In this episode, you will be able to:
· Explore the potential new meteor shower and its implications for stargazers and astronomy enthusiasts.
· Delve into the fascinating topic of lost fruit in space and its unexpected journey beyond our planet.
· Uncover the mysteries of life after the Big Bang and how it shaped the universe as we know it.
· Discover the Doppler effect, redshift, and slingshot effect, and how they have revolutionized our understanding of celestial bodies.
'We're blessed with good fortune for this particular meteor display, as we are with the Geminids, because the moon is new effectively at the moment, so there's no moonlight'. - Andrew Dunkley
Lost Fruit in Space
The cosmic mystery deepens, as astronomers shed light on the curious topic of lost fruit in space. Tying in with a light-hearted reference to a popular television series, researchers examine how space travel affects the development of fruit flies sent to the International Space Station. This strange case brings us closer to understanding life's adaptation to zero-gravity environments.
The resources mentioned in this episode are:
· Visit the Dark Sky Traveler website at darkskytraveler.com.au to book a tour to witness the total solar eclipse in Texas and Cape Canaveral in April 2028.
· Check out the Dark Sky Traveler website for information on a trip to Canada, which can be combined with the Texas and Cape Canaveral tour for a complete eclipse experience.
· Stay updated on the latest episodes of Space Nuts by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.
· Stream on demand at www.spacenuts.io, www.bitesz.com to catch up on previous episodes of Space Nuts and stay up to date with the latest astronomy and space science news. · Add your name to the Europa Clipper mission through the NASA website to become part of this exciting space exploration endeavor.
· Submit your questions for the Space Nuts podcast by visiting the official website and using the provided form. Your questions could be featured in an upcoming episode.
· Join the Space Nuts podcast group on Facebook to connect with other space enthusiasts and stay informed about the latest news, discussions, and events related to astronomy and space science.
#MeteorShower #AstronomyEnthusiasts #NewAstronomicalPhenomena #SpaceDiscoveries . #Stargazing #MeteorShowerEnthusiasts #CosmicPhenomena #AstronomyNews #CelestialEvents #SpaceNutsPodcast
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00:00:00
Hello again. Thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts. My name
00:00:03
is Andrew Dunley. Your host. It is great to be back for another
00:00:07
episode and thanks for joining us. Now, what are we doing
00:00:11
today? We're talking about a potential meteor shower. This is
00:00:15
a brand new one. Whenever there 's a meteor shower, you usually
00:00:18
know about it because it's been happening for a long, long time
00:00:21
every year. This one, maybe never before, probably not.
00:00:26
We'll find out We're also looking at lost fruit in space.
00:00:30
Yes, it's the the Robinson family again. Maybe not. And
00:00:35
life straight after the Big Bang, could it happen or could
00:00:40
it have happened? We don't know, but someone thinks it might have
00:00:44
plus questions about the Doppler effect and red shift and, and
00:00:48
the slingshot or grav gravity assist effect. How does that
00:00:52
work? We'll do all that today on Space Nuts.
00:00:57
Guidance is 10 9 ignition sequence. Space Nuts, 432,
00:01:06
1334554321.
00:01:08
Space astronauts report it bills good and joining me to solve all
00:01:15
the mysteries of the universe in five seconds flat is Professor
00:01:18
Fred. What's an astronomer at large? Hello, Fred.
00:01:22
Hello, Andrew. Sounds good. We'll solve everything between
00:01:27
us.
00:01:28
Indeed. Indeed. We will. Yes. Still trying to cope with the
00:01:32
hot weather here. We are having another week of scorches and it
00:01:37
just, it's been relentless. We haven't, we haven't had a break
00:01:41
in the weather for nearly two weeks now, which is, ridiculous
00:01:44
and big numbers too. Over 40 °C, four or five days in a row out
00:01:50
our way, which is, just hellishly hot, not fun at all.
00:01:56
But you press on, don't you?
00:01:58
Well, yeah, that's right. I, I do remember, you know, when I
00:02:02
lived not very far from where you live now, once in a while,
00:02:06
you got this succession of hot days and this was before the
00:02:11
days of air conditioning as well, which made even worse.
00:02:15
Terrible.
00:02:16
You tell the young people today that there was no such thing as
00:02:19
air conditioning. I wouldn't believe you. That's right.
00:02:24
Quite so.
00:02:26
Yeah, I remember, I remember visiting my grandparents and the
00:02:29
only cooling system they had was one of those little indoor
00:02:33
evaporative coolers that you had to keep filling up with water.
00:02:36
And of course, now, now they advertise those, things on TV,
00:02:41
as super coolers and everyone thinks, oh, I've gotta get one
00:02:44
of those. In fact, we'll give you two for half the price, but
00:02:47
they're just swamp boxes just like the things from 50 years
00:02:51
ago.
00:02:51
So pool of water with a on it, isn't it? What it is?
00:02:55
That's basically it. Yeah, when we, when we moved out here
00:03:00
because it's a dry heat area. They were very common, those
00:03:04
evaporative coolers, but they don't work so well anymore
00:03:07
because the air is so much more humid these days.
00:03:11
That would make a change.
00:03:15
Alright, we'd better get on with it. Fred. Let's talk about this
00:03:19
potentially new, new meteor shower. When you say new, does
00:03:25
that mean this one's never happened before?
00:03:27
We think so. Yes. So just to recap on what meteor, what
00:03:31
causes meteor showers. They are what happens when the Earth
00:03:37
passes through dusty debris left behind by a comet. So comets as
00:03:42
they go in their orbits around the sun, they get near the sun,
00:03:45
their icy material, evaporates, it actually sublimes, it goes
00:03:50
straight from a solid to a gas.
00:03:52
And what that does is because comets are what we often call
00:03:56
dirty icebergs, they're just blobs of ice with a lot of dusty
00:04:00
bits in them. And sometimes rocky bits too, that as the as
00:04:06
the ice disappears, of course, it releases the dust. And so
00:04:10
what you get is clouds of clouds of dust which follow the comet.
00:04:15
In fact, you you can see the dust trail of a comet.
00:04:18
If you've got a particularly bright comet that leaves a trail
00:04:21
behind it. You can actually see that and we often see
00:04:23
photographs of them with that dust trail streaming out behind.
00:04:27
So, there are a number of comets which whose orbits intersect
00:04:33
that of the Earth, which means that the dust trails they leave
00:04:36
behind are actually in the Earth 's path around the sun.
00:04:40
And so the Earth charges into them at 30 kilometers per second
00:04:43
because that's its orbital speed. And what you get is on
00:04:46
the, on the leading side of the Earth, you get these meteor
00:04:49
displays, you get showers of Meteors. And the reason why a
00:04:53
shower of meteorites of Meteors is different from the just your
00:04:59
everyday meteor, which is usually called a sporadic
00:05:02
meteor.
00:05:03
Is that in a shower, the Meteors all seem to come from the same
00:05:06
direction in the sky. And that is because of the, what you've
00:05:11
got is the combination of the Earth's velocity and the dust
00:05:13
particles velocity.
00:05:15
And those two things come to conspire together to mean that
00:05:19
they all seem to come from a single point in the sky as we
00:05:23
watch from Earth's surface, and we call that the radiant, that's
00:05:26
the radiant, the point from which the Meteors radiate. And
00:05:29
there are some very well known ones. And in fact, there's one
00:05:33
of the best known ones is coming up within the next few days our
00:05:37
time.
00:05:37
It's what I call my birth birthday meteor shower because
00:05:41
it's on the 14th of December. And it is the Geminid Meteors
00:05:45
and they seem to come from the constellation Gemini. So a lot
00:05:49
of these are common, common knowledge, but now we have the
00:05:53
prospect of a new one that hasn't been observed before and
00:05:58
it comes from a comet called Vivien W I RT A nen also known
00:06:04
as 46 P.
00:06:06
Often these comets have got a name that has a P after it,
00:06:09
which stands for periodic, it means it goes around the sun in
00:06:13
a, in a measurable period of time. How this comet, for
00:06:16
example, 76 years is its period around the sun. This one though
00:06:20
the tannin is is sorry, hang on, something's just flashed across
00:06:30
my screen. That's totally taken my mind away.
00:06:35
Yeah, let me get rid of that. Comet Beal has an orbital period
00:06:40
of only every five years. And that's fairly rapid and, and
00:06:46
that we think that these short period comets have interacted
00:06:51
with the planet Jupiter and Jupiter is, is gravity. Which
00:06:55
kind of does lots of things to, lots of, to anything passing by.
00:06:59
It put shepherds them into a much shorter period orbit
00:07:02
because otherwise all all comets would, would probably be one
00:07:05
offs. They'd just come into the inner solar system from way out
00:07:09
in the depths of space, what we call the orbit cloud swing by
00:07:12
the sun and then go back again. And you know, with periods
00:07:16
perhaps hundreds of thousands of years.
00:07:18
So, Jupiter has a lot to answer for when it comes to short
00:07:23
period commas. And Viet Anen is one of them. So it it, it's got
00:07:29
this short period orbit that I, I can't remember whether I said
00:07:32
it was discovered in 1948 but that was when it was found. Now,
00:07:37
some Socis in France, specifically at l observer Trois
00:07:42
De Paris.
00:07:43
That institute has scientists who have wondered why we don't
00:07:49
get a meteor shower from this comet. Because its orbit inter
00:07:54
intersects that of the Earth. And what they've done is they've
00:07:59
actually looked in ve in detail about the, the projected path of
00:08:04
the dust particles and how they might interact with the Earth's
00:08:06
orbit.
00:08:07
And what they've got is the po potential of a meteor shower,
00:08:11
which actually is a couple of days before the geminid Meteors
00:08:15
and the 12th of December. And they're saying that during the
00:08:20
early part of the night, there is, which is sorry, I beg your
00:08:25
pardon. During the later part of the night, it's the early part
00:08:27
of the night, universal time.
00:08:28
But as always with comet displays it's the later part of
00:08:31
the night for astronomers during the later part of the night,
00:08:38
there might well be a meteor shower coming from this the
00:08:43
direction of a star which is called, let me find the name
00:08:51
Lambda sculptors, that's a star in the constellation of Sculptor
00:08:56
Southern constellation. And so these Meteors would be known as
00:09:02
the Lambda sculptors.
00:09:04
That will be what they're called if they happen. So the
00:09:07
prediction is at the moment that this meteor shower will take
00:09:10
place. It's never been seen before. Astronomers and meteor
00:09:14
watchers and there are, there are people who are, you know,
00:09:18
big meteor enthusiasts will be focused photographing them.
00:09:22
We'll be attempting to photograph them, which will be
00:09:25
should provide the evidence that that they come from this point,
00:09:29
La Lambda Sco Taurus, which would define them as being part
00:09:34
of that meteor shower. So it's a really interesting piece of
00:09:38
work.
00:09:38
I I, I think we're blessed with good fortune for this particular
00:09:43
display as we are with the geminid because the, the moon is
00:09:47
new effectively at the moment. So there's no moonlight. So
00:09:49
people in dark, dark skies should get really good views of
00:09:53
these Meteors.
00:09:55
And they do make spectacular photographs. I've seen some
00:09:58
online over the years and gee you can get some great photos,
00:10:02
especially if you I, I can't think of the term. But if you
00:10:07
leave the, the, if you're in a dark enough area and you can
00:10:09
leave the exposure open for a while, you can get these
00:10:12
beautiful effects. Yeah, that's right.
00:10:18
That, that was easy. In the days of, you know, film photography,
00:10:22
you just opened the shutter and let, let the, let the camera do
00:10:25
its thing. You needed a Dark Sky site to do it. These days, the
00:10:30
digital cameras need a bit of tweaking to do that. You, you
00:10:33
basically end up taking a succession of relatively short.
00:10:37
Interestingly. There is an app that can do all that for you
00:10:43
these days and there is, I, I've got it on my phone but I, I,
00:10:47
well, I can't find it now, obviously because I've got
00:10:49
squillion of them. I haven't actually used it yet, but now
00:10:53
I'm thinking this might be a great opportunity.
00:10:55
But, yeah, you just basically, open the app and set the camera
00:10:59
up and then you just walk away and let it do its stuff for a
00:11:01
while, come back later and your photo's done. I think that's
00:11:06
saves a lot of trouble.
00:11:08
I can't remember what it's called. But, if I, if I remember
00:11:11
before the end of the show, I'll, I'll let people know. But,
00:11:14
yeah, I, I think I, I, I've been busting to use it and haven't
00:11:18
had a chance yet. But, I might, might be able to get out there
00:11:21
in the next, what's the next few nights you're talking about?
00:11:24
Yes, that's right. Our time as we, I mean, actually by the time
00:11:28
we go to air on this, on this, broadcast, it will have
00:11:32
happened.
00:11:36
But actually the geminid Meteors, they, they're spread
00:11:38
over quite a few days. So anybody who wants to try and
00:11:41
catch the geminid Meteors which come from the constellation Gen
00:11:44
Gemini, the twins, of course, Then, then, then listen in
00:11:49
because if, if if, what's your name again? Dave, if Andrew
00:11:55
finds the app, if Andrew finds the app and then it'll be worth
00:11:59
playing with.
00:12:01
Yes. And now I'm looking again. But, that's ok. So, yeah, that,
00:12:06
that, it's fascinating though that we've, we've got this new
00:12:09
one. It's it's, it, it must be rare for us to have these
00:12:13
situations arise, especially given that this comet isn't the
00:12:17
first time it's come through. It 's, it's been around for a long
00:12:20
time.
00:12:20
So that's right. I suspect what sort of happens is just as these
00:12:24
orbits drift slightly. You, you know, it may well just have
00:12:28
drifted into such a position that we might start seeing
00:12:32
meteor debris from the common. So, yeah, I I think it's, it is,
00:12:37
as you said, it's a bit of a Mione finding a new meteor
00:12:40
shower.
00:12:41
I, I found it, I found it called Nightcap Night Cap. It is the
00:12:47
name of the APP Night Cap Camera and, and that's the one that,
00:12:51
yeah, you can basically set and forget, for nighttime
00:12:56
photography. So there you go. I had it in a folder. That's why I
00:12:59
couldn't find it initially.
00:13:00
But there you are. So, yes. These next few days, could be
00:13:05
pretty exciting for those who want to do some astrophotography
00:13:08
or me photography. Moving on Fred lost tomatoes on the
00:13:14
International Space Station. This is, this is hilarious. This
00:13:18
story is funny.
00:13:21
Yes. Well, it's it goes back to, you know, as you know,
00:13:27
experiments on the International Space Station include growing
00:13:30
things to see how things grow in zero gravity or micro gravity.
00:13:34
And some time ago, tomatoes were grown and in particular, one of
00:13:42
them was a rather nice looking tomato that disappeared.
00:13:48
And one of the astronauts who was aboard the space station at
00:13:52
the time, Frank Rubio was always suspected of having eaten it
00:13:57
although he denied it and always denied it.
00:14:00
Yes.
00:14:01
Al always denied eating this tomato, but everybody thought
00:14:05
he'd eaten it now. Meanwhile, Frank's gone back to Earth. But
00:14:10
the crew of the current crew of the International Space Station,
00:14:13
he, he, he Frank went back to Earth a couple of months ago in
00:14:17
September.
00:14:19
And I think the accusations have all been pretty lighthearted
00:14:21
that he did this, space grown tomato. And he said, he said at
00:14:28
the time I spent so many hours looking for that thing. I'm sure
00:14:33
the desiccated tomato will show up at some point and vindicate
00:14:36
me years in the future and guess what it has done this tomato has
00:14:41
turned up.
00:14:42
Yes, nobody's saying, where it was or what its condition was.
00:14:48
But yes, you know, it is likely to be in a state of advanced
00:14:54
decay there because of the conditions aboard the space
00:14:58
station. So not only when we know.
00:15:01
How do you lose something on the International Space Station? I
00:15:04
mean, ok, the other day they lost a tool bag but that was
00:15:07
outside, inside the cabin and it 's just.
00:15:15
Yeah, I'm not surprised because when you look at pictures of the
00:15:18
inside of the space station, it 's all racks of equipment, you
00:15:21
know, scientific equipment, all in racks on the, on the side
00:15:24
walls of the space station, there's nooks and crannies
00:15:27
everywhere and things have, you know, things float around.
00:15:31
So if it came off its stalk and just wandered off on its own, it
00:15:35
could have wound up anywhere. And I'm not sure how big this
00:15:38
tomato was, it probably wasn't that big. So it may have well
00:15:42
found its way into some tiny nook or cranny that nobody else
00:15:45
could find.
00:15:46
Yeah, maybe it was one of those cherry tomatoes could be, could
00:15:50
be, who knows? But, they found it. So he's, he's off the hook,
00:15:55
off the hook.
00:15:57
I think that's hilarious. It's a good fair dinkum. I, I, yeah, I,
00:16:02
I love it. I love that stuff and it, it's, you know, it's good to
00:16:05
see that. Even with something as serious as space flight and all
00:16:09
the work they do on the ISS, they can, they can also have a
00:16:12
bit of fun.
00:16:13
I saw a I saw a video this morning that somebody captured
00:16:17
from a an airport terminal of two Australians under a virgin
00:16:20
plane. One of them was giving the other one a golf lesson.
00:16:26
Great. I just thought it was great. Simple stuff. Really.
00:16:31
Yes. Yes.
00:16:34
You just never know what's going to be filmed these days and what
00:16:37
's gonna end up on social media. So yeah, it's, it's funny stuff
00:16:41
but this is a great story about the the tomato. If you want to
00:16:45
read more about it, it it's all over the internet. It's been a
00:16:47
big news story these last couple of days for sure. This is Space
00:16:52
Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson 321 Space
00:17:02
Nuts and we have spoken many, many times.
00:17:07
It's alright. So keep keep going under, I've just, I've just got
00:17:10
to answer the which won't take long.
00:17:14
That's ok.
00:17:17
Fred's amazing cos he can walk and chew at the same time. We
00:17:21
have spoken, we can, we've spoken many, many times about
00:17:26
the Big Bang. We get question upon question about it. Not
00:17:29
quite as many as we get on black holes and dark matter, but we do
00:17:35
get a lot of questions about the Big Bang.
00:17:37
And now there's a new theory that's been put up, I suppose
00:17:41
you'd call it a theory that life may well have been able to take
00:17:45
hold very soon after the Big Bang. Well, you know, define
00:17:51
what very soon is, are we talking seconds, weeks, months,
00:17:55
years, less.
00:17:57
Than a second.
00:17:58
Are they really saying that?
00:18:01
Well, it's look, I this is a con it's a conjecture what the point
00:18:05
that's being made in this article. And it's a very nice
00:18:08
article actually by Paul Suter who's a space.com contributor
00:18:15
living in New York City. He speculate, well, first of all,
00:18:23
as you kind of have to do when you start talking about life in
00:18:26
space, you got to define what life is.
00:18:29
And for the purpose of this article, he takes kind of the
00:18:36
broadest possible the broadest possible definition which is
00:18:41
anything that's subject to Darwinian evolution. In other
00:18:45
words, something that can modify itself in response to you know,
00:18:49
its environment.
00:18:51
I I, the, the, the definition that NASA uses is similar to
00:18:54
that. I, if I remember rightly, it is a self a self sustaining
00:19:02
self. There's two things to it. I've forgotten the other one.
00:19:06
Self. Oh OK. Self replicating, self-sustaining entity that is
00:19:12
capable of Darwinian evolution. That's, that's the NASA
00:19:16
definition like that. And so, it does.
00:19:20
Well, that's right. And that's a really good question, our
00:19:22
viruses, living organisms. It's one of the, you know, the big
00:19:26
debates of, of biology. But if you, if you broaden the
00:19:30
definition that just to make it something that's subject to
00:19:35
Darwinian evolution, then it, it actually does. As Paul himself
00:19:42
says, it blurs the boundaries between life and non life.
00:19:46
And that is interesting because the, there will be some chemical
00:19:53
reactions that might well be capable of Darwinian evolution,
00:19:57
even though they, they don't have anything like we consider
00:20:02
to be parts of living organism, organisms.
00:20:05
Now where you've got DNA and RN A and proteins and all of that
00:20:09
stuff, that a chemical living organism would be really, you
00:20:16
know, it, it, it would not satisfy my definition of life
00:20:19
even if it was capable of some sort of evolution. I think
00:20:23
robotic lo organisms might well be capable of that as well.
00:20:29
In fact, what's the, that old Hoary one, the Von Neumann
00:20:34
machine, which is supposed to be a machine that can replicate
00:20:38
itself in space. These were conjectured decades ago, Von
00:20:43
Neumann by somebody called Herr Von Neumann. The so the, yeah,
00:20:50
the issue is is, is a blurry one.
00:20:53
But if you accept that broad definition that Paul does for
00:20:58
his article, then you've got you know, the possibility as he r
00:21:04
real, you know, as he relates at the end of his end of his piece
00:21:09
that perhaps life could have existed very, very briefly in
00:21:14
the aftermath of the Big Bang.
00:21:16
And what and the reason why he's saying that is that you know,
00:21:21
our normal picture of, of the, the way life has evolved, you
00:21:24
start with a Big Bang that within a few seconds makes
00:21:28
hydrogen. Hydrogen is the raw material of stars, they collapse
00:21:31
under gravity. Blobs of hydrogen collapse under gravity, make
00:21:35
stars stars switch on by the high temperatures of that
00:21:39
collapse.
00:21:40
Nuclear fusion turns the hydrogen into other elements.
00:21:44
And so we know that all chemical elements except for hydrogen
00:21:48
helium and there's tiny bits of lithium and deuterium, I think
00:21:52
are the two other ones that were formed in the Big Bang.
00:21:55
Virtually all chemical elements come from the inside of stars
00:21:58
apart from hydrogen helium. So to, to, to get stars, yeah, to
00:22:05
have stars means that you've got the ingredients of life, the
00:22:10
chemical ingredients of life and the first generations of stars
00:22:15
as we know now were within a few 100 million years of the Big
00:22:18
Bang, they were very, very early on.
00:22:20
So you could get chemistry forming. Once those stars have
00:22:25
spread their, spread their elements that have been formed
00:22:30
in their atmosphere among the, among the interstellar medium,
00:22:34
then you, then you could get some sort of early what we, what
00:22:39
we would call prebiotic chemistry.
00:22:42
In other words, the building blocks of life and then
00:22:45
something happens that makes that turn into living organisms
00:22:49
and usually living organisms involve the idea of lipids and
00:22:53
fats which let you which let these organisms form membranes.
00:23:00
So that, that they make little bags within which the chemist,
00:23:02
the chemical reactions can take place and that then becomes a
00:23:06
single celled organisms. That that's the sort of picture the
00:23:09
broad picture that we've got of the way life forms. But he's you
00:23:13
know, what Paul is saying is, he actually speculates quite widely
00:23:19
and in an interesting way.
00:23:21
Because we, as you and I have spoken about many, many times,
00:23:26
Andrew 95% of the mass energy budget of the universe is stuff
00:23:31
that we don't know about dark matter and dark energy. And Paul
00:23:36
speculates as as many have done before him, that, you know, dark
00:23:40
matter might not just be one thing, there might be a complete
00:23:43
periodic table of dark matter.
00:23:45
And So maybe, you know, there's dark chemistry playing out in
00:23:50
the, in the dark matter sphere. And so he hypothesizes that
00:23:55
perhaps dark matter itself may spawn life, which he calls dark
00:24:00
life.
00:24:01
It might have appeared long before the first stars appeared
00:24:05
because you, you have dark matter which might have its own
00:24:10
periodic table, irrespective of the normal chemicals that are
00:24:14
being produced in the nuclei of stars. So it it is, yeah, it's a
00:24:18
really broad view view of of the origin of life and where it
00:24:24
might have gone.
00:24:25
It's actually on, on the space.com website, Paul is
00:24:30
writing for them but, but at the end of his article, yes, he
00:24:32
comes to the punch line. I'm, I'm just gonna read what he says
00:24:36
because I think it's rather well put the possibilities can get
00:24:40
even weirder.
00:24:41
Some physicists have hypothesized that in the
00:24:43
earliest moments of the Big Bang, the forces of nature were
00:24:47
so extreme and so exotic that they could have supported the
00:24:50
growth of complex structures. For example, these structures
00:24:54
could have been cosmic strings which are folds in space time
00:24:57
anchored by magnetic monopoles.
00:24:59
We don't know whether they exist, but that's that's good,
00:25:03
good way to put it. And then he goes on with sufficient
00:25:05
complexity. These structures could have stored information
00:25:10
that there would have been plenty of energy to go around
00:25:12
and those structures could have self replicated, enabling
00:25:15
Darwinian evolution.
00:25:17
Any creatures existing in those conditions would have lived and
00:25:20
died in the blink of an eye, their entire history lasting
00:25:24
less than a second. But to them, it would have been a lifetime.
00:25:27
It's a very nice ethic to his article, I believe it.
00:25:35
That's right. Yeah.
00:25:36
But he also suggests that, you know, life could have started
00:25:39
forming on Earth before the Earth had finished developing.
00:25:44
And it may, that may have also happened on places like Venus
00:25:48
and Mars. So there's, there's, there's other theories as to how
00:25:53
and when life came about beyond that moment of the Big Bang.
00:25:59
So, it, it's, I suppose it's one of the big mysteries of the
00:26:04
universe and how, how did it happen? And as we said, at the
00:26:08
very beginning, how do you define life? I mean, I was
00:26:10
driving up the street the other day for Ed and I know this is
00:26:12
gonna sound silly, but I, I just looked at a row of trees and I
00:26:16
thought to myself, yep, why do we call them alive?
00:26:19
Why do we, you know, they don't have a heartbeat, they don't
00:26:22
have brains, they don't. But, but they replicate, they, they,
00:26:27
they develop and adapt to nature and the environment. It's
00:26:31
Darwinian evolution, as you said. So that's probably the
00:26:34
answer to the question. But it's a very, when you really think
00:26:37
about it, it's a very strange form of life. Is a tree.
00:26:42
Yeah, it is. That's right. You know, as a, as a, as a plants,
00:26:47
generally they're very different from, you know, the, the animal
00:26:51
life that we're familiar with. But it's, but it's all part of
00:26:54
life and if we found a tree on Mars you can bet your boots it
00:26:57
would be the, it would be the, the news story of the Century
00:27:02
Andrew.
00:27:03
It would indeed. And I, I venture to say that, with the
00:27:08
search going on up there, evidence, maybe fossil evidence
00:27:13
of life. Even if that is discovered that that would be
00:27:19
Earth shattering news to, to say, OK, we, we actually have
00:27:23
found that life did exist on Mars may still don't know.
00:27:29
And, and then the question arises. Well, OK. Is it the same
00:27:32
kind of life as we have? Is the DNA the same? Is that, or is
00:27:35
this a completely different life form unrelated to Earth? And tho
00:27:41
those are exciting questions. They really are.
00:27:45
They are. Yes. So if you can, you know, do a genomic se
00:27:48
sequence of, of a living organism from Mars and discover
00:27:52
that it's got links with living organisms on the Earth, then you
00:27:56
can bet your life that you, you're talking about the same
00:27:58
source, something that is formed on one planet or the other and
00:28:03
some event, probably an impact event that's raised material.
00:28:08
We know we've got meteorites from Mars we, we know they come
00:28:12
from Mars because of their chemical composition. Then that
00:28:15
suggests that there's a common ancestor to living organisms on
00:28:19
Mars and, and on Earth, which is itself an extraordinary thing.
00:28:23
If it, if it, it was ever, you know, if that was ever followed,
00:28:27
and let's assume that's what will be discovered.
00:28:30
It would then add a lot of potential to the possibility
00:28:37
that the recipe for life is universal.
00:28:42
Because if it's happened on Earth and happened on Mars
00:28:45
stands to reason that this formula exists in many, many
00:28:50
places beyond our solar system perhaps. And li life just needs
00:28:55
the right situation to, to take hold and, and, and become
00:29:00
established.
00:29:00
Yeah, that, that's particularly true in the case of if, if we
00:29:07
did, you know, do genome sequences of bacteria or
00:29:13
something found on Mars discovered that they were quite
00:29:17
different from those on Earth, then that I think does point to
00:29:21
the fact that wherever you get the right environment, you're
00:29:24
likely to get life forming.
00:29:25
Because you've got two completely separate ancestral
00:29:28
lines there rather than them having a common, a common
00:29:31
ancestor.
00:29:32
I think, I, I think if we discover life elsewhere, it, I,
00:29:36
I know what life form it will be. Fred. I, I've already got
00:29:40
that figured out.
00:29:42
I'm sure you have. Please fill me in.
00:29:45
The answer is weeds, weeds, they just turn, they'll, they grow
00:29:51
anywhere, anywhere and everywhere they just pop up in
00:29:54
places where you think, how on Earth did you even establish
00:29:57
yourself there and survive? So, weeds is the answer. That's what
00:30:02
we'll find.
00:30:03
Now, we weeds would be very exciting and because they are
00:30:07
multi cell organisms and most, you know, most astrobiologists
00:30:12
think that what is more likely to be found is just slime green
00:30:16
slime made of microbes.
00:30:20
Which is the planets attached to, doesn't it? What color the
00:30:23
slime will be?
00:30:25
Yes, that's right. That's a good point. Could be blue.
00:30:30
Might be blue.
00:30:32
Alright. Ah but it's a great article if you want to read
00:30:35
about the theory as to when life might have happened in whatever
00:30:40
form at space.com. And the the article is titled Life might
00:30:46
have been possible just seconds after the Big Bang. Yeah, it's a
00:30:49
great read. This is Space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with
00:30:53
Professor Fred Watson.
00:30:57
321 Space Nuts.
00:31:02
It's time for A Q and A Fred. This is where we take questions
00:31:07
from the audience and our first question comes from Rusty who
00:31:12
surprisingly is being very wait for it is being very brief.
00:31:18
Hey, Fred and Andrew. It's Rusty in Donnybrook. The Ligo and
00:31:23
Virgo detectors is a detection of a gravitational wave, a
00:31:30
Doppler change in the laser line.
00:31:35
That's it.
00:31:37
Short and sweet. So, did you catch all that?
00:31:42
Yes, I did. I did. Ok. Yep.
00:31:44
Ok.
00:31:46
So what's what's Rusty talking about? First and foremost.
00:31:53
He's talking about. So, the those gravitational wave
00:31:58
detectors, Ligo and Virgo are what are called interferometers,
00:32:02
which means that you have a beam of light which is being bounced
00:32:07
backwards and forwards between two mirrors. And the by letting
00:32:15
light waves combine you find that the waves of light either
00:32:22
add together or cancel out. And that's the principle of what we
00:32:27
call interferometry.
00:32:28
It's this addition and subtraction of light waves. And
00:32:31
so it means you can bring two beams of light together and get
00:32:34
darkness. It's always, I've always found that an
00:32:36
extraordinary capability an extraordinary thing. But you're
00:32:42
not just canceling out the energy cos it goes into where
00:32:45
the two waves combine and basically you get a bright spot.
00:32:49
So what Rusty is asking is is the canceling out and add
00:32:57
additional effect caused by as the, as the gravitational wave
00:33:04
passes through the detector. What it does is it changes the
00:33:07
separation of the mirrors very slightly tiny, tiny amount, 10,
00:33:11
1 10/1000 the diameter of a proton. It's gone way easy
00:33:14
stuff. So it changes them. And what he's asking is, is it the
00:33:19
positional change?
00:33:21
That is the important thing or the speed of change, which is it
00:33:27
rise to a Doppler effect which slightly changes the frequency.
00:33:31
And it's actually the position. So the the, the Doppler effect
00:33:36
is, even more minute than the position change. Because the
00:33:41
velocities which with which the mirrors move are so tiny, but it
00:33:45
's a great question. It is a great question.
00:33:47
They're always great questions.
00:33:51
Yeah. Even when he tries to trick us, which is, you know,
00:33:55
Rusty on.
00:33:57
No. Yes, he would. He would, thanks Rusty. Always good to
00:34:03
hear from you. Always insightful. Let's, go to another
00:34:06
question. This one from Robert and this one is, it's not
00:34:11
unrelated to what Rusty was asking about. Actually.
00:34:14
Hi, this is.
00:34:15
Robert from Netherlands. I've got a question for you guys.
00:34:19
Could you please explain to me the difference between the red
00:34:22
shifts due to the Doppler effects as to red shifts through
00:34:26
lights, traveling to dust? I'm so curious to learn the answer.
00:34:30
Hope things aren't too dusty in Australia. Thank you. Bye bye.
00:34:35
Thank you, Robert. Things are very dusty in Australia. I got
00:34:39
up this morning to go to work on the radio station and the sun
00:34:42
was just rising and usually it's II, I have to drive east for a
00:34:46
little while before I can turn to go up to the radio station
00:34:49
and, the sun literally hits me in the face first thing in the
00:34:54
morning this time of year.
00:34:56
This morning, it didn't blind me because of the dust in the, in
00:35:00
the sky. It, because we've had a lot of wind around here lately.
00:35:05
And, and so there's a lot of dust in the air and it actually
00:35:07
acted like a pair of sunglasses this morning. I didn't need my
00:35:10
sunny on because the, the, the, the, the dust through the
00:35:16
horizon was so thick.
00:35:17
I just got a sort of an orange hue effect rather than a
00:35:22
blinding sunspot. So that was nice actually. But it did show
00:35:28
me that things are very, very dusty here at the moment.
00:35:30
Robert. Yeah. So yeah, another question asking about red shift
00:35:34
Doppler effect or, or, or the effect of dust. Again, I'd
00:35:39
probably need to please explain on this one.
00:35:44
Well, yeah, no, his question is great. Thank you, Robert. And
00:35:47
very nice to hear from you again. The So the Doppler effect
00:35:53
is the basically the change in frequency or wavelength of, of
00:35:59
something, whether it's sound or light, as well as an object
00:36:04
moves with respect to the observer.
00:36:07
And, you know, the classic example is always trotted out by
00:36:11
people trying to explain the Doppler effect. It's a siren,
00:36:14
you know, a vehicle with a siren on it going past you. And you
00:36:17
hear the siren change pitch as it as, as the, the, the whatever
00:36:21
it is, the fire truck or the ambulance or whatever, heads off
00:36:25
into the wide blue yonder.
00:36:27
We had a classic example of that here where I live in Davidson in
00:36:31
northern beaches of Sydney, a few days ago when there was a
00:36:36
house not very far from us which sadly caught fire and burned
00:36:39
down.
00:36:40
And we could hear sirens coming from all around the place. It
00:36:44
was unbelievable. We didn't know what it was, but we could hear
00:36:46
all these sirens. And their pitch was changing as they, you
00:36:50
know, as their di distance, the speed with the to us changed. So
00:36:55
something coming towards you got the pitch is raised.
00:36:59
And what that means, if you think of it being light rather
00:37:02
than sound, is that something towards you coming towards, you
00:37:06
would have its light blue shifted would be shifted towards
00:37:08
the blue. And we can measure that with stars that are some
00:37:11
stars are coming towards us.
00:37:14
Likewise, something going away from us is red shifted. Now it's
00:37:18
slightly different actually from the red shift, what we call the
00:37:21
cosmological red shift. This is the red shift of distant
00:37:25
objects, the further away you, you look in space with great
00:37:30
Galaxies we're talking about now, not stars in our own
00:37:32
galaxy.
00:37:33
The further away you look the the more red shifted they are.
00:37:37
And that's because of the expansion of the universe, the
00:37:40
space itself in the time that the light has been traveling
00:37:43
through, it has stretched. And that stretching is what gives
00:37:46
rise to the red shift, which is subtly different from a Doppler
00:37:49
effect.
00:37:50
It is just a slightly different thing. So, but you can lump
00:37:55
those two together as being, you know, physical properties to do
00:37:58
with the wavelength of light or other radiation traveling
00:38:01
through the universe. And the other thing that Robert mentions
00:38:05
is the dust exactly. This reddening, we actually usually
00:38:08
call it reddening rather than red shift.
00:38:11
And that's because what's happening is that the blue light
00:38:17
is being subtracted. So if you've got light coming from a
00:38:23
distant star and that light passes through a cloud of dust,
00:38:26
whether it's the same sort of dust as you've got or something
00:38:30
a bit different.
00:38:31
It's silica dust actually that we find in space, that that s
00:38:37
dust cloud scatters the light. So as as photons of light
00:38:42
individual particles hit the particles of dust, they kind of
00:38:45
bounce off. But the blue light is much more preferentially
00:38:51
scattered than the red light. So blue light bounces off in all
00:38:54
directions.
00:38:56
And whereas the red light largely continues through
00:39:01
without being scattered too much. And so what you have if
00:39:05
you're, if you imagine yourself looking at this light that's
00:39:08
come through a dust cloud, the blue light's gone off in all
00:39:11
directions, but the red lights carrying on to you, then you've
00:39:14
got a red, a red shift effectively, we call it
00:39:17
reddening.
00:39:18
And it's really convenient cos you can numerically measure that
00:39:22
red thing, you can work out what the light of the star would have
00:39:25
been before it left. And then you can work out what has
00:39:30
happened as a courtesy as a consequence of the dust cloud.
00:39:33
And that gives you an idea about properties of the dust itself,
00:39:36
gives you an idea of how big the dust cloud is, how much of this
00:39:39
material it's come through. And that's a very, very powerful
00:39:44
tool in astrophysics. So, reddening by scattering, which
00:39:49
is what the process is rather than, you know, Doppler effect
00:39:52
or anything like that. Reddening by scattering is a very powerful
00:39:55
tool.
00:39:56
I got a I don't know what you call it on Facebook this
00:39:59
morning. Aaa reminder notice about something that I
00:40:02
photographed four years ago and I don't know if you remember,
00:40:05
but we had those massive bushfires across the state,
00:40:08
which basically crowded the entire state in smoke.
00:40:12
It was quite amazing. And when I got up early to go to work and
00:40:17
the sun was rising this time of year, It was rising through the
00:40:21
smoke and it blocked the sun to a point where all I could see
00:40:26
some days was a pink billiard ball or an orange billiard ball.
00:40:32
The effects were astounding.
00:40:33
I took so many photos of it and they, they popped up today as a
00:40:38
reminder. So I've reposted them on my, on my Facebook page
00:40:41
because I, I've never seen anything like it before.
00:40:45
The these huge circles of pink in the sky every morning that it
00:40:52
was just the sun, but because of the effect of smoke and those
00:40:55
small particles, it wasn't scattering the light so much as
00:40:58
it was blocking it. And all you were getting was the disc of the
00:41:01
sun through in a perfect sphere and it was bright pink. It was
00:41:07
just amazing photos and, and amazing images just to drive it.
00:41:11
Like I don't know how I didn't crash because I just couldn't
00:41:13
take my eyes off it, but I've got dozens and dozens of photos
00:41:20
that I took of that effect. I was just gonna bring it up now
00:41:24
and see if I could find it for you from all those years. Yeah.
00:41:28
There we go. Look.
00:41:29
Can you see that?
00:41:33
Yeah. Hold your, hold your camera a bit, your phone a bit
00:41:35
closer to the camera Andrew because at the moment it's over
00:41:38
exposing. Yeah, there it is. I got it now. Yeah, that's
00:41:41
incredible.
00:41:42
And then, and then there, there 's the one I was talking about.
00:41:47
The, the pink one. So, yeah, quite a quite incredible. Yeah,
00:41:53
it's.
00:41:53
Redden Reddening in.
00:41:55
Certainly is.
00:41:57
Yes, indeed. Did we finish answering Robert's question? I
00:42:01
got distracted.
00:42:02
So, yeah, thanks.
00:42:05
We have a text question and this one comes from Paul in Victoria.
00:42:11
Hi, Andrew. And Fred, I have a question. Are you able to
00:42:14
explain the details about how spacecraft are able to slingshot
00:42:18
past the planet to travel faster? I thought this maybe an
00:42:22
interesting topic since we hear the term getting a slingshot or
00:42:26
gravity assist is another word for it. Quite a lot, but never
00:42:30
really get an explanation of how it works in my mind.
00:42:34
I struggle to get past Newton's Third Law, which is basically
00:42:37
that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
00:42:41
So the entry velocity would be the same as the exit velocity,
00:42:46
which wouldn't cause a slingshot effect. Love listening to the
00:42:49
podcast. Thanks Paul from Vermont, Vermont, Victoria,
00:42:53
Australia, not Vermont in the other part of the world.
00:42:58
I, yeah, it's a good question. It's a very good question
00:43:00
because I often wondered the same thing Paul.
00:43:06
So what's the answer?
00:43:08
And it, Paul Paul's right. And you know, intuitively, you
00:43:12
think, OK, something's being pulled towards a planet. You,
00:43:16
you've got a spacecraft that's going past a planet, it's being
00:43:19
pulled towards it by the planet 's gravity. But then once it's
00:43:22
gone past, it's being pulled by the same force.
00:43:25
So that it any, any speed increase it receives as it, as
00:43:29
it goes past, the planet should be taken away from it by the
00:43:32
gravitational pull of the planet as it leaves. And from the
00:43:37
planet's perspective, if you think of the planet as you know,
00:43:42
everything's moving with respect to planet. That's the, that's
00:43:46
the case, the incoming velocity or acceleration is the same as
00:43:51
the outgoing acceleration.
00:43:53
So for Paul's synopsis about, you know, the third law is
00:43:58
right, the the the the the two things balance out, what makes
00:44:03
the difference is the fact that the planet is moving. And it's
00:44:07
that motion that means that if you look at it in a frame of
00:44:12
reference of the sun rather than the planet, then you've got an
00:44:16
increase in velocity and sometimes it's quite
00:44:18
significant, the velocity of the planet is added.
00:44:21
And what, what's actually physically happening is that the
00:44:25
spacecraft is stealing some of the momentum of the planet as it
00:44:29
moves around the, as it moves around the, the, the sun. So it
00:44:33
grabs a little bit of that momentum and that gives it the
00:44:36
slingshot boost. But the, the, you know, the amount of momentum
00:44:41
that is stolen is so small, the planet doesn't notice it at all,
00:44:44
but the spacecraft does because its mass is so much less.
00:44:48
And so you've got this really very, very useful physical, you
00:44:53
know, physical adjunct to rocket fuel. You can, you can, you can
00:44:58
make it far more economical to get, to get spacecraft to where
00:45:03
you want it to be. And there have been some classic missions
00:45:06
that have involved, you know, half a dozen or more.
00:45:10
Would be a classic example.
00:45:13
I think, I think Voyager was only four. It might have had
00:45:16
interactions with the Earth itself though, which I might add
00:45:19
to that. But Cassini, I think had six or thereabouts that
00:45:24
sometimes, you know, you bounce it off the same planet several
00:45:27
times to build up the speed, the, you know, the, the Astros
00:45:32
of all that is just extraordinary when you think of
00:45:34
the computation.
00:45:35
I'm just trying to think of the name of that mission that
00:45:37
they're sending to. Is it Mercury? And they've had to do,
00:45:41
slingshots around Venus three or four times or something like
00:45:45
that.
00:45:48
Yeah, it might be. Yeah, that rings a bell. But, yeah, that,
00:45:52
that's a, that's a good example because it's harder to go to the
00:45:55
inner solar system than it is to go to the outer solar system.
00:45:58
Isn't that right?
00:45:59
Yeah, that's right. You've got to lose velocity.
00:46:02
Oh, that's right. It's a braking maneuver. Not a, not a
00:46:05
slingshot. But, they have to do it the same, same concept.
00:46:10
Yeah, the same phenomenon. That 's right. I just, let me, you
00:46:16
gotta double check, make sure I just got to double check. It's
00:46:22
planet Mercury. That's right. So, it is Bey Colombo. Yeah, I
00:46:25
was remembering correctly.
00:46:27
Yeah. Well, my brain must have worked for a bit there cos I, I
00:46:31
did the right thing. In my mind.
00:46:34
But there you go, Paul, it's the movement of the planet that
00:46:36
makes the difference. Thanks for your question. Yeah. Now, one
00:46:41
thing I wanna mention before we wrap up, I want to send a shout
00:46:44
out to Marie Claire who's one of our biggest fans, listens to us
00:46:48
every week.
00:46:49
She sent a, a notice out on the Space Nuts Podcast Group
00:46:52
Facebook page, to let people know that they can get their
00:46:56
name on the Europa Clipper Mission, which is, yeah. So I've
00:47:03
done that. And so, yeah, so if you would like to add your name
00:47:09
to the Europa Clipper Mission, just, find it on, the NASA
00:47:14
website I'd say.
00:47:15
And, yes, or you'll find the link on the Space Nuts Podcast
00:47:20
Group Facebook page because, that's where Marie Claire posted
00:47:24
the information. And so if you wanna add your name to, the
00:47:28
growing list of people who are going to follow this incredible
00:47:30
mission when it finally gets going, don't forget if you've
00:47:35
got questions for us, you can, send them to us via our website.
00:47:39
We'd love to hear from you. Don't forget to tell us who you
00:47:41
are and where you're from. We'll take text and audio questions
00:47:45
and, yeah, we're always looking for more.
00:47:48
So, yeah, get them to us. Whenever you like, we might not
00:47:51
get the, the latest ones on until the New Year because
00:47:54
we're, I think we're gonna do one more show before we have a
00:47:57
little bit of a break. And we'll run some, repeat episodes and,
00:48:02
get back together in the New Year.
00:48:05
That's, yes. Yes. There was one more thing, wasn't there?
00:48:11
There was. Yes, thank you. Which is, just to mention, as many,
00:48:16
special notes listeners will know my other half, Marley runs
00:48:19
a tour company called Dark Sky Traveler. And she has a tour
00:48:24
coming up to Texas, and Cape Canaveral next year to witness
00:48:30
the April 11th. Is it sorry, April 8th? I think it is a total
00:48:35
eclipse of the sun.
00:48:36
I'll be there too, between the first and the 11th of April,
00:48:40
we'll be doing the totally Texan total solar eclipse and you can
00:48:44
find information on that on the Dark Sky Traveler website, which
00:48:48
is just Dark Sky Traveler.com dot A U that will give you all
00:48:53
the details. Plus the, there's actually a, a trip coming up
00:48:56
before to Canada as well that you can dovetail the two
00:48:59
together if you're really keen.
00:49:01
Awesome. Yeah, great places to visit. Having done it, only very
00:49:05
recently myself. And I think where, where you will be, the
00:49:10
totality will be four, what, four minutes of total.
00:49:14
That's right.
00:49:14
We'll be, we'll be on a run in Texas, a private run in Texas,
00:49:18
which is gonna be really good.
00:49:19
How exciting I'm gonna have to hold out till 2028 when we
00:49:23
actually have one in Dubbo.
00:49:26
Yes, you do. It's gonna be coming to see you. Yeah, at last
00:49:30
I had to arrange an eclipse to get you to come here for it.
00:49:33
Good grief.
00:49:37
Alright, thanks Fred. Always, always good to talk to you.
00:49:40
We'll catch you on the next episode.
00:49:42
Sounds great. Thanks, Andrew. Take care.
00:49:44
Alright, Fred Watts, an astronomer at large part of the
00:49:47
team here at Space Nuts. And of course, thanks to Hugh in the
00:49:51
studio for just sitting in the dark as he always does. And from
00:49:55
me, Andrew Dunkley, good to have your company looking forward to
00:49:58
joining you again on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.
00:50:04
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