Episode Highlights:
- Weight Variations: DJ from Indianapolis wonders about the difference in weight between the North Pole and the equator, leading to a discussion on gravity, centrifugal force, and the shape of the Earth [00:00–15:00].
- The Age of the Solar System: Nick from Cambridge asks about the age of the solar system and the older material that contributed to its formation, prompting an exploration of supernovae and isotope ratios [15:01–30:00].
- Interstellar Travel: Keith from Vancouver ponders the feasibility of reaching another star, sparking a conversation about current technology, time dilation, and the future of space exploration [30:01–45:00].
- What If the Moon Disappeared? Mark shares a nostalgic reference to Space 1999, leading to a thought-provoking discussion on the potential effects of a moonless Earth on tides, climate, and planetary stability [45:01–60:00].
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- Weight Differences on Earth
- Age of the Solar System and Supernovae
- Future of Interstellar Travel
- Implications of a Moonless Earth
- Listener Questions and Cosmic Speculations
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Andrew Dunkley: Hello again and thank you for joining us.
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 This is a Q and A edition of Space Nuts. This
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 is where we stand in a queue and go,
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 ah. Or not. Um,
00:00:11 --> 00:00:12 no, it's where we answer audience questions.
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 We've got questions today about weight
00:00:15 --> 00:00:17 variations on Earth, depending on where you
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 are. Um, I know we've been down that road
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 before, but, um, we're going to do it again.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 Uh, the age of the solar system has been
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 brought up again. Visiting, uh, another star.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 Would we be able to do that anytime soon?
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 And Earth, uh, minus the moon. A what if
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 question that we have done a trillion times.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 But, um, why not? Let's
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 reroute to that little, um, what if
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 scenario. That's all coming up on this
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 edition of space nuts.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:51 --> 00:00:52 sequence start.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:53 Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
00:00:58 --> 00:00:59 Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts report it feels good.
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 Andrew Dunkley: And he's back again to solve all your
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 riddles. It's Professor Fred Watson Watson,
00:01:06 --> 00:01:07 astronomer at large. Hello, Fred Watson.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. I'm glad to be a
00:01:10 --> 00:01:11 riddle solver.
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, it's a good thing to do, even when you
00:01:14 --> 00:01:16 can't. You can just pretend. That's what we
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 do all the time. I like the Q and
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 A edition. It gives us a chance to hear other
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 voices from around the world who listen to
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 us. And, um, sometimes we learn more about
00:01:26 --> 00:01:29 them than we expect to. Like, um, Andy the
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 train driver in Sydney. And, uh, we've had
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 a few over the years. Rusty from Donnybrook,
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 one of our regular sender innerers. And,
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 um, Sandy in Melbourne and,
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 oh, gosh, um, and plenty
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 of others. Plenty, uh, of others. And if I
00:01:46 --> 00:01:47 didn't name you, and I should have, I
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 apologise. Martin. We should not, not mention
00:01:50 --> 00:01:51 Martin.
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 Professor Fred Watson: We've got pilots as well.
00:01:53 --> 00:01:54 Andrew Dunkley: We have. We have Hannah.
00:01:54 --> 00:01:55 Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 Andrew Dunkley: Haven't heard from her in ages, but I hope
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 she's well. Now, um, let's,
00:02:00 --> 00:02:01 uh, maybe get to our first question.
00:02:01 --> 00:02:02 Fred Watson.
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 This comes from dj.
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 DJ: Hi, guys. DJ from
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 Indianapolis, Indiana, usa.
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 You, in a recent podcast,
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 talked about how if
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 a person weighed a hundred kilogrammes
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 on the North Pole, that they would weigh
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 99 at the equator. My question would
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 be, if you were to take a submarine up to the
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 North Pole, you pop up through the ice, you
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 hop out with your bathroom scale,
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 stand on the ice and it says you
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 weigh 100 kilogrammes. You take that
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 same scale, drive the sub down
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 to, say, Ecuador, get out on the
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 beach, put your bathroom scale down and now
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 would it then say you weighed 99.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 Or are bathroom scales
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 calibrated for,
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 uh, Earth's gravity at,
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 say, the equator? And it would say you
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 weighed 99 at the north
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 Pole too. Would you need
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 scientific instruments to tell the
00:03:11 --> 00:03:12 difference? Or could a normal person with a
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 normal scale tell that they
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 weighed a kilogramme less at the pole than
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 they do at the equator? Thanks, guys.
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 Andrew Dunkley: All right, the first floor in. His question
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 is, putting the scales on sand
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 would probably completely mess him up. But
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 look, we know we get the gist. Um,
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 yeah. 100 kilogrammes on the North Pole. Same
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 set of scales at the equator. Or
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 Ecuador, 99 kilos. Does that sound about
00:03:41 --> 00:03:41 right?
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 Professor Fred Watson: It is. It's perfectly right, yeah. Uh,
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 and it would show up on the scale. I mean,
00:03:48 --> 00:03:51 bathroom scales are notoriously inaccurate.
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 They're not accurate to 1%.
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 Um, but, but if you did have a really
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 accurate scale and you can get them, um,
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 then it would show the difference. Uh, it
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 would be 100 kilogrammes, uh, on the pole,
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 99 at, uh, the equator.
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 Um, and that's because what
00:04:12 --> 00:04:15 you're measuring your weight against is
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 something that doesn't change with
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 gravity, and that's the spring. Um, you know,
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 you're standing on something that's spring
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 loaded and the spring behaves the same. No
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 matter what gravitational field you're in, it
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 still exerts the same force force. And so it
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 will feel less weight from you at the
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 equator, uh, uh, than it does at, uh, the
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 poles. Now,
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 um, I think that's fairly common knowledge
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 that that happens, that you weigh less.
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 Probably most people don't realise that it is
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 actually 1%. It's almost exactly 1%, which is
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 a bit of a coincidence, uh, but it has
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 four sources, uh, not just one.
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 So the weight that
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 you feel are determined, uh,
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 by first of all, the Earth's gravity,
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 which is a property of the planet.
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 But then you've got the moon's, the sun's
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 gravity as well, pulling on you and the
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 moon's gravity too. And
00:05:15 --> 00:05:16 then the thing that I think most people think
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 about is the centrifugal force, the fact that
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 the Earth is rotating and that gravity gives
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 you a centrifugal force that tends to lift
00:05:24 --> 00:05:25 you a little bit.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:26 Professor Fred Watson: Um,
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 Professor Fred Watson: and that's the case when you look at the
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 sun's gravity and the moon's gravity. They're
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 basically very, very
00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 small, uh, and they tend to cancel out.
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 Anyway, uh, the
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 centrifugal force comes about
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 because on the equator, you're travelling at
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 1600 kilometres an hour, uh, eastwards,
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 and that Motion, because it's in a
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 curve, uh, has an acceleration
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 represented which cancels out a little bit of
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 the gravity. Uh, but the other one is
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 the Earth's gravity itself is different.
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 Even if the Earth was not rotating, there
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 would still be a difference at uh, the
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 equator, uh, uh, from the pole. And that's
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 because the Earth, uh, is not a perfect
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 sphere. It's what we call an oblate spheroid.
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 It's slightly flattened. So you're, I can't
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 remember how far it is, you're 30 kilometres
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 away or something like that, further away at
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 the equator, greater from the centre of the
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 Earth, uh, uh, than you are,
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 uh, the pole. Let me just, I can
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 do this in my head. Uh, it's actually
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 21 kilometres is the difference.
00:06:37 --> 00:06:40 You're 21 kilometres further from
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 the centre of the Earth when you're on the
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 equator than you are at the pole. And that
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 means you're higher up until you feel
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 slightly less gravity. And when you add that
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 to the gravity change you get because of the
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 Earth's rotation, it comes to basically 1%.
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 Uh, so. Really? Yeah, quite, quite, um, um,
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 a nice calculation and also
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 quite a nice question from Vijay because
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 uh, or DJ I didn't quite catch which.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 Uh, but good to hear from you in Indiana. Uh,
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 and it's a well directed question, uh, but
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 the answer is yes, you'd see on your bathroom
00:07:15 --> 00:07:16 scale if it was accurate enough.
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, uh, we took some bathroom
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 scales on a cruise ship once and um, yeah,
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 don't use them at sea. I weighed everything
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 from 60 to 190 kilos
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 in a matter of seconds.
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 Uh, it does remind me though of when I was a
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 kid. My dad was a pharmacist for his, almost
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 his entire career. And back then when
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 you didn't have scales at home or you know,
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 very few people did, you'd go down to the
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 chemist, uh, and you'd put, uh,
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 in Australia you'd put 20 cents in the slot
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 and stand on the scales and it would give you
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 an accurate weight. Wait, last time I used
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 one of those I was 11 stone.
00:08:00 --> 00:08:01 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, things are moving.
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 Andrew Dunkley: I still remember 11 stone. Now 11 stone,
00:08:05 --> 00:08:06 um, doesn't mean much anymore.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 Um, but I'll work it out.
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 Equals kilos
00:08:13 --> 00:08:16 and the answer is 69.85 kilos.
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 Well, I weigh a little bit more than that
00:08:18 --> 00:08:19 now.
00:08:19 --> 00:08:20 Professor Fred Watson: Probably not that much more.
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 Andrew Dunkley: Um, about 15 kilos more.
00:08:26 --> 00:08:27 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 Andrew Dunkley: 11 stone back in the day. Yes, I was quite
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 proud of that. But uh, you don't see them
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 anymore, do you, those uh, scales out in
00:08:35 --> 00:08:36 front of the pharmacies.
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 Professor Fred Watson: They used to be. You found them on railway
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 stations as well in Britain? I don't know
00:08:41 --> 00:08:41 why.
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well, they used to have them at
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 railway, uh, stations for weighing packages
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 and things like that and post offices and
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 All right, dj, thanks for the question, but,
00:08:53 --> 00:08:54 yeah, it's true. If you were to take a
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 submarine, pop up at the North Pole, put your
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 scales down and weigh 100, then go to
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 Ecuador and do the same thing, you'd weigh
00:09:02 --> 00:09:02 99.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 Um, now our next question, Fred Watson. Uh,
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 it comes from Nick, uh, who is in
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 Cambridge in the uk. He said Cambridge, the
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 UK one, just so we didn't get confused with
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 Cambridge in the United States. I assume
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 there'd probably be more than two. Um, now
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 he says, as you answered my previous question
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 so eloquently, I came back for a second
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 helping. We must have been rude. Wouldn't
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 have been you, Fred Watson. Uh, the solar
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 system is, uh, 4.6 ish billion
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 years old, but it formed from, uh,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 material that is older. Are there any
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 estimates for how much older this
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 material is? And can this help us date any
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 supernovae that may have generated
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 it? Uh, or was the solar system formation
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 process so energetic that it reset isotope
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 ratios, uh, everywhere within the sun's
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 sphere of influence, much like heating rocks
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 above their Curie point, uh,
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 resets isotropic ratios. Thank you for the
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 enlightening enlightenment twice a
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 week. Uh, it keeps me relatively sane, if you
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 can believe it. Nick from Cambridge, the uk,
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 one, uh, I like. It's a
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 good question. A couple of questions in
00:10:15 --> 00:10:18 there. So, yeah, um, I
00:10:18 --> 00:10:19 like where he's going with this.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 Professor Fred Watson: And it's one. I, um, think it's fair to say
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 that this is a question still on the front
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 line of research, um, because
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 when you look through the, you know, the
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 astronomical literature, you find a lot of
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 stuff about the
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 solar nebula. The solar nebula is a cloud of
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 gas and dust which, um,
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 basically the solar system was born in,
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 uh, by this process of gravitational
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 collapse. It collapses under
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 its own mass, um, and starts spinning and
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 you, the spinning produces a disc. So you've
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 got a hot ball of gas in the middle, which
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 becomes the sun, and this disc of rocky
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 material and gaseous material as well
00:11:03 --> 00:11:05 swirling around it, which is the, um,
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 protoplanetary disc. Um, when you look at
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 papers, they nearly always
00:11:12 --> 00:11:12 Professor Fred Watson: commenting, um,
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 Professor Fred Watson: on the contents of the solar nebula.
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 Just in terms of the mix of gases.
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 It's mostly hydrogen and helium with a few
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 pollutants, which are, uh, what eventually
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 made the rocky planets and the likes of us.
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 Um, but there's not that much work done on
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 uh, exactly the question that uh,
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 Nick is uh, asking. You know, can you
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 identify what supernovae
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 were? Uh, uh, the
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 remnants of their supernovae
00:11:47 --> 00:11:48 explosions, uh, which
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 include heavy elements as well as the
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 hydrogen and helium. Can you identify the
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 dates of those supernovae? Now I have a
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 recollection of seeing some papers that
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 refer to evidence
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 in uh, meteoritic rock. I think uh,
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 that uh, suggests that some of the material
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 of the solar system dates from about 8
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 billion years ago. Remembering that the age
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 of the solar system is more or less 4.6
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 billion years, exactly as Nick says. Um,
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 and we know it actually a bit more accurately
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 than that, but that's the easy number to
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 remember. 4.6, 4.7 billion years.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 Uh, so yes we do know it formed from material
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 that, that's older but I think it's turning
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 out to be quite difficult
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 science to actually detect that.
00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 Um, and that may be
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 because of the second part of his question.
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 Although I suspect that the
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 isotope ratios were probably preserved
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 rather than destroyed as per the
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 Curie point. Um, I'm sorry, this
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 sounds like a waffly answer but I haven't
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 really been able to pin down much research on
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 this. There was a spacecraft that
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 was launched um, back in, I
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 think about 2001 that
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 uh, it was called Genesis and it was a
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 NASA, uh, experiment and the idea was to
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 catch particles of the solar wind and bring
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 them back to Earth. And the solar wind
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 is basically nuclei of gas,
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 they're mostly hydrogen, but you can also
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 detect any sort of pollutants. And in a
00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 way what you're trying to do there's is
00:13:31 --> 00:13:32 analyse remnants
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 of the cloud of gas and dust that form
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 the solar system. You're trying to analyse
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 traces of that gas and dust. And
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 it's uh, similar to what we do with comets.
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 We try and analyse comets to death because we
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 know they're pristine objects, they've never
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 been hot, they're just samples of
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 the solar nebula frozen
00:13:55 --> 00:13:58 onto dust crystals. Uh, but
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 um, Genesis unfortunately had ah, a problem.
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 Um, the capsule that was sending
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 back this material actually um,
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 the one of the parachutes didn't open and so
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 it crashed at I think it was 200 kilometres
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 an hour. It hit the Earth and broke.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:17 Um, so there was some contamination but I
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 think there was some research done on it but
00:14:20 --> 00:14:21 I don't think they got to the real nub of the
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24 matter. What's the, what's the solar
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 nebula made of? Um, I'll Keep looking
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 at this because it is a really interesting
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 one. And, um, um, you know, if we come
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 across any more definitive papers, we might
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37 be able to give Nick a shout out later on.
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 Andrew Dunkley: So he's dug up a mystery, basically.
00:14:40 --> 00:14:41 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. He's come up with.
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 Andrew Dunkley: Come up with something we can't quite grapple
00:14:44 --> 00:14:44 with.
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Although I think, as I said,
00:14:46 --> 00:14:47 you know, and unfortunately I've been able to
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 find the papers that I've read where it does
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 suggest that we've got evidence for
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 supernovae in the past, which are, uh, maybe
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 8 billion years ago, so nearly twice the age
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 of the solar system. But supernovae in the
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 environment that we are now in, um, which
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 would have contributed to the makeup of the
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 solar system? Good question.
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 Andrew Dunkley: It is fascinating. Thank you, Nick. We'll get
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 back to you shortly. This is Space Nuts with
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson
00:15:16 --> 00:15:17 Watson.
00:15:19 --> 00:15:20 Professor Fred Watson: Step off the land now.
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 That's one small step for man,
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 one triumph leap for mankind.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:32 Andrew Dunkley: Space Nuts.
00:15:32 --> 00:15:32 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 Andrew Dunkley: And you're listening to a Q A edition.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 And our, uh, next question comes from
00:15:38 --> 00:15:39 Keith.
00:15:39 --> 00:15:41 Keith: Hey, guys, this is Keith in
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 Vancouver, Washington, usa,
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 and I'm just curious about interstellar space
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 travel. How long do you think it's going to
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 take for a human to be able to reach
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 another star? It
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 seems fairly restrictive with
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 the distances involved and
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 you know, what kind of travel
00:16:06 --> 00:16:08 it would take, be it
00:16:11 --> 00:16:12 warp drive or
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 laser sail. But any, uh, just
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 curious what you guys think, how long it's
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 going to take for us to get there and how
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 realistic it's actually going to be if
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 anything will ever come of it.
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 Thanks, guys. Love the podcast.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:32 Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Keith. Great to hear from you.
00:16:33 --> 00:16:35 There's another place that's not where we
00:16:35 --> 00:16:38 would normally think it was. Vancouver. Like
00:16:38 --> 00:16:40 you automatically go, oh, that's Canada. But
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 no, he's in the U.S. version.
00:16:43 --> 00:16:46 Uh, yes, uh, but Keith, uh, that's a great
00:16:46 --> 00:16:48 question. Um, I suspect it'll be a
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 spaceship before it is a human being
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 going to another star system, or another
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 star for that matter. Uh, the nearest one's
00:16:57 --> 00:16:59 what, Proxima Centauri, which is
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 4.41 light years away. So,
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 uh, using conventional engines, you're
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 looking at a trip of over 6
00:17:08 --> 00:17:08 years.
00:17:09 --> 00:17:10 Professor Fred Watson: 60.
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 Andrew Dunkley: 60 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 Okay, well, you know, don't forget to take
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 some eggs, uh, because
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 they don't keep that long actually. But no,
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 they don't. It's,
00:17:24 --> 00:17:26 it's a, ah, it's a difficult one and it sort
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 of goes back to what we were saying in the
00:17:28 --> 00:17:30 previous episode with Elon Musk and, you
00:17:30 --> 00:17:32 know, getting, um, you know, shooting around
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 all over the solar system, uh, or
00:17:35 --> 00:17:38 all over the galaxy in the. In, um.
00:17:38 --> 00:17:38 Professor Fred Watson: Um.
00:17:38 --> 00:17:41 Andrew Dunkley: It's. It's not probably a high priority
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 at this stage and I, I think the day will
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 come where we'll be able to go faster.
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 But whether or not we can go fast enough to
00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 make a trip to Proxima Centauri,
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 um, you know, reasonably quick,
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 uh, like at 99%
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 relativistic speed, it would
00:18:02 --> 00:18:03 still take you
00:18:05 --> 00:18:06 about three years, I think.
00:18:07 --> 00:18:10 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, well, it would. No, it must be more than
00:18:10 --> 00:18:10 that because.
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 Andrew Dunkley: No, well, I'm talking. It'd take you
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 five. I worked it out, actually.
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 Professor Fred Watson: It would be. Yeah, at light speed, it takes
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 you 4.3. 4.4 years.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:22 Andrew Dunkley: Yes.
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, and it. But you're right, you've got to
00:18:26 --> 00:18:26 take
00:18:26 --> 00:18:27 Andrew Dunkley: into account time dilation.
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 Professor Fred Watson: You do. You've got all of that thrown in as
00:18:30 --> 00:18:30 well.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:31 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:34 Professor Fred Watson: Um, and, uh, it's.
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 Yes, it's hard to envisage,
00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 um, I mentioned in our, uh, last episode
00:18:40 --> 00:18:42 something about some work I'd seen that
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 suggested that light sails weren't going to
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 be the answer for this. Because when you get
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 to high enough speeds, you get this drag,
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 uh, that actually slows you down and you've
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 just got to put so much energy into your
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 laser pointing at the light sails,
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 uh, that, um, it really
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 is probably not going to work very well.
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 Perhaps the nearest we've got to
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 seriously thinking about interstellar travel
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 has been the. What was it? Breakthrough
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 Starshot. Starshot, that's the one.
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 That project, which was a
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 feasibility study funded by
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 a Russian billionaire whose name was on
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29 the tip of my tongue a minute ago, but has
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 now disappeared, as names tend to do. Milner.
00:19:31 --> 00:19:33 Yuri Milner. That's his name.
00:19:33 --> 00:19:34 Andrew Dunkley: There he is.
00:19:34 --> 00:19:35 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Um,
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 um. Breakthrough Starshot was feasibility
00:19:39 --> 00:19:42 study to see whether we could, within
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 a kind of human lifetime, and I think they
00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 were thinking of 20 to 30 years, get a
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 spacecraft to the vicinity of Proxima
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 Centauri, the nearest star. Uh, yeah.
00:19:53 --> 00:19:55 Andrew Dunkley: Now, interestingly, while you were talking, I
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 asked, uh, ChatGPT to work it out. And for
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00 people on Earth, at
00:20:00 --> 00:20:03 99%, uh, of light
00:20:03 --> 00:20:05 speed travelling from Earth to Proxima
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 Centauri, it would be a, um,
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 4.3 year journey to get there.
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 However, when you take into account
00:20:14 --> 00:20:16 time dilation, which becomes significant,
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 the people on board would only
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 age 7 months is what it's
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 saying. I think they're missing something.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. In, uh, that calculation, um,
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 it's probably not that
00:20:32 --> 00:20:35 far Off. Yeah, it might not be just
00:20:35 --> 00:20:35 thinking about.
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 Andrew Dunkley: So the Earth perspective is a 4.3 year
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 journey. The onboard travellers would
00:20:42 --> 00:20:43 experience seven months.
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 Professor Fred Watson: It's critically dependent on how near the
00:20:45 --> 00:20:46 speed of light you get to.
00:20:47 --> 00:20:48 Andrew Dunkley: This uh, is at 99%.
00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 Professor Fred Watson: Yes. Yeah. Uh,
00:20:51 --> 00:20:54 so, yeah,
00:20:55 --> 00:20:57 it's kind of roughly something like that. I'm
00:20:57 --> 00:21:00 sure. I always used to use an example of
00:21:00 --> 00:21:03 um, going to a star a thousand light years.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 Sorry, a star 500 light years away. So you
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 make a thousand year journey as elapsed
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 on Earth and turns out that uh, I
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 think it's 9995% of
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 the speed of light. Uh, which is almost the
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 speed of light. But the people on board have
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 only aged 10 years. So you've got. In 10
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 years you've gone a thousand years into the
00:21:25 --> 00:21:26 future on Earth.
00:21:27 --> 00:21:28 Andrew Dunkley: Um, it's crazy, isn't it?
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 Professor Fred Watson: It's bizarre. Yeah, but, but the
00:21:31 --> 00:21:34 physics. So I, you know, as I
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 said in last week's episode, I think to talk
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 about interstellar travel, certainly for
00:21:39 --> 00:21:42 humans at the moment physics
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 just says no way, Jose. It's.
00:21:44 --> 00:21:47 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, my new book says otherwise.
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 Professor Fred Watson: But of course it does. Yeah, but that's.
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 You're in the real world of science fiction.
00:21:51 --> 00:21:51 Andrew Dunkley: Yes.
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 Professor Fred Watson: Rather, rather than the artificial world of
00:21:54 --> 00:21:55 uh, relativity.
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. And just uh, to put Keith right in the
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 picture, um, you know, if you want to get
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 to light speed, we're a little bit behind at
00:22:04 --> 00:22:07 the moment. Uh, the Parker solar probe
00:22:07 --> 00:22:10 has currently uh, got the um, space
00:22:10 --> 00:22:11 speed record of
00:22:11 --> 00:22:16 0%
00:22:16 --> 00:22:19 of the speed of light. So we're nowhere
00:22:19 --> 00:22:21 near 1%. We're nowhere near
00:22:21 --> 00:22:22 0.1%.
00:22:24 --> 00:22:26 Professor Fred Watson: Is it 190 kilometres per second?
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 Andrew Dunkley: I think it is, yes, yes, give or take.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 Um, that's as fast as we've ever been,
00:22:31 --> 00:22:34 um, as a species.
00:22:35 --> 00:22:38 But um, the day will come we'll get faster.
00:22:38 --> 00:22:40 If we could achieve 2%,
00:22:41 --> 00:22:44 um, that would make travelling to the outer
00:22:44 --> 00:22:45 solar system so much quicker.
00:22:45 --> 00:22:46 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it would, yes.
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 Andrew Dunkley: It would take, it would drop the travel time
00:22:49 --> 00:22:49 to weeks.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:51 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah.
00:22:51 --> 00:22:53 Andrew Dunkley: Would be amazing. So, you know, we don't need
00:22:53 --> 00:22:56 the speed of light yet, but
00:22:56 --> 00:22:59 we do need to probably get a bit quicker. But
00:22:59 --> 00:23:02 uh, yeah, it's an impossible dream at the
00:23:02 --> 00:23:04 moment, Keith, I think would be the answer to
00:23:04 --> 00:23:07 your question. But um, we won't
00:23:07 --> 00:23:09 give up. I'm sure humanity will figure
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 out a way to do it at some stage.
00:23:13 --> 00:23:15 Uh, but right now if we want to go anywhere,
00:23:15 --> 00:23:17 we've probably got to build a spaceship big
00:23:17 --> 00:23:19 enough for multiple generations to Live on.
00:23:20 --> 00:23:23 By the time they get there, they'll go, can
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25 anyone why we were coming here in the first
00:23:25 --> 00:23:28 place? Like, this place is the pits. Why did
00:23:28 --> 00:23:29 we come here?
00:23:30 --> 00:23:31 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly.
00:23:32 --> 00:23:34 Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Keith. Great to hear from you.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:38 Professor Fred Watson: 0G and I feel fine.
00:23:38 --> 00:23:41 Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts now, final question comes from
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 Mark. I love this question because of the
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 first sentence. Am I the only person
00:23:47 --> 00:23:50 to have watched Space 1999 back in
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 the 70s? No, you're not, Mark. I was a
00:23:52 --> 00:23:55 huge fan. I loved that show.
00:23:55 --> 00:23:58 Um, it, it was, uh, on.
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 It was a British show, British, uh, science
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 fiction TV programme that ran for two
00:24:03 --> 00:24:05 seasons, 75 to 77.
00:24:06 --> 00:24:08 Um, I watched it on Australian, uh,
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 television and uh, it follows
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 311 inhabitants of Moon Base
00:24:14 --> 00:24:17 Alpha, which is hurtling uncontrollably into
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 space due to an explosion of nuclear waste
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 stored on the moon's far side.
00:24:22 --> 00:24:25 And this is what's prompt Mark's question.
00:24:26 --> 00:24:28 Uh, I clearly remember a big nuclear
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 explosion in that show. And next
00:24:31 --> 00:24:33 thing, the moon and the inhabitants of the
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 moon of, uh, Moon Base Alpha are sent off on
00:24:36 --> 00:24:38 their merry way into deep space, leaving the
00:24:38 --> 00:24:41 Earth, uh, to wobble on its axis. On the
00:24:41 --> 00:24:44 bright side, I do like to sail, so
00:24:44 --> 00:24:46 I wouldn't have to worry about tides. So,
00:24:47 --> 00:24:49 you know, that's pretty cool.
00:24:49 --> 00:24:52 Um, what are your thoughts? P.S. i have
00:24:52 --> 00:24:54 cracked, uh, the screen on my phone, so this
00:24:54 --> 00:24:55 might not make much sense.
00:24:57 --> 00:24:59 Keep, uh, doing what you're doing. It brings
00:24:59 --> 00:25:01 me smiles. It brings a smile to my face. That
00:25:01 --> 00:25:04 comes from Mark. Um, so, yeah, all right,
00:25:04 --> 00:25:06 whatever reason, uh, but in this case it was
00:25:06 --> 00:25:09 nuclear waste explosion that sent the, uh,
00:25:09 --> 00:25:12 moon careening off into the heavens and
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14 left Earth all on its lonesome.
00:25:15 --> 00:25:17 Cause and effect. Um, what would be the
00:25:17 --> 00:25:20 effect, uh, as
00:25:20 --> 00:25:22 well, beyond the fact that the oceans would
00:25:22 --> 00:25:25 be much calmer and you could sail quite
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 happily. Or would they? No,
00:25:27 --> 00:25:29 No, I didn't think so.
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 Professor Fred Watson: No, I think it's the,
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 um, it's the currents
00:25:35 --> 00:25:38 in the ocean and the atmosphere
00:25:38 --> 00:25:41 itself that really dictate what's
00:25:41 --> 00:25:44 happening to the surface of the ocean. The
00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 tidal phenomenon is just a really low
00:25:47 --> 00:25:49 frequency effect. Two high tides a
00:25:49 --> 00:25:52 day. Um, and yes, it does
00:25:52 --> 00:25:54 mean water's moving around.
00:25:55 --> 00:25:58 But, uh, the main,
00:25:58 --> 00:26:01 um, kind of source of motion in
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 the oceans, I think, are these currents that
00:26:03 --> 00:26:06 we're concerned about because the atmosphere
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09 is changing. Uh, oceans are warming up
00:26:09 --> 00:26:11 and some of these currents are, uh,
00:26:12 --> 00:26:15 forecast to possibly switch off, like the one
00:26:15 --> 00:26:17 that's closest to my heart, because it's
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 where I grew up. But, uh, the Gulf Stream
00:26:20 --> 00:26:22 Drift, which is a Current that comes up from
00:26:23 --> 00:26:26 the. Basically the West Indies, uh,
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29 and crosses the Atlantic and keeps Scotland
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 warmer than it otherwise would be. Uh,
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 um, and of course, western England as well,
00:26:34 --> 00:26:37 and Ireland too. But it's why you can
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39 find. When you look down the west coast of
00:26:39 --> 00:26:42 Britain, you can find palm trees, uh, growing
00:26:42 --> 00:26:44 in people's gardens because of that
00:26:44 --> 00:26:44 phenomenon.
00:26:44 --> 00:26:45 Andrew Dunkley: Floated over.
00:26:46 --> 00:26:49 Professor Fred Watson: Something like that. Yeah. Um,
00:26:49 --> 00:26:52 whereas without it, uh, we'd feel
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54 very much more severe winters. Or they would
00:26:54 --> 00:26:56 up there, because I'm now Australian, of
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59 course. Yeah. Oka. Um, so
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 it's not going to do much to calm the ocean.
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06 Uh, it would get rid of the tides. Um, it
00:27:06 --> 00:27:09 might, as uh, Mark alluded
00:27:09 --> 00:27:11 to in his question, make the Earth wobble on
00:27:11 --> 00:27:14 its axis a bit more. But that would be over
00:27:14 --> 00:27:17 timescales of tens of thousands of years. Um,
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19 and we might be able to cope with that. But,
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 um, of course we'd miss it because the moon
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 is very romantic. And, um.
00:27:25 --> 00:27:27 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it's a good thing to photograph
00:27:27 --> 00:27:27 sometimes.
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29 Professor Fred Watson: It's great. That's right. It's good to have.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:30 Yeah.
00:27:30 --> 00:27:33 Andrew Dunkley: It wouldn't make life impossible for us if
00:27:33 --> 00:27:33 it.
00:27:34 --> 00:27:36 Professor Fred Watson: No, it wouldn't. Um, it would change life,
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 definitely. But I mean,
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41 especially the accelerations that it would
00:27:41 --> 00:27:44 produce as it rocketed off into space
00:27:44 --> 00:27:47 might certainly upset things here on Earth.
00:27:47 --> 00:27:49 There'd be a gravitational influence on. That
00:27:49 --> 00:27:50 could change the length of the day.
00:27:51 --> 00:27:52 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, that's a thought.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:57 Well, um, you know, people working harder and
00:27:57 --> 00:27:58 harder. You'd probably want the day to go
00:27:58 --> 00:27:59 longer,
00:28:02 --> 00:28:04 but I don't know. I don't know what would
00:28:04 --> 00:28:07 happen. It could be interesting, though.
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09 Professor Fred Watson: Well, it could, but, um, hopefully it's not
00:28:09 --> 00:28:10 going to happen.
00:28:11 --> 00:28:13 Andrew Dunkley: No. It is moving away from us though, Mark,
00:28:13 --> 00:28:16 and it will. Yeah, it will
00:28:17 --> 00:28:19 reach a certain distance and then that'll be
00:28:19 --> 00:28:20 it. It'll stop. It's not going to keep going
00:28:20 --> 00:28:21 away.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:21 Professor Fred Watson: That's correct.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:24 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. But, um. But at the moment we're
00:28:24 --> 00:28:27 stuck with it. Um, that big grey rock that
00:28:27 --> 00:28:30 just sort of looms over us and looks
00:28:30 --> 00:28:33 pretty and, um, lights up the night.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:33 Professor Fred Watson: It's great.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36 Andrew Dunkley: Yes. May soon have a colony on it. Ben's
00:28:36 --> 00:28:37 really thrilled about that.
00:28:39 --> 00:28:42 Professor Fred Watson: I don't mind a permanent presence, but, um,
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44 the idea of, you know, settling on the moon
00:28:44 --> 00:28:46 is, uh.
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 Andrew Dunkley: That's Elon's goal now he's given up on Mars.
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 Professor Fred Watson: Well, yeah, no, he's talking about Mars as
00:28:52 --> 00:28:53 well in the.
00:28:53 --> 00:28:55 Andrew Dunkley: Oh, I know. With the latest. That's the
00:28:55 --> 00:28:58 latest he's still got. Yeah. But I think
00:28:58 --> 00:29:00 he's decided we'll Go to the moon first and
00:29:00 --> 00:29:02 we'll see how we go there. Yeah, Bit worried
00:29:02 --> 00:29:03 about flushing toilets, but we'll figure that
00:29:03 --> 00:29:04 out.
00:29:07 --> 00:29:09 Uh, Mark, thank you. That's a great question.
00:29:09 --> 00:29:11 Lots of fun and, yeah, space 1999,
00:29:12 --> 00:29:14 probably one of the shows that really
00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 switched my brain onto science fiction and I
00:29:17 --> 00:29:20 haven't let go of it. Terrific show.
00:29:20 --> 00:29:23 Uh, that brings us to the end. But if you do
00:29:23 --> 00:29:25 have questions or comments for us, please
00:29:25 --> 00:29:27 visit our website because we'd love to hear
00:29:27 --> 00:29:28 from you. Uh, and if you've thought about
00:29:28 --> 00:29:30 sending in a question and just never got
00:29:30 --> 00:29:32 around to it, well, get around to it.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 SpaceNutsPodcast.com SpaceNuts
00:29:35 --> 00:29:38 IO are our URLs because
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 we got a 2 for 1 package and you can just
00:29:40 --> 00:29:43 press the AMA button at the top, which means
00:29:43 --> 00:29:45 ask me anything and send us your audio or
00:29:45 --> 00:29:47 text questions. Don't forget to tell us who
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 you are and where you're from. We always like
00:29:49 --> 00:29:50 to know. We've got people all over the place,
00:29:50 --> 00:29:53 but more listeners in Iceland than anywhere.
00:29:53 --> 00:29:54 We're number one in Iceland.
00:29:54 --> 00:29:55 Professor Fred Watson: Woohoo.
00:29:56 --> 00:29:59 Andrew Dunkley: It's very exciting. Um, but I think we're
00:29:59 --> 00:30:02 number two in Australia and number something.
00:30:02 --> 00:30:05 Number nine in America or something.
00:30:05 --> 00:30:08 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, Number five in the uk. I noticed number
00:30:08 --> 00:30:08 five in the uk.
00:30:09 --> 00:30:10 Andrew Dunkley: What happened to the other two people, I
00:30:10 --> 00:30:13 wonder? Anyway, um,
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 Fred Watson, we've reached the end. Thank you
00:30:15 --> 00:30:16 so much.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:18 Professor Fred Watson: Great pleasure, Andrew. Always good fun.
00:30:19 --> 00:30:21 Andrew Dunkley: And, uh, thanks to Huw in the studio, who
00:30:21 --> 00:30:23 couldn't be with us today, which is why we're
00:30:23 --> 00:30:25 number two in Australia instead of number
00:30:25 --> 00:30:28 one. He just never listens. And from me,
00:30:28 --> 00:30:30 Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company.
00:30:30 --> 00:30:31 We'll see you on the next episode of Space
00:30:31 --> 00:30:33 Nuts. Bye Bye.
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 You've been listening to the Space Nuts
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