This episode is brought to you by Saily...your passport to seamless global connectivity. Get your special Space Nuts offer from Saily by visiting www.saily.com/spacenuts for a great discount price and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Collision Course? And the Mysteries of the Aurora
In this captivating episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson delve into a range of astronomical topics that illuminate our understanding of the universe. From the latest findings regarding the fate of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies to the enchanting phenomena of auroras, this episode is sure to spark your cosmic curiosity.
Episode Highlights:
- Milky Way and Andromeda Collision: The episode kicks off with an exciting update on the potential collision between our galaxy and Andromeda. Fred discusses new research suggesting that gravitational influences from nearby galaxies may alter the predicted course of this cosmic encounter, making the odds of a disastrous collision lower than previously thought.
- Understanding Fiducial Models: Heidi and Fred explore the concept of fiducial models in astronomical predictions, clarifying their role in understanding complex orbital dynamics and the challenges of measuring motion across vast cosmic distances.
- The Flying Banana and Aurora Chasers: The duo transitions to a whimsical story about a laser-emitting train dubbed the "Flying Banana," which inadvertently confused aurora hunters with its blue light. Fred shares insights into the aurora borealis and the technology used to monitor and study these stunning natural displays.
- Japanese Moon Mission Setback: The episode also covers the recent setback of the Japanese lunar lander mission, highlighting the challenges faced by space exploration endeavors and the lessons learned from failures.
- Mars Odyssey's Stunning Views: Lastly, Fred discusses the Mars Odyssey orbiter's recent capture of breathtaking images of Martian volcanoes peeking above morning clouds, showcasing the ongoing exploration and discoveries being made on the Red Planet.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
If you’d like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit spacenutspodcast.com/about
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
(00:00) Welcome to Space Nuts with Heidi Campo and Fred Watson
(01:20) Discussion on the Milky Way and Andromeda collision predictions
(15:00) Exploring fiducial models in astronomy
(25:30) The Flying Banana and aurora phenomena
(35:00) Japanese moon mission failure and its implications
(45:00) Mars Odyssey's stunning volcanic views
For commercial-free versions of Space Nuts, join us on Patreon, Supercast, Apple Podcasts, or become a supporter here: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Heidi Campo: And blast off. We are
00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 launch. We are go for launch on another amazing out
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 of this world episode of space nuts.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
00:00:23 --> 00:00:24 report it feels good.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 Heidi Campo: I am your host for this lovely
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 evening. For me morning for Fred your host,
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 Heidi Campo. And joining us is
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 Professor Fred Watson, astronomer at large.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 Professor Fred Watson: Hey, Fred, how are you doing? Heidi,
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 it's great to see you after our
00:00:42 --> 00:00:43 trepidations yesterday.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 Heidi Campo: We are coming to you on schedule, but we
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 are a day late. But the stories
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 are still the same high quality you can expect.
00:00:54 --> 00:00:54 Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 Heidi Campo: we had a little bit of troubleshooting to do, but
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 just like, the folks over at NASA, failure for
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 getting this episode out was not an option.
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 And we put our brains together and figured it out.
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 Professor Fred Watson: So I think you did most of the brain work there, Heidi.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 I don't think I qualify as being included in that. I
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 just, watched the magic happen when you finally appeared
00:01:15 --> 00:01:16 on my screen, which was good.
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 Heidi Campo: Half of it was luck. I think I just clicked on the right buttons in the
00:01:20 --> 00:01:20 right order.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 but speaking of luck and a little bit of
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 magic, it looks like our first story this week is some good
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 news. We are not
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 going, going to be crashing into the
00:01:33 --> 00:01:34 Andromeda Galaxy.
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 Professor Fred Watson: so we believe. That's right. So,
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 the mantra among astronomers
00:01:43 --> 00:01:44 for probably
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 decades has been, hang on
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 to your hats, folks, because one day we're going to crash into the
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 Andromeda Galaxy, probably in about three
00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 and a half billion years. The Andromeda galaxy, just
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 to remind people, is the
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 largest, the
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 nearest large galaxy to our own.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 Ah. And it is, actually rather bigger than
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 our own galaxy. and so we,
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 have measured the speed of,
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 what we call the radial velocity, the closing speed
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 between our galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy. That was a
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 measurement that was probably made getting on for 100 years
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 ago, actually, and maybe more.
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 and the two are closing up now. We do get questions
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 occasionally on space knots from people saying,
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 if the universe is expanding, why aren't
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 galaxies all being drawn apart?
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 And. Well, they are, but that's on the sort of
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 mega scale. That's on the bigger scale of the universe. When you
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 look at galaxies in the local environment,
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 they are, sort of their motions are
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 dominated by gravitational forces rather than
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 by the expansion of the universe. And that's why in what
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 we call our Local group, which is a group of about two dozen
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 galaxies, the two Biggest are ourselves and Andromeda.
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 they have motions that do not reflect the expansion
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 of the universe because we're looking on too small a scale. It's when
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 you look on the big scale that you see all galaxies,
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 whizzing away from us. So, as I said,
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 an easy observation to make. a long, long time ago,
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 astronomers deduced that, yes, the Andromeda Galaxy
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 is heading towards us. I can't actually remember. The figure I should have checked it
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 out is something like 200 in the region of 200
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 kilometers per second, which sounds fearsome,
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 excep, but it's two, and a
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 half million light years away. So there's quite a long
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 time to go, which is why we're talking about three and a half billion
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 years. So bringing us a little bit up
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 to date, more than a decade ago now,
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 a European Space Agency spacecraft called
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 Gaia was launched. And Gaia was an
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 astrometry satellite. And what that means is it
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 measured very accurately the positions of
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 stars on the sky, their
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 celestial coordinates, the kind of equivalent of latitude and longitude
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 that we call right ascension and declination,
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 just to give them fancy names. so,
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 that spacecraft, measured, of course,
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 many, in fact, billions of stars in our galaxy. It's been one
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 of the most productive spacecraft. It's now been switched off.
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 but, it also had a look at the Andromeda
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 Galaxy. And the reason for that was
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 to see whether there was any possibility
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 that you might pick up what we call a transverse motion.
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 So what you measure, what's been measured for a long
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 time, is the radial velocity. That's the velocity along
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 the line of sight. And yes, Andromeda's coming towards
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 us in that dimension. But there's,
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 of course, also possibly, a motion across
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 the line of sight. We call it the transverse motion. And
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 if that was big enough, then you'd get a miss.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 The Andromeda Galaxy would, by the time it
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 reached us, be somewhere else. It wouldn't be along the same
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 line of sight. So, that was measured by
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 Gaia. And sure enough, I think what they did was
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 put up a limits on the transverse motion
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 because it's a very hard thing to do for an
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 object 2 1/2 million light years away.
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 So, the results, from the Gaia
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 analysis were that the collision is
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 inevitable. It's going to happen three and a half
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 billion years ago. Put it in your diary, everybody.
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 however, a new analysis. And this is
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 getting to the point now, by astronomers, if I
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 remember rightly, yes, the University of Helsinki
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 in Finland. A, place where we know we've got
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 many Space nuts listeners, which is great.
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 What they've done is they've said, okay,
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 that's all fine and dandy. Those Gaia measurements
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 are interesting. They seem to suggest that it
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 is actually coming our way. but what they've
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 said is, wait a minute. we are, not the only kids
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 on the block. the Andromeda Galaxy and our own are not
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 the only large objects in the Local Group.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 There are others, including a, galaxy with the marvelous
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 name of M. M33, in the constellation of
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 Triangulum, another nearby. A
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 nearby galaxy, not as big as our galaxy or
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 Andromeda, but it's big enough to have its own
00:06:05 --> 00:06:08 gravitational forces. It'll have a significant
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 gravitational pull on both ourselves and
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 Andromeda. And they also folded in
00:06:14 --> 00:06:17 one, of the two Magellanic Clouds. These, are small
00:06:17 --> 00:06:19 dwarf galaxies which are in orbit around our own galaxy. In fact,
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 they're being swallowed up by our own galaxy. The Large
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 Magellanic Cloud is, a, galaxy
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 containing probably a few billion stars
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 rather than the few hundred billion that we would get in a
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 big spiral galaxy. so they've taken, the
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 gravity of that object into account as well. And when
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 they do, they, find that
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 the gravitational forces of those
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 two other galaxies might well
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 pull the, you know, the two colliding
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 galaxies aside so that they
00:06:51 --> 00:06:52 don't collide.
00:06:54 --> 00:06:56 they've reported this in, actually one of the most prestigious
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 journals, Nature Astronomy. their,
00:07:00 --> 00:07:03 article in that journal is called no Certainty of a
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 Milky Way Andromeda Collision. So what they've done
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 is they've kind of, you know,
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 put the odds of a collision at lower than we thought they were
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 before. Still could be a collision. We won't be here
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 to find out. But they've put the odds
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 lower than before. So maybe we can breathe a sigh of relief.
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 Heidi Campo: Yeah, Well, I actually pulled up the article,
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 the scientific article itself, and I have it pulled up, and I was just
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 browsing over it. and
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 this really is fantastic because I do love reading
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 the actual science as it's written by the
00:07:36 --> 00:07:37 scientists.
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 And there is one thing that I'm seeing here that maybe you can
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 clarify for me and our listeners. it looks like they use
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 something and I'm going to butcher this name. Half of you are going to laugh at
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 me, and the other half of you are going to go, I don't know. Sounded right to me.
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 A fiducill
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 Fidical. Fidical model.
00:07:54 --> 00:07:55 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, fiducial.
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 Heidi Campo: Fiducial. I was not close at all.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 a fiducial model. So what is the difference between a fiducial
00:08:02 --> 00:08:03 model for predicting these,
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 orbits or collision courses versus
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 what, what else might be used?
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 Professor Fred Watson: I'm just looking at, ah, the context. Are you
00:08:13 --> 00:08:14 reading that from the abstract?
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 Heidi Campo: I'm reading that it's actually down under
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 predicting. It's in the main body of the article under predicting
00:08:20 --> 00:08:21 the future.
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 Professor Fred Watson: A fiducial model based on the most accurate values
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 available. That's a really interesting term. I haven't heard that
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 term, used in this context before. Usually,
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 a fiducial is a, A kind of
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 marker. You call it a fiducial mark,
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 which is giving you a zero point.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 And maybe that's the context in which that's being
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 used. But, Yeah,
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 great question there, Heidi. I should look through
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 the paper myself in more detail. I did have a quick
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 look at the abstract. I don't usually get
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 down into the detail, but, I don't know why they call
00:08:55 --> 00:08:56 it a fiducial model.
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 Heidi Campo: That's, I think that's the dirty secret of so many
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 scientists. It's like we, we, we are also guilty of
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 reading the abstract and if it looks interesting, we'll
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 read the methods and everything else. But yeah, it's,
00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 you know, unless you're a super nerd, we're
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 not always reading the entire article. For
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 me, if I'm reading science, I, I read the headline. Okay, is
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 this even in my, Is this even in my
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 wheelhouse of something I'm interested in or need to know more about?
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 Then I'll read the abstract. If the abstract catches
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 my attention, then I will actually
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 jump ahead. I'll skip the intro and background because
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 if it's something I know about, then I usually already know what they're talking
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 about. And I'll go straight into the methods and I'll be
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 like, okay, well what did they do to get their information? Then
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 I'll jump ahead to their, results and
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 I'll see, okay, you know, do their results make
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 sense? And then I'll read their dissemination
00:09:49 --> 00:09:52 of those results to see if I agree with their
00:09:52 --> 00:09:53 conclusions.
00:09:55 --> 00:09:56 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I've just been,
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 Exactly. You've described the way I look at these things as
00:10:01 --> 00:10:03 well. I've just been googling a fiducial model.
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 And as it says, fiducials are marks or points of
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 reference applied to, well, in this case, images
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 to present a fixed standard of reference.
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 So that was kind of my
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 assumption of what the word means. But a
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 fiducial model gives you, obviously a fixed standard of
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 reference to start from, which is tricky when you're talking
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 about colliding galaxies, because which of them's
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 moving? Well, they're both moving. So, you know, where's your reference
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 point? Where is your stationary standard point?
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 Heidi Campo: Yeah, and maybe this can be, you know, you know, and as
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 scientists, we can say, okay, you know, this was published in a prestigious
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 article, so we can assume that the
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 methods were good enough to get published,
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 because the process of getting published is already so
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 rigorous. But this could be another point where
00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 we go and we're like, hey, you know, is that mathematical model
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 something that you would agree with?
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 The results, you know, is like you just said, is a fixed
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 model really going to tell us what's moving?
00:11:04 --> 00:11:04 Well, what's not?
00:11:04 --> 00:11:05 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right.
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 Heidi Campo: Take. This stuff's kind of interesting.
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 Roger, your labs are here. Also space nuts.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 But, you know, fiducial models,
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 mathematic algorithms and flying
00:11:19 --> 00:11:21 bananas is my next question, Because
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 a flying banana is the topic of our next
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 article. And this is going to be another thing I need you to
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 define, because if I'm thinking of a flying banana,
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 I'm thinking that somebody's kid at the
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 grocery store is throwing a fit and they're throwing food.
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 But in this article, we're talking about,
00:11:40 --> 00:11:41 aura chasers.
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Yes. So I'll, get to the flying banana
00:11:45 --> 00:11:46 in a minute
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 because that's, kind of nickname.
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 But, what I love about this story is
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 it combines two passions of mine, one
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 of which is the, aurora borealis, the
00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 northern light, which, we make regular trips up
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 to the far northern Arctic to watch and take our tour
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 guests up there to be awed by
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 the aurora. We get southern lights down here, in the
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 southern hemisphere as well, the aurora australis. Heidi. And
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 there's actually been some quite good sightings recently of
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 the aurora australis from southern Australia.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 we're not anywhere near far enough south
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 to see the aurora overhead as you do from
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 Alaska or far northern Scandinavia. but
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 nevertheless, you can see the aurora. So that's one
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 passion is the aurora. but, this is.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 It's a report that comes initially from
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 fellow aurora hunters. And these are people
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 in the United Kingdom, actually in Oxfordshire in England.
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 and they were, you know, basically out on a
00:12:46 --> 00:12:48 clear night looking for, the northern lights, the aurora
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 borealis. But what they saw was this
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 strange blue beam of light sort of
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 slicing through the night sky and
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 apparently moving. and in fact
00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 these are sort of, you know, very high
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 level aurora hunters because they've got an all sky camera,
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 and fixed cameras that have captured this
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 strange blue light moving through the sky.
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 Excuse me. the reason why the. Well two
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 things told them that it wasn't an aurora.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 One is that most aurorae aren't blue. the
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 colors you get typically are
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 green, and red which come from oxygen
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 atoms. you get purples and
00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 magenta and a few other colors coming from
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 nitrogen molecules. But a pure blue light
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 is something that no you don't actually see.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 and so what they wondered
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 was what is this? It's clearly not a
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 natural national phenomenon. Sorry, a natural
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 phenomenon because it's the wrong color and it's moving
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 too quickly. So they did some
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 they did some research, and
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 it turns out that what they had seen
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 was a very fat, a wide
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 laser beam pointing upwards that
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 came from the flying banana. And what
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 is the flying banana? It's a railway
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 train. and it's called that because it
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 is yellow. It's very, very yellow
00:14:15 --> 00:14:17 indeed. The flying banana. its
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 technical term is the nmt, the new measurement
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 train. And what it does is at
00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 speeds of up to 125mph
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 getting on for 200km an hour in our measure.
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 it flies,
00:14:33 --> 00:14:36 runs over the track. Sorry about our little puppy in
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 the background. I don't know whether you can hear him barking but he's
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 excited about the Flying Banana as well.
00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 this train runs over the track 125
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 miles an hour with lasers pointing downwards
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 to analyze in real time the
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 state of the track. So it's all about the safety of
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 railway passengers in the UK and what it's doing
00:14:57 --> 00:15:00 is it's analyzing things like the separation
00:15:00 --> 00:15:03 of the rails, whether something's moved
00:15:03 --> 00:15:06 in the foundations of the rails, the sleepers or ties as you
00:15:06 --> 00:15:09 call them in the US that hold them together, whether the
00:15:09 --> 00:15:12 rails themselves are distorted. They can check
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 the shape of the rails, they can check all sorts of
00:15:15 --> 00:15:18 aspects of it at a very high speed. But,
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 and this is the trick, it also
00:15:21 --> 00:15:23 checks the overhead electrical wiring
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 because railways in Britain, many of them certainly the
00:15:26 --> 00:15:28 main lines are driven by electric
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 traction. So they've got what's called the overhead,
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 the overhead wire which is picked up, from which the
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 electricity is picked up by the trains. So
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 as I understand it, it, this laser
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 is also looking upwards to sense what the
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 condition of the Overhead wire is hence the
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 blue light traveling through the landscape.
00:15:50 --> 00:15:53 and, just before, Sorry, I'm not letting you
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 get many words in here, Heidi, but.
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 Heidi Campo: No, I'm listening. This is wonderful.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 Professor Fred Watson: Well, to, bring back an experience
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 we had. So back in January this year,
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 some of our listeners know, I think, you know, Marnie and I
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 were doing one of our, Aurora Borealis tours up in
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 the far north of the world. We were in
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 northern Norway, Scandinavia, sorry, Norway,
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 Sweden, Iceland and eventually
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 Greenland, which was enchanting. But,
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 that's not why I'm mentioning it. in a place
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 called Abisko, which is in far northern
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 Sweden, one night we were aurora watching
00:16:29 --> 00:16:32 and we saw this vertical
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 green beam of light, which
00:16:35 --> 00:16:38 puzzled me completely. it was
00:16:38 --> 00:16:41 just pointing upwards. It was apparently stationary. It did
00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 not last very long. I had my trusty
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 Aurora camera, ready to take photographs, but it had
00:16:46 --> 00:16:49 gone before, I had a chance
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 to take any. but I'm guessing now
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 that that was the same sort of thing
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 because Abisco is on the main
00:16:58 --> 00:17:01 line between. The main railway line between,
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 Kiruna, and Narvik. It was buil
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 built, more than a century ago to
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 carry iron ore from the big mine, which is still
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 operational in Kiruna, to the port in Narvik,
00:17:13 --> 00:17:16 where it's exported all over the world to your country and
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 mine, it's one of the biggest producers of iron
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 ore in the world. And so that railway line
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 has been there for a long time. And my guess
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 is that maybe there is an equivalent in
00:17:27 --> 00:17:30 Sweden of the Flying Banana,
00:17:30 --> 00:17:33 which shines a green, laser beam up at
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 the overhead wires to see, what the
00:17:36 --> 00:17:38 condition is. And so I'm putting out to our
00:17:38 --> 00:17:41 Scandinavian listeners, on space nuts, because I know a lot of
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 them are railway buffs as well. Tell us if there
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 is such a thing as a new measurement
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 train in Scandinavia that looks at the
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 overhead, catenaries or, ah, the overhead, power
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 lines for trains. So we look
00:17:55 --> 00:17:57 forward to hearing your answers, folks.
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 Heidi Campo: Yeah, and that's, you know, and that's just such a fun story. And it makes
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 me, you know, cause trains,
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 trains are such, an incredible
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 feat of engineering that changed the world.
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 I think trains accelerated
00:18:12 --> 00:18:15 expansion and growth more than almost anything
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 else. And I'm sure you and most of the listeners know
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 the correlation between rocket ships and
00:18:21 --> 00:18:21 trains.
00:18:23 --> 00:18:25 Professor Fred Watson: Okay, tell me what you're thinking of.
00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 Heidi Campo: Okay, so,
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 now I might be butchering this here because I Think it's, something
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 about the rockets. The
00:18:35 --> 00:18:38 size of them is a certain size.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:41 And that size is
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 determined because of the standard size
00:18:43 --> 00:18:46 of. See, what is it? What is it? Because I know you probably have it
00:18:46 --> 00:18:47 down to the figures.
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So you're absolutely right. It's
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54 railway lines and railway tunnels, that dictate the
00:18:54 --> 00:18:57 size of things. I don't know the exact
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 thing that you're talking about, but limited. All
00:18:59 --> 00:19:02 sorts of weird things like the size of the biggest telescope mirror
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 that you can take from one place to another is limited by
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 the size of the track, the railway tunnels that carry them
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 around. It might well be something similar that you're thinking of
00:19:11 --> 00:19:12 in terms of rockets.
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 Heidi Campo: And if you keep going back far enough. The size of
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 the railroad was determined by the
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 average size of two horses side
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 by side. So the joke is two horses
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 asses is what determines the size of
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 our rockets in space today. And
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 trains, which is just such a funny
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35 little thing to think of. And just again,
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 amazing feats of engineering and there's nothing new
00:19:38 --> 00:19:41 that's ever built. We're always just building and expanding on, the
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 prior knowledge we already have. So hopefully our
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 ancestors have done pretty good work.
00:19:48 --> 00:19:49 Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
00:19:49 --> 00:19:50 Andrew Dunkley: We checked all four systems and being.
00:19:50 --> 00:19:53 Heidi Campo: With a girl, space nets, and
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 sometimes, you know, things are, are
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 unsuccessful. You know, we have amazing things, we have
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 things that fall apart. And there was,
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 you know, that's the case of what happened with the Japanese
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 company abandoning, their moon
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 mission. So tell us what happened with that. Just kind of been
00:20:11 --> 00:20:12 a blur.
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 Professor Fred Watson: Lovely segue there, Heidi. I love your segues. From
00:20:16 --> 00:20:17 one story to another.
00:20:19 --> 00:20:22 And you're right, this is an endeavor which,
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 you know, again, is being carried out with the highest
00:20:25 --> 00:20:27 levels of technical knowledge, with the highest
00:20:28 --> 00:20:30 enthusiasm, and all the skill, that has
00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 been learned from, well, more than 50
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 years now of space travel in terms of robotic
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 spacecraft, as Newton said, standing on the
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 shoulders of giants. I think every, every one of us is doing that
00:20:42 --> 00:20:45 one way or another in the technology that we make use of.
00:20:46 --> 00:20:49 So, in fact, some of that technology is just going past my
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 office door at the moment. that's called Grimace. Grimace
00:20:52 --> 00:20:54 is our robotic vacuum cleaner.
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 And Grimace makes a lot of noise. So if you hear a, whining
00:20:58 --> 00:21:00 sound, it's not me, it's our vacuum cleaner.
00:21:00 --> 00:21:03 Heidi Campo: I named my robotic vacuum, Rosie
00:21:03 --> 00:21:04 after the Jetsons.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 Professor Fred Watson: Okay, good, that's great.
00:21:07 --> 00:21:08 Heidi Campo: Robotic made was Rosie.
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, you've got to give them names. Ours is called Grimace
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 because A grimace is the expression on its face. It
00:21:15 --> 00:21:17 doesn't have a face, but it just looks as though it's, you
00:21:17 --> 00:21:20 know, it's got a very stern expression.
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 Anyway, turning back to the Japanese company
00:21:23 --> 00:21:26 Ispace, they have. And as
00:21:26 --> 00:21:28 you've said, it doesn't always work. and
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31 in this case, this does not. This has not
00:21:31 --> 00:21:34 worked. what they have done is,
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 sent to the moon, basically, a
00:21:37 --> 00:21:39 lunar lander which
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 indeed had on board a rover,
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 a little rover. The lander,
00:21:45 --> 00:21:48 if I remember rightly, is called Resilience.
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 and the rover had a name too, which you can't remember, but it's something
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 similar. so the idea of, this
00:21:54 --> 00:21:56 company is to be one of the first,
00:21:57 --> 00:22:00 companies in the world to
00:22:00 --> 00:22:03 achieve a landing, a soft landing on the
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 moon. And it would certainly have been the first one to
00:22:06 --> 00:22:08 have the first private company to have a rover on them
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 moon. sadly, the mission was not
00:22:11 --> 00:22:14 successful. This was last week, as we are recording
00:22:14 --> 00:22:17 this episode now. everything went
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 perfectly well with, Resilience, until it
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 got close to the lunar surface. And then there was a
00:22:22 --> 00:22:25 technical fault that meant that it didn't
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 decelerate quickly enough, for it to make a
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 soft landing. So it actually, basically
00:22:31 --> 00:22:34 had a hard landing on the moon, which we usually call a collision.
00:22:35 --> 00:22:37 and that, was the end of the mission.
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 they're very enthusiastic though, about
00:22:41 --> 00:22:43 keeping going with their, endeavors.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 Unfortunately, it's their second failure. I think a couple of years
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 ago they had another mission, landing on the
00:22:49 --> 00:22:52 moon, which did not, make it. It
00:22:52 --> 00:22:55 landed, but sort of fell over. It was, at the wrong
00:22:55 --> 00:22:58 angle, so didn't get, any kind
00:22:58 --> 00:23:01 of sunlight on its solar panels. I think I'm thinking of the right
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 one there. And by the way, the rover rover
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 was called Tenacious, built in
00:23:06 --> 00:23:09 Luxembourg in fact, but carried,
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 some equipment on board. Sadly, that was never deployed.
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 So, you know, a story that's
00:23:15 --> 00:23:18 got good parts to it because I'm sure they learned a
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 lot from this mission, but not as successful
00:23:21 --> 00:23:22 as everybody had hoped.
00:23:23 --> 00:23:26 Heidi Campo: I always have a little soft spot for the rovers. Ever since
00:23:26 --> 00:23:28 they had, the Mars rover sing Happy
00:23:28 --> 00:23:31 Birthday to itself. I've always kind of
00:23:31 --> 00:23:34 humanized them ever since that. I don't know why I'm like, oh, poor
00:23:34 --> 00:23:37 rover. Maybe it was Pixar's Wall E that
00:23:37 --> 00:23:40 gave me a soft spot for these, robots. Good old
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 Wall E. But, you know, here's another segue for you.
00:23:42 --> 00:23:44 Speaking of Mars rovers, the Mars
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 Orbiter capture. This is our final
00:23:47 --> 00:23:50 story for today, but the NASA Mars Orbiter
00:23:50 --> 00:23:53 saw some pretty cool
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56 sites. You want to tell us a little bit about these
00:23:56 --> 00:23:57 volcanoes?
00:23:57 --> 00:24:00 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. So this is
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 it's a piece of history almost. This is one of the
00:24:04 --> 00:24:05 longest running
00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 orbiters around Mars. I think
00:24:09 --> 00:24:12 it's been in orbit since 2001 or it
00:24:12 --> 00:24:15 certainly was launched in 2001. And it is
00:24:15 --> 00:24:17 called Mars Odyssey. it's a NASA
00:24:17 --> 00:24:20 spacecraft, one of several in orbit around
00:24:20 --> 00:24:23 Mars. but this is quite a venerable one.
00:24:23 --> 00:24:26 It's been around for a long time but it's still active and
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 it's still doing the kind of research that it
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 was basically built to do. looking at the
00:24:32 --> 00:24:33 upper atmosphere of Mars and
00:24:34 --> 00:24:37 basically you know, studying the surface.
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 the reason why it's made the headlines this week
00:24:40 --> 00:24:42 is because it captured
00:24:43 --> 00:24:46 a beautiful view of one of
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 Mars's tall volcanoes.
00:24:48 --> 00:24:51 Mars has ah, an area called the
00:24:51 --> 00:24:54 Tarsus Rise. It's a high level or Tarsis
00:24:54 --> 00:24:57 Montesquieu, the Tharsis Mountains. it's
00:24:57 --> 00:25:00 a high level region which has ah,
00:25:00 --> 00:25:02 four really prominent
00:25:02 --> 00:25:05 volcanoes on it. They are extinct. They probably have
00:25:05 --> 00:25:07 not erupted for 3 billion years or so.
00:25:08 --> 00:25:10 they're taller than most volcanoes on Earth, 20
00:25:10 --> 00:25:13 kilometers or so. the biggest is Olympus
00:25:13 --> 00:25:16 Mons, very famous, the largest mountain in the
00:25:16 --> 00:25:19 solar system. but what they've captured with
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 the Odyssey spacecraft is a view
00:25:22 --> 00:25:25 of Mars in the early morning. It's in
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 the dawn sky and sorry, the
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 dawn landscape. but the surface of
00:25:30 --> 00:25:33 Mars is covered with cloud. Now
00:25:34 --> 00:25:37 Mars does have clouds. They are fairly thin clouds
00:25:37 --> 00:25:38 because its atmospheric pressure is only
00:25:39 --> 00:25:42 0.6% of the atmospheric pressure
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 on Earth. And there is very little moisture
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 in the atmosphere. There is some, there's enough to form clouds
00:25:48 --> 00:25:50 and they're made of ice, basically water ice.
00:25:51 --> 00:25:54 so there's enough just to form these. But here's this wonderful
00:25:54 --> 00:25:56 view. Encourage people to look at
00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 one of the NASA websites. Actually it's the main
00:25:59 --> 00:26:02 NASA website actually NASA.gov if you
00:26:02 --> 00:26:05 Google NASA Mars Orbiter captures
00:26:05 --> 00:26:08 volcano peaking above morning cloud tops that's exactly
00:26:08 --> 00:26:11 what you see. this is Asia Mons
00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 which is one of the other four volcanoes in that region.
00:26:14 --> 00:26:16 And you can see its crater, its
00:26:16 --> 00:26:19 caldera, the summit of the mountain, poking
00:26:19 --> 00:26:22 above the low clouds on the surface of Mars. It's
00:26:22 --> 00:26:25 an extraordinary view. It's one that we've not seen before. And
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 it was, made because the mission scientists managed
00:26:28 --> 00:26:31 to turn Mars Odyssey on its side so it could look
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 horizontally at the landscape rather than looking vertically
00:26:34 --> 00:26:36 downwards on the surface of Mars.
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39 Heidi Campo: Yeah, this is a great photo. That's, one of those ones that's going to
00:26:39 --> 00:26:42 be hanging up in, someone's office,
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 one day or a school, you know, in a science building.
00:26:46 --> 00:26:49 I mean, that really is a really neat photo. Like you said.
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 I mean, what,
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54 ah, crazy, ah, series of
00:26:54 --> 00:26:57 stories today from the things that we've
00:26:57 --> 00:26:59 discovered and the technology and
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 everything that humans, have done and they're still
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06 doing. it's really. And I think
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 that's one reason why we're space
00:27:08 --> 00:27:11 nuts here. I mean, all of us here get so excited
00:27:11 --> 00:27:14 about space because there's, I think for the
00:27:14 --> 00:27:17 people who are space enthusiasts, it's because there's
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 still so much to do and so
00:27:20 --> 00:27:21 many other, fields of
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 anything. There's so much that's already been explained and
00:27:26 --> 00:27:28 discovered. We're not discovering any new laws of physics
00:27:28 --> 00:27:31 anymore. That's kind of those are written,
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34 but in space it's wide open and we're always
00:27:34 --> 00:27:37 coming up with new mathematical formulas
00:27:37 --> 00:27:40 and feats of engineering and discovery.
00:27:41 --> 00:27:43 We have our highs, we have our lows. But
00:27:45 --> 00:27:48 it's so exciting for the people who are still
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 curious and want to know more about
00:27:51 --> 00:27:53 the universe we live in.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:57 Professor Fred Watson: Isn't it just. And, you know, I guess that
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00 curiosity is one of the things that drives the million or so
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 downloads a year that we get of space nuts. Because
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05 we've got people out there who love to hear about this sort of thing just as
00:28:05 --> 00:28:08 we love talking about it. Everything from flying
00:28:08 --> 00:28:10 bananas to colliding galaxies.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:13 Heidi Campo: We do everything and we
00:28:13 --> 00:28:16 just want to, you know, I guess we'll just say thank you to our listeners. Thank you for
00:28:16 --> 00:28:19 making, this, this a show worth recording. We
00:28:19 --> 00:28:22 really do appreciate you guys. And thank you for letting me come on
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 as your substitute host while Andrew
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 is on holiday. he will be back with
00:28:27 --> 00:28:30 you in a few weeks, so don't you
00:28:30 --> 00:28:33 worry. If you guys are missing him dearly, he will be back. I am
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36 just filling in for now, but, Go ahead,
00:28:36 --> 00:28:36 Peter.
00:28:37 --> 00:28:40 Professor Fred Watson: Let me just add, forgive me, I
00:28:40 --> 00:28:42 think our producer Huw might well,
00:28:42 --> 00:28:45 include in this podcast, a little
00:28:45 --> 00:28:47 recording that Andrew has sent on his progress
00:28:48 --> 00:28:51 around the world. So, listen on, folks. You might
00:28:51 --> 00:28:53 well hear, Andrew's voice telling us where
00:28:53 --> 00:28:56 he's Got to on his round the world trip.
00:28:56 --> 00:28:58 Andrew Dunkley: Hi Heidi. Hi Fred. Hi Huw in the studio,
00:28:59 --> 00:28:59 it's Andrew.
00:29:00 --> 00:29:02 we've embarked on our around the world trip
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 on the Crown Princess. we left
00:29:05 --> 00:29:08 Sydney a couple of days ago and we got out
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 of the heads and it was rough as guts. I
00:29:11 --> 00:29:14 mean it was heavy seas. the
00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 pilot couldn't even get off the ship and we
00:29:17 --> 00:29:19 had to drop him off at Eden down near the Victoria border,
00:29:20 --> 00:29:23 yesterday. So yeah, things calmed down a bit after
00:29:23 --> 00:29:25 that. But it was a pretty rough on first night.
00:29:26 --> 00:29:28 last night we slept quite well. It was very, very calm.
00:29:29 --> 00:29:32 we went through Bass Strait. I was very hopeful
00:29:32 --> 00:29:34 that we'd be able to see Aurora Austral Australis.
00:29:34 --> 00:29:37 There's been a fair bit of sun activity lately and I
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 was very hopeful. There'd been a bit about it in the news recently
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 but unfortunately we've
00:29:43 --> 00:29:46 not seen anything and in fact they're not letting us up on
00:29:46 --> 00:29:49 the the decks at the moment because, because of the
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 conditions which are deteriorating
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 again as we approach Spencer Gulf
00:29:55 --> 00:29:57 and head to Adelaide. So we'll be dropping off at
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 Adelaide tomorrow and visiting the German town
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 of Haendorf. activities on board have been
00:30:03 --> 00:30:06 fun. it's a fun crowd, a fun crew. We're having
00:30:06 --> 00:30:09 a good time. Yes, I got seasick once.
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 We ordered breakfast and then cancelled it, then ordered
00:30:12 --> 00:30:14 again and got three breakfasts.
00:30:15 --> 00:30:18 So there's you know, you know, a few glitches here and
00:30:18 --> 00:30:21 there. But we're having a great time. I hope all is
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 going well. I'll report in semi regularly as we,
00:30:24 --> 00:30:27 as we do things around the ship and around the world.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:30 So for now I'll see you later and
00:30:30 --> 00:30:33 have fun with Space Nuts while I'm away.
00:30:33 --> 00:30:36 Heidi Campo: So fun. Thank you Fred. Talk to you next week.
00:30:36 --> 00:30:39 Professor Fred Watson: It's a great pleasure Heidi. Thanks very much. Space Nuts.
00:30:39 --> 00:30:42 you'll be listening to the SpaceNuts podcast
00:30:42 --> 00:30:45 Missing Point, available at Apple
00:30:45 --> 00:30:45 Podcasts.
00:30:45 --> 00:30:48 Andrew Dunkley: Spotify, iHeartRadio or your
00:30:48 --> 00:30:49 favorite podcast player.
00:30:49 --> 00:30:52 Professor Fred Watson: You can also stream on demand@bytes.com
00:30:53 --> 00:30:53 this.
00:30:53 --> 00:30:56 Andrew Dunkley: Has been another quality podcast production from
00:30:56 --> 00:30:57 bytes.um com.