, uh, important to consider. This is one of the first things
00:32:30 --> 00:32:33 they teach you anytime you go to any kind of, of STEM
00:32:33 --> 00:32:35 related program is okay.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:37 Correlation does not mean causation.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:38 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:41 Heidi Campo: And you said this. I mean, it's like we don't know if it's
00:32:41 --> 00:32:44 this, this, or this. And, and it's.
00:32:44 --> 00:32:47 I mean, I'm looking at the trend lines right now. I mean, they
00:32:47 --> 00:32:50 are right there. It's so
00:32:50 --> 00:32:53 easy to jump to the conclusion and say, yeah, these are
00:32:53 --> 00:32:56 so highly correlated. But then we just have to
00:32:56 --> 00:32:59 remind ourselves why. And we don't know. This one's a
00:32:59 --> 00:32:59 mystery.
00:33:00 --> 00:33:03 Professor Fred Watson: It's a mystery. And, um, well, I'm sure
00:33:03 --> 00:33:06 it will be the focus of a lot of really interesting research
00:33:06 --> 00:33:09 over the next year or two. Maybe Heidi,
00:33:09 --> 00:33:12 you and I'll talk about whatever they find in a Space
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 Nuts down the track sometime. Uh, but
00:33:15 --> 00:33:17 yeah, we should, um, keep an eye on this one because it's a very
00:33:17 --> 00:33:18 exciting result.
00:33:20 --> 00:33:22 Heidi Campo: Well, I think that that is a good segue to
00:33:22 --> 00:33:25 kick it back to you, our listeners. We've talked about a
00:33:25 --> 00:33:28 lot of fun things, questions, answers,
00:33:28 --> 00:33:31 solutions, and more questions and citizen science in
00:33:31 --> 00:33:34 there. Um, I think we should just take this time to encourage
00:33:34 --> 00:33:37 you guys to stay involved because you can
00:33:37 --> 00:33:39 be a part of these breakthroughs. And
00:33:39 --> 00:33:42 then instead of writing in just simple questions here
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 on SpaceNets, you can also say, hey, as a citizen
00:33:45 --> 00:33:48 scientist myself, I have discovered this. What do you
00:33:48 --> 00:33:51 think about these findings? And I think that would be really
00:33:51 --> 00:33:53 neat to hear those kinds of statements from you guys.
00:33:55 --> 00:33:57 Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. We could then tell the world. Remember where you heard
00:33:57 --> 00:33:59 it first here on Space Nuts.
00:34:00 --> 00:34:03 Heidi Campo: What a perfect, perfect ending. Um, Fred,
00:34:03 --> 00:34:05 this has been such a fun conversation.
00:34:05 --> 00:34:08 Professor Fred Watson: Thank you so much My pleasure always, Heidi.
00:34:08 --> 00:34:10 And, uh, I look forward to talking to you next time.
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