Space Shuttle Return and Interstellar Discoveries: A Cosmic Update
In this exciting episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson explore the latest developments in space exploration and cosmic phenomena. From the return of the iconic Space Shuttle Discovery to Houston (Heidi's home town) to the discovery of a new interstellar object, this episode is packed with fascinating insights that will captivate any space enthusiast.
Episode Highlights:
- Space Shuttle Discovery's Homecoming: The episode kicks off with an announcement about the plan to relocate the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Institution to Houston, Texas. Heidi shares her excitement about this development, given her close proximity to the Space Center, and discusses the importance of such institutions in fostering public interest in space exploration.
- Third Confirmed Interstellar Object: The hosts dive into the intriguing details of the newly discovered interstellar object, 3I ATLAS. Fred explains its unique characteristics, including its high velocity and open orbit, distinguishing it from other solar system bodies. The discussion highlights the significance of studying this object as a potential sample from another solar system, stirring curiosity about its origins and composition.
- New Horizons' Stellar Navigation Breakthrough: The conversation shifts to the New Horizons spacecraft, which has successfully conducted a deep space stellar navigation test. Fred describes how the spacecraft is using astrometry to measure star positions from billions of kilometers away, showcasing the advancements in technology that enable such remarkable discoveries.
- The Big Crunch: Is It Back on the Menu? The episode concludes with a thought-provoking discussion about dark energy and the possibility of the Big Crunch scenario resurfacing in scientific discourse. Fred explains how recent findings suggest that the universe's expansion may be slowing down, leading to speculation about a future collapse, and the implications this could have for the fate of the universe.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Heidi Campo: And welcome back to another fantastic episode
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 of, uh, Space Nuts. This is the
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 podcast that is out of this world.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
00:00:22 --> 00:00:23 report. It feels good.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 Heidi Campo: I'm your host for this episode, Heidi Campo,
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 filling in for our beloved Andrew Dunkley,
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 who is still, still on his cruise around the
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 world. He's been having a blast. And joining
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 me is professor Fred Watson,
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 astronomer at large. And Fred,
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 you have, um. You're traveling. You're in a
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 hotel. Tell us where you're at and what
00:00:44 --> 00:00:44 you're doing.
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I'm at large. That's right. Um, so I'm
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 in the city of Adelaide, which is the, uh,
00:00:49 --> 00:00:51 capital city of South Australia. That's a
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 state in the south of the country. As you
00:00:54 --> 00:00:56 might expect from the name. The name tells it
00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 like it is. Uh, and I'm here for the
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 annual meeting of the
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 Astronomical Society of Australia, which is
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 the body that, um, all professional
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 astronomers in Australia belong to. Ah, and
00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 I think there's about 700 of us. There won't
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 be 700 here, but there's quite a
00:01:14 --> 00:01:16 significant cohort. There was a reception
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 last night where I saw quite a few old
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 friends. So, um, that's why I'm here. I'm not
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 giving a talk as, ah, such, except
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 that on Wednesday, um, for
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 my sins, I'm the chair
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 of the steering committee of the, uh,
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 education and Public outreach chapter of the,
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 uh, of the society. Um, and they'll.
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 They're going to have a meeting which I'll
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 have to chair because I'm the chair of the
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 committee. Um, so I've put together a bit of
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 a presentation on what I think this chapter
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 should be concentrating on over the next 12
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 months. What the education and public
00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 outreach section of the observatory should be
00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 really, um, focusing their minds on. They
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 won't take any notice of me. Um, but that's
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 all right. It's just, you know, me doing my
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 bit for pushing, uh, education and public
00:02:04 --> 00:02:05 outreach in the right direction here in
00:02:05 --> 00:02:06 Australia.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 Heidi Campo: Excellent. Well, that sounds like, uh, just
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 an absolute blast. I love that you're there
00:02:11 --> 00:02:12 and you're going to be able to see old
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 friends. And I know what this means for us is
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 that we are going to have so many great
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 stories and updates after this conference.
00:02:20 --> 00:02:20 Professor Fred Watson: Hope so.
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 Heidi Campo: You're going to be filling your brain with
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 all the latest and greatest and sharing it
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 with us. So that's really fun and
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 exciting, and we do have a lot of
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 really interesting Stories to talk about
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 today. Um, I don't have a fun
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 catchphrase. I think last week was histories,
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 mysteries and discoveries. And I don't have,
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 I don't have anything catchy today. We just
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 have some great stories.
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 But to kind of start it off, this is not
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 really a story, but a little bit more of an
00:02:48 --> 00:02:51 announcement. Um, space shuttle is coming
00:02:51 --> 00:02:53 back, apparently.
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 Professor Fred Watson: And it's coming to your city, uh, as
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 well, which is why I thought you'd like this
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 story, Heidi. Um, and it's part of the
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 big beautiful bill. Uh, apparently there is
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 in that bill $85 million to
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 move the space shuttle Discovery, uh, from
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 the Smithsonian Institution down
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 to Houston, uh, where
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 it's kind of going to live.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 Uh, I don't know what the Smithsonian thinks
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 about this. I don't know whether they've been
00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 asked. Uh, but that's the
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 idea that it's going to come back to Houston
00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 and, um, uh, we'll see, uh,
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 what the outcome of that is. But I thought
00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 you'd be exciting given that that's your home
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 city or excited given that that's your home
00:03:38 --> 00:03:38 city.
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 Heidi Campo: Yes. Yeah. Well, and I really am. I
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 live just a couple minutes away
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 from Space Center. I chose our location
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 specifically because we wanted to live close
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 to all the action so I could jog there and go
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 see it. So that is kind of exciting. Um, I
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 really love, I love Space Center Houston, I
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 love Kennedy Space Center. All of these
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 places are such a
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 fantastic way to just, I mean, I
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 think every single one of our listeners who's
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 been to one of these places feels that
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 visceral pull of wow. That's when I really
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 started falling in love with space. So it's
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 exciting to have all of these things in one
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 place where they can be cared for and the
00:04:18 --> 00:04:20 education can be there. And it's all space
00:04:20 --> 00:04:23 related. So that's really kind of exciting.
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 But our first story today is one
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 that I am very curious about. I even
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 mentioned this to you before we started, um,
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 recording, but we have, it looks
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 like the third ever confirmed interstellar
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 object coming through our solar system, which
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 is so strange to me because I'm like, wait a
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 second, there's stuff coming, zipping around
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 all the time. So what is this third ever,
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 like, confirmed? And what is this object?
00:04:50 --> 00:04:51 Tell us about this, friend.
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's a great question, actually,
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 because nobody's really quite sure. Uh,
00:04:56 --> 00:04:59 it looks like a comet. Uh, and comets
00:04:59 --> 00:05:00 are different from asteroids in that they're
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 made principally of ice. And when the ice
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 gets near a star like the sun, uh, it starts
00:05:06 --> 00:05:08 to turn into a gas, uh, to water vapor,
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 essentially bringing with it some of the
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 other chemicals that are, uh, um,
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 uh, embedded in the ice in the cold of space.
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 Uh, so. Yes, but you're also right that the
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 zipping around all the time around our
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 planet, uh, the material that we
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 sometimes regard as hazardous near Earth
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 objects, we're now concentrating on those
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 very heavily because we know that maybe one
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 day there will be an impact with the Earth,
00:05:33 --> 00:05:35 and we need to do something about it. That's
00:05:35 --> 00:05:37 a different story. This is certainly not in
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 that category. Um, but, uh,
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 yeah, there are three objects which are now
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 known to have come from outside the
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 solar system. Uh, and what tells you,
00:05:49 --> 00:05:51 uh, that they've done that? And in the
00:05:51 --> 00:05:53 particular case of this new object, which is
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 called 3i, which means it's the third
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 interstellar object atlas, which is,
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 um, an acronym for the name of the
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 facility that discovered it, which is down in
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 chile. Um, so 3i Atlas,
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 uh, has a velocity which is
00:06:10 --> 00:06:11 something like
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 61
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 kilometers per second. Um,
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 and that's. Am I talking
00:06:20 --> 00:06:21 rubbish here?
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 61km per second? I'm thinking
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 about kilometers per, uh, hour.
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 Heidi Campo: I had to check your math.
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. It's about 60 kilometers
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 per second. Uh, whereas, um, things
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 that are, you know, part of the solar system,
00:06:36 --> 00:06:38 and some of those, some of the comets that
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 whiz in from the Oort Cloud, this cloud
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 of debris that we think surrounds the solar
00:06:44 --> 00:06:45 system, some of them achieve quite high
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 speeds, but it's never more than about 40
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 kilometers per second. Um, this
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 thing's 50% higher than that. And the other
00:06:53 --> 00:06:54 clue that tells you that it's from outside
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 the solar system is the shape of its path
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 around the sun, the shape of its orbit. Uh,
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 because it's not an orbit that's closed in
00:07:03 --> 00:07:04 the way we normally think of orbits. It's an
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 open orbit. Uh, it will only go past the
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 sun once. Um, you might be
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 familiar with the term eccentricity,
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 Heidi, which is the measure of the shape of
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 an orbit. Um, so if you've got an
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 orbit that's perfectly circular, it's got an
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 eccentricity of zero. Uh, anything
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 bigger than zero and less than one is an
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 ellipse. Uh, and the number, the
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 eccentricity number tells you how flattened
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 or how squashed the ellipse is, how elongated
00:07:33 --> 00:07:35 it is. When you get to one, you've got a
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 parabolic orbit, one that just comes
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 in from infinity and heads off back to
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 infinity after it's gone past the Sun. This
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 one has an eccentricity of more than six.
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 And that's a huge number. And it tells you
00:07:49 --> 00:07:51 that it's got to have come from outside the
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 solar system. Nothing inside the solar system
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 could have an eccentricity as high as that.
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 So it's all about the orbital details. Um,
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 it's uh, going to pass closest to the sun in
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 October, so we're still seeing it on its
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 inward path towards the Sun. Unlike,
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 um, the most famous, the first of the, uh,
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 interstellar objects that we discovered back
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 in 2017, oumuamua, a
00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 Hawaiian word meaning first visitor from
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 afar. Um, because it was discovered in
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 Hawaii, uh, uh, on Haleakala in
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 fact. Um, uh, that one
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 was thought to be a few meters
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 across. Uh, it's really still not
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 certain what shape it was. It was thought to
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 be like a cigar at first, elongated shape.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 But it's now perhaps thought to be more like
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 a dinner plate. But we didn't discover that
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 until it was actually on its way out of the
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 solar system. It was only seen after it
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 passed its closest to the sun. This one,
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 three, uh, I ATLAS is still on its way
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 in. And it's got a slightly
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 fuzzy appearance. And that tells you that it
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 is probably made of ice. And what it's doing
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 is actually releasing as it gets near the
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 Sun. The ice is. It's not melting, it's
00:09:03 --> 00:09:04 subliming. Subliming means it's turning
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 straight from a solid to a gas, uh, and it's
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 releasing some of the d that's embedded in
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 the ice. And that's what's giving it that
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 fuzzy appearance at the moment. But it is
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 possible that we might start seeing
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 plasma ejected, which might tell us about
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 the constituents of its, uh,
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 icy core. Where did it come from? We don't
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 know. Um, there's some work being done that
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 suggests that, uh, our nearest star
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 system, Alpha Centauri, could in
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 fact, um, basically ejects
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 interstellar material, um,
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 around the whole vicinity of the sun,
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 not, not necessarily the direction that this
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 thing's come from. We don't know whether it's
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 come from Alpha Centauri or where it's, you
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 know, where it's come from. Um, but
00:09:50 --> 00:09:53 it, uh, is certainly going to be the
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 subject of intense study. The world's
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 telescopes are already focused on it. I'm
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 sure the Webb telescope will get some time
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 looking at it and we might discover things
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 that we really don't have any other way of
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 finding out. You know, this is a sample
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 of material that has come from another solar
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 system. And so it could have quite different
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 physical characteristics, quite different
00:10:15 --> 00:10:18 chemical makeup, uh, that's all the
00:10:18 --> 00:10:20 sorts of questions that ah, are arising
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 about this object. So I'm sure that you and
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 I, or maybe you, maybe me
00:10:26 --> 00:10:27 and that other. What's that other person
00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 called? Oh, Dunkley. Yeah. Um,
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 maybe, maybe Andrew and I
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 might talk about it if you and I don't.
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 Because I think it will crop up again in the
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 news and certainly beyond space. And that's
00:10:40 --> 00:10:40 horizon.
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 Heidi Campo: So what is the difference? At the risk of
00:10:43 --> 00:10:44 sounding silly, I'll just ask this because
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 I'm sure someone else has this question too.
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 Something like Halley's Comet.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 Is that not considered then, one of these
00:10:53 --> 00:10:54 three objects?
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 Professor Fred Watson: No, no, that belongs to the solar system. Uh,
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 and that's because, uh, you know,
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 it actually is in orbit around the sun. It
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 has a period, an orbital period of 76 years,
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 if I remember rightly. Uh, which means it's
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 actually what's called a short period comet.
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 Anything less than 200 years I think is a
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 short period comet. Uh, but this thing is
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 different in the sense. And in fact all the
00:11:19 --> 00:11:21 interstellar objects are different in that
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 they only go past the sun once and they've
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 got this very strange orbital path which,
00:11:26 --> 00:11:26 uh.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 Heidi Campo: Objects like Callisto, so it's never coming
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 back because it's one and done. Take a look
00:11:31 --> 00:11:32 at it and it's gone.
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 Professor Fred Watson: That's right, exactly. And um, that's a
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 characteristic of, uh, things from other
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 solar systems. They whiz by and you think,
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 what was that? Um, but we're. Now,
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 the thing is, and there's an interesting,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 um, postscript to this story which I should
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 mention. And that is we talked, uh, I think a
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 couple of weeks ago about the Vera Rubin
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 Observatory and the new telescope there that
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 is going to revolutionize our discovery, uh,
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 race of asteroids and things of that sort.
00:12:01 --> 00:12:03 Uh, that's going to find far more of these
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 interstellar objects because it's so good at
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 discovering things that are moving, uh, you
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 know, through the solar system. Most of the
00:12:10 --> 00:12:12 things it will discover belong to the solar
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 system. The asteroids that are in the
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 Jupiter. And also the nearer ones, what we
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 call the near Earth objects. But, um, it will
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 find things that don't belong to the solar
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 system. And so we might go very quickly
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 from a sample of three interstellar objects
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 to, you know, tens or maybe even hundreds of
00:12:32 --> 00:12:33 them that we are able to study.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 Heidi Campo: Yeah, because it, uh, takes its samples every
00:12:36 --> 00:12:37 three days, right?
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it does the whole sky every three days.
00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 It's phenomenal. Yeah, it's incredible.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 Generic: Roger, your lab is right Here also space
00:12:46 --> 00:12:47 nuts.
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 Heidi Campo: Oh, we really are in such an incredible age
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 of discovery. Everyone, everyone who is alive
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 right now, I hope we recognize how
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 incredible it is to live during this time
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 because there's so much to discover and
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 there's so much for us to like. Every single
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 day we're learning so much more about the
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 universe. And that is, um, apparent with
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 our. With our next story with the New
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 Horizons conducting the first ever
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 successful deep space stellar
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 navigation test. That sounds like we're
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 really on the cusp of some exciting things.
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it,
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 actually, um, because, uh,
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 it's a spacecraft that, um, you probably
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 remember it was launched in 2006, uh,
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 for, uh, an encounter with
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 the dwarf planet Pluto, which took place
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 in, if I remember rightly, it was July
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 2015, uh, when it flew by Pluto
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 and revealed what an astonishing Pluto is.
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 Uh, but since then it's been on its outward
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 journey. It flew by, uh, an object called
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 Arrokoth, uh, and gave us an impression
00:13:54 --> 00:13:56 of that, probably images of that some
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 three or four years ago, I think now, and is
00:14:00 --> 00:14:01 sort of on its way. It's one of the five
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 objects that will leave the solar system. Uh,
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 so they will head off to, you
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 know, the wide blue yonder. These objects
00:14:09 --> 00:14:10 will almost certainly outlast
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 humankind and maybe even outlast our planet,
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 because there's nothing to stop them when
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 they head off that way. Anyway, New Horizons
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 was equipped, unlike the Voyagers and the
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 pioneers, which were products of the 1970s
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 and are still on their way out of the solar
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 system. New Horizons had some quite
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 sophisticated technology on board and in fact
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 includes effectively a telescope, um,
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 which can be used to measure the
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 positions of stars. That's a science
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 that we call astrometry, uh, the
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 measurement of star positions. And, uh,
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 um, that has actually been used now
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 to do, uh, as you said, a
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 navigation test, a stellar navigation test,
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 because it's so far from, uh,
00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 our planet. Um, it's about
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 9.1, 9.1
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 9.2 billion
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 kilometers from Earth, uh, and
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 effectively from the sun, because our 150
00:15:09 --> 00:15:11 million kilometers from the sun is a tiny
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 distance compared with 9 billion
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 kilometers. But it's so far from Earth,
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 uh, that it can now measure star
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 positions that are
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 significantly different from their
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 positions as measured from Earth. And by
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 significant, I mean, um, I don't mean
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 they're degrees away in the sky. They're, you
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 know, a few arc seconds away. Uh, that's a
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 small angle of 10 of a
00:15:36 --> 00:15:39 degree. Um, but they're different position,
00:15:39 --> 00:15:41 they appear in different positions in the sky
00:15:41 --> 00:15:43 than they do from Earth. And this is the
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 phenomenon that we call parallax. It's the
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 fact that if you look at objects from one
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 vantage point and then from another, they
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 appear at different angles and that is the
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 parallax angle. Uh, actually it's how
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 our eyes work as well. That our eyes, because
00:15:58 --> 00:16:00 we have two eyes, they detect the parallax
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 between them, which gives us the 3D view of
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 the, of our environment. That still blows my
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 mind that our Brain can take two separate
00:16:08 --> 00:16:11 images and make it into a 3D model of what
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 we're surrounding and what's surrounding it.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:13 Fantastic stuff.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 Heidi Campo: What I hate about that, and as soon as I say
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 it, all of our listeners are going to be so
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 mad at me. You usually don't notice your
00:16:21 --> 00:16:21 nose.
00:16:21 --> 00:16:22 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 Heidi Campo: Until you do. And then it's like, whoa, then
00:16:24 --> 00:16:26 what is this thing? In my view,
00:16:27 --> 00:16:29 it's like usually your brain kind of
00:16:29 --> 00:16:32 overrides it. And then if you notice it, it's
00:16:32 --> 00:16:33 like, whoa, it's right, it's right there on
00:16:33 --> 00:16:33 my face.
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 Professor Fred Watson: It is, yeah. And when you get to a certain
00:16:36 --> 00:16:37 age, there are hairs sprouting out of the end
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 of it that you find very annoying.
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 Heidi Campo: You see a whole new hair, you're talking to
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 somebody, you're like, wait a second, what is
00:16:44 --> 00:16:45 that in my field of view?
00:16:46 --> 00:16:49 Professor Fred Watson: But you're right. So you know, the nose
00:16:49 --> 00:16:51 is very nearby. In fact, our brain, exactly
00:16:51 --> 00:16:52 as you said, it kind of rules it out. Uh,
00:16:53 --> 00:16:54 I've seen that before. I know what that is.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 That's fine. But yeah, this three dimensional
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 model of, from stereoscopic vision
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 is effectively what New Horizons is doing.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 It's giving us an eye on the Earth and an eye
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 9.5 or 9.3 or whatever it
00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 is billion kilometers away. And that's big
00:17:11 --> 00:17:13 enough to make an appreciable angle. And so
00:17:13 --> 00:17:16 they've measured, uh, the distance using
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 this technique to two, uh, relatively
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 nearby stars. Proxima Centauri, which is part
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 of the Alpha Centauri system we were just
00:17:23 --> 00:17:25 talking about a few minutes ago, 4.2 light
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 years from Earth. Um, and a star,
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 uh, called wolf, uh, 359. It's in a catalog
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 of stars by Herr Professor Wolf,
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 I guess. Um, that's about seven.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 Nearly eight kilometers. Sorry, nearly eight
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 light years away. So these are nearby stars.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 In fact, there are two nearest stars apart
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47 from the Sun. Uh, and it's measured their
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 distances. And sure enough, the stellar
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 parallax gives you the right answer. So, um,
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 it's uh, yeah, we're. I think, uh,
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 the spacecraft is, uh, doing a fine job of
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 finding things to do while it journeys
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 through, uh,
00:18:03 --> 00:18:04 well, it's approaching interstellar space.
00:18:04 --> 00:18:06 It's still in the solar system. Still in the
00:18:06 --> 00:18:08 outer reaches of the solar system, but
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 heading to interstellar space.
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 Heidi Campo: Oh, that's so cool. Uh, I just love.
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 I love learning all of this stuff.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 Generic: 0G. And I feel fine. Space
00:18:20 --> 00:18:21 Nuts.
00:18:21 --> 00:18:24 Heidi Campo: Um, and our. And our. And our last
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 story of the day. This is the one that
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 everybody's gonna go crazy about. So
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 we. These are the questions that
00:18:32 --> 00:18:35 we. I just think there's something that
00:18:35 --> 00:18:38 humans are inherently fascinated by. We're
00:18:38 --> 00:18:41 fascinated by the
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 things that we understand the least.
00:18:43 --> 00:18:46 Sometimes the biggest mysteries attract
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 people the most. And that is. I would, if I
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 were to summarize the Space Nuts listeners.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 This is what they get obsessed with.
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 So buckle up, everybody, because we are
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 talking about, uh, dark energy,
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 and we are talking about the story today. The
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 headline reads, if dark energy is decreasing,
00:19:05 --> 00:19:07 is the Big Crunch back on the
00:19:07 --> 00:19:10 menu? So if you have not heard what the
00:19:10 --> 00:19:13 Big Crunch is before, Fred's going to give us
00:19:13 --> 00:19:14 a recap, and then we're going to be talking
00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 about how exciting this actually is.
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 Professor Fred Watson: Indeed. That's right. So, um, I mean,
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 it's almost like Back to the Future is this
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 because, um, when I was a young astronomer
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 back in the 70s and 80s,
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 uh, we were,
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 you know, we knew since 1929 that the
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 universe is expanding. That was Hubble's
00:19:38 --> 00:19:39 discovery. Uh, and we
00:19:40 --> 00:19:43 attribute that to some sort of event
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 that took place, we now think, about 13.8
00:19:46 --> 00:19:48 billion years ago, which we call the Big
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 Bang, uh, because we can't think of a better
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 word for it. Uh, so
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 back in those days, um, we knew that
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 was the case, but astronomers were
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 fairly convinced, I think, that,
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 um, the expansion of the universe was slowing
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06 down, even though they hadn't got the
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 measurements to prove that. They expected the
00:20:08 --> 00:20:10 expansion of the universe to slow down
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 because of the gravitational pull of
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 everything in it, like galaxies and planets
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 and stars and podcasts. All of that
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 stuff's got gravity. Uh, and they expected
00:20:21 --> 00:20:23 that would slow down the expansion of the
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 universe. And some, uh, astrophysicists.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 Cosmologists really is the correct term.
00:20:28 --> 00:20:30 They're the scientists who look at the
00:20:30 --> 00:20:32 history and evolution of the universe as a
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 whole, uh, not just things in it.
00:20:36 --> 00:20:38 Some cosmologists thought that the slowdown
00:20:38 --> 00:20:41 might eventually result in a
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 switch over from an expanding universe to one
00:20:43 --> 00:20:46 that's contracting because the gravity is
00:20:46 --> 00:20:47 starting to pull everything back together.
00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 Uh, and there was the
00:20:51 --> 00:20:54 idea that perhaps at uh, some time
00:20:54 --> 00:20:56 in the distant future there might be what
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 came to be known as the Big Crunch, uh, which
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 is everything smashing together again in a
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 kind of inverse of the Big Bang. It's the Big
00:21:03 --> 00:21:05 Bang played backwards. And in fact, um, Brian
00:21:05 --> 00:21:07 Schmidt m one of my colleagues, whose name
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 will crop up again in a very short time, uh,
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 he used to call it the Gnab Gibson, uh,
00:21:12 --> 00:21:14 because it's the Big Bang backwards. So you
00:21:15 --> 00:21:16 Big Bang backwards.
00:21:16 --> 00:21:18 Heidi Campo: And that would kind of be like a rubber band
00:21:18 --> 00:21:19 then.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:21 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. The rubber band
00:21:21 --> 00:21:23 expands and then, you know, if you let go, it
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 contracts. That's basically the mechanism for
00:21:25 --> 00:21:26 that.
00:21:26 --> 00:21:29 Heidi Campo: So, um, and then in theory, then would it be
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31 exponentially? So it's like as it starts to
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 contract in, it starts to move faster as it
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 comes closer back to that main point.
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 Professor Fred Watson: That's exactly right. And it would be, you
00:21:38 --> 00:21:40 know, you can imagine the Big Crunch or the
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 Nab Gib would be quite a
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 catastrophic event, um, for the
00:21:45 --> 00:21:48 universe as a whole. It was thought to be
00:21:48 --> 00:21:49 something that would happen billions of years
00:21:49 --> 00:21:52 in the future. But that was all dashed
00:21:52 --> 00:21:55 in, uh, 1998
00:21:55 --> 00:21:58 when Brian Schmidt, uh, of the Australian
00:21:58 --> 00:22:00 National University, uh, and Saul
00:22:00 --> 00:22:03 Perlmutter in the United States, uh, they
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 led two teams that discovered
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 that the universe is not slowing down in
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 its expansion. It is actually accelerating.
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 Uh, and um, that
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 acceleration of the universe we attribute to
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 something called dark energy, which is one of
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 the biggest mysteries, uh, in the whole of
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 science. We don't know what it is, but in the
00:22:22 --> 00:22:25 mass energy budget of the universe, it makes
00:22:25 --> 00:22:27 up 70% or so of the
00:22:27 --> 00:22:30 mass energy of the universe. So, um,
00:22:30 --> 00:22:33 that sort of poured the cold
00:22:33 --> 00:22:36 water on the Big Crunch idea,
00:22:36 --> 00:22:38 uh, until now because
00:22:39 --> 00:22:42 it looks as though from evidence coming
00:22:42 --> 00:22:44 from a telescope, principally from a
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46 telescope in Arizona, one very similar to our
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 Anglo Australian telescope here in, uh,
00:22:49 --> 00:22:52 Australia. It looks as though the
00:22:52 --> 00:22:55 acceleration is slowing down. So
00:22:55 --> 00:22:58 yes, the universe is expanding. Yes, the
00:22:58 --> 00:23:00 expansion is still getting faster and faster.
00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 But it looks as though in
00:23:03 --> 00:23:06 the future it won't be expanding as fast. In
00:23:06 --> 00:23:09 other words, the, the acceleration itself is
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 slowing down and it's not a constant. And
00:23:12 --> 00:23:14 that means that dark energy has different
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 properties from what we thought it had.
00:23:17 --> 00:23:20 And that's what set off this chain of
00:23:20 --> 00:23:22 research, uh, by uh, the
00:23:22 --> 00:23:25 scientists, uh, whose work we're reporting on
00:23:25 --> 00:23:27 now. They're um, uh, at Cornell University
00:23:28 --> 00:23:31 and other, um, universities around the
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 world. They've looked at the,
00:23:34 --> 00:23:36 the data that's come from various
00:23:36 --> 00:23:39 telescopes, uh, and have Actually
00:23:39 --> 00:23:42 made a model of a
00:23:42 --> 00:23:45 universe that has an accelerated
00:23:45 --> 00:23:47 expansion. The acceleration slows down.
00:23:47 --> 00:23:50 Eventually the expansion slows down
00:23:50 --> 00:23:53 and stops, and so
00:23:53 --> 00:23:55 there's a collapse back on itself. And
00:23:55 --> 00:23:58 they've modeled that to give you a universe
00:23:58 --> 00:24:01 which has a lifetime of 33.8
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 billion years. Now, we're already
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 13.8 billion years into that, so
00:24:06 --> 00:24:08 about 20 billion years time. They
00:24:08 --> 00:24:11 are suggesting that there will be a Big
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 Crunch or a gnab gib. Um, and
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 it comes not just from modeling the
00:24:16 --> 00:24:18 astrophysics. They've also looked at some of
00:24:18 --> 00:24:21 the likely subatomic particles that
00:24:21 --> 00:24:23 we might attribute dark energy to.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:26 Uh, so, uh, it's, you know, this is very,
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 very speculative research, it has to be said.
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 Uh, and nobody, uh, really is
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 yet starting to think serious, seriously
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36 about a Big Crunch, because that, as I said,
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 got wiped back in the 1990s. But
00:24:39 --> 00:24:41 it could still be on the menu, exactly as
00:24:41 --> 00:24:44 that headline, uh, says. It could still be on
00:24:44 --> 00:24:46 the menu. And I'm sure as time goes on,
00:24:47 --> 00:24:50 uh, our understanding of just how the
00:24:50 --> 00:24:52 acceleration of the universe is behaving,
00:24:52 --> 00:24:55 because it's still a difficult
00:24:55 --> 00:24:57 observation to make whether the acceleration
00:24:57 --> 00:24:59 is speeding up or not. Uh, but once we've got
00:24:59 --> 00:25:02 more data on that, maybe models like this
00:25:02 --> 00:25:04 will have their feet more firmly on the
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 ground and we might get some more
00:25:07 --> 00:25:10 insights into what the future of the universe
00:25:10 --> 00:25:12 is in the next 20 billion years or
00:25:12 --> 00:25:15 so. By then, by the way, uh, the Earth won't
00:25:15 --> 00:25:18 exist anymore because the sun will have
00:25:18 --> 00:25:21 turned into a red giant star long before that
00:25:21 --> 00:25:24 and probably melt the Earth. Uh, which is an
00:25:24 --> 00:25:27 interesting idea. Um, that's only, you
00:25:27 --> 00:25:28 know, that's on our near Horizon. That's only
00:25:28 --> 00:25:31 3 or 4 billion years down the track. Uh, and
00:25:31 --> 00:25:33 of course, the Andromeda and the Milky Way
00:25:33 --> 00:25:35 will have collided. All of that will have
00:25:35 --> 00:25:38 happened. But maybe the ultimate end is 20
00:25:38 --> 00:25:40 billion years hence, and it could be another
00:25:40 --> 00:25:41 Big Crunch.
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 Heidi Campo: Well, who knows what humanity will figure out
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 by then? I am convinced
00:25:48 --> 00:25:50 that we can continue to become
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 masters of our planet, our solar
00:25:53 --> 00:25:56 system. What is it called? Is it the Krasnow
00:25:56 --> 00:25:58 Scale? The Kardashians? The
00:25:58 --> 00:25:59 Kardashev.
00:25:59 --> 00:26:02 Professor Fred Watson: That's right. It's, uh, Kardashev. I
00:26:02 --> 00:26:04 think it is Kardashev.
00:26:04 --> 00:26:06 Heidi Campo: Yeah, the Kardashev scale. And we are. They
00:26:06 --> 00:26:08 mathematically figured it out because there's
00:26:08 --> 00:26:11 three. I'm kind of. I'm, um,
00:26:11 --> 00:26:13 I'm talking, um, about things that I'm not
00:26:13 --> 00:26:15 quite confident on. But I believe there's
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 three different levels of civilization,
00:26:18 --> 00:26:20 and they've mathematically figured out that
00:26:20 --> 00:26:22 we're not Quite a level one civilization yet.
00:26:23 --> 00:26:24 What are we, like a 0.7?
00:26:24 --> 00:26:25 Professor Fred Watson: Like we're close.
00:26:25 --> 00:26:26 Heidi Campo: We're almost there.
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29 Professor Fred Watson: It's based on the, um, energy consumption,
00:26:29 --> 00:26:32 uh, that Kardashev scale. It's based on how
00:26:32 --> 00:26:34 much energy a, uh, civilization uses.
00:26:35 --> 00:26:37 Uh, and that's a measure of how advanced it
00:26:37 --> 00:26:40 is. Um, now it
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 needn't necessarily follow, I guess, because
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 we might discover new ways of living that
00:26:45 --> 00:26:48 don't need the huge energy demands that the
00:26:48 --> 00:26:51 Kardashev's scale thinks we will.
00:26:51 --> 00:26:54 So, uh, interesting stuff, but yeah, we're
00:26:54 --> 00:26:56 not, we're not quite there yet. You're right.
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59 Heidi Campo: Yeah, yeah. I think it says that a type 1
00:26:59 --> 00:27:01 civilization can harness the power from their
00:27:01 --> 00:27:04 planet. A, uh, Type two civilization can
00:27:04 --> 00:27:06 harness all the power from their solar
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 systems. We're talking about Dyson spheres
00:27:08 --> 00:27:11 around the sun and then a type three
00:27:11 --> 00:27:14 civilization. Um, I think they're masters
00:27:14 --> 00:27:15 of space time so
00:27:17 --> 00:27:18 they can travel.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:20 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I think we should just skip straight
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 to, you know, Type three. We forget about the
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 others. I think type three is where we want
00:27:24 --> 00:27:24 to be.
00:27:25 --> 00:27:27 Heidi Campo: We need you. You're the brains. You're the
00:27:27 --> 00:27:28 brains of this operation.
00:27:28 --> 00:27:31 Professor Fred Watson: Well, you're in dire straits
00:27:31 --> 00:27:34 then. Anyway. That's all
00:27:34 --> 00:27:36 right. We'll um, you know,
00:27:37 --> 00:27:39 becoming masters of space time is certainly
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41 something that I have on my agenda, but I
00:27:41 --> 00:27:43 haven't got anywhere near it yet.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 Heidi Campo: Well, until then, we'll just have to stick
00:27:46 --> 00:27:48 with the uh, sci fi literature out there to
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 fulfill that, to itch that scratch, so to
00:27:51 --> 00:27:51 speak.
00:27:51 --> 00:27:53 Professor Fred Watson: That's the one. Yeah, that's the way to do
00:27:53 --> 00:27:53 it.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:55 Heidi Campo: Well, excellent friend. This has been a
00:27:55 --> 00:27:58 really fun conversation. Um, I really,
00:27:58 --> 00:28:00 really enjoyed talking to you this, this dark
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 energy stuff. I know we're going to get a lot
00:28:02 --> 00:28:04 of questions rolling in this week about it.
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06 So if you guys ever do have questions on any
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08 of these episodes, any of these topics, and
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 you are dying to have us follow up, please
00:28:11 --> 00:28:14 just jump online. It's bitesz, bitesz dot
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 com, B, I, T, E, Z. And you can go to our
00:28:17 --> 00:28:19 space nuts, portal and email us a question.
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 Ask us an audio question. We'll leave that
00:28:22 --> 00:28:24 link for you. And you guys, please ask away
00:28:24 --> 00:28:26 because we love to answer your questions
00:28:26 --> 00:28:29 every other episode. We're talking straight
00:28:29 --> 00:28:29 to you.
00:28:29 --> 00:28:30 Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great.
00:28:32 --> 00:28:34 Heidi Campo: All right everybody, we will see you next
00:28:34 --> 00:28:37 time with a Q and A episode. Till then,
00:28:37 --> 00:28:38 take care of.
00:28:38 --> 00:28:40 Professor Fred Watson: Many thanks, Heidi. And you take care too.
00:28:42 --> 00:28:45 Andrew Dunkley: Hello Huw in the studio. Hello Fred. Hello
00:28:45 --> 00:28:47 Heidi. Hope you're all well. Andrew reporting
00:28:47 --> 00:28:50 in from uh, the cruise ship
00:28:50 --> 00:28:51 Crown Princess.
00:28:51 --> 00:28:54 Uh, we are halfway through our world tour. I
00:28:54 --> 00:28:56 can't believe the time has gone so fast. Uh,
00:28:56 --> 00:28:59 since I spoke to you last, we have
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 visited Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 And Fred, uh, I know you will be
00:29:05 --> 00:29:08 particularly be keen to um, uh to hear
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 that we drove past the uh,
00:29:11 --> 00:29:13 TD Observatory. Uh, Mount
00:29:13 --> 00:29:16 Teedi of course is the, the
00:29:16 --> 00:29:19 strata volcano that's right in the middle of
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21 Tenerife, uh, island. And it is one
00:29:21 --> 00:29:24 imposing hunk of rock. That thing, it is
00:29:24 --> 00:29:26 enormous. Uh, it just dominates the
00:29:26 --> 00:29:29 skyline from everywhere you look.
00:29:29 --> 00:29:32 Uh, but just across the caldera from
00:29:32 --> 00:29:35 uh, Mount Teedy, which I might add hasn't
00:29:35 --> 00:29:38 um, erupted since 1909. Didn't feel anything
00:29:38 --> 00:29:41 while we were there, thank goodness. But um,
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 the TD Observatory and
00:29:43 --> 00:29:46 that is uh, quite a remarkable uh,
00:29:46 --> 00:29:49 little um, facility as you probably well
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 know Fred. It is because of the altitude.
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 It's up around 2 meters or something like
00:29:55 --> 00:29:57 that. Uh, it uh, is, is a
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 solar observatory predominantly and uh,
00:30:00 --> 00:30:02 it's one of the most significant solar
00:30:02 --> 00:30:05 observatories in the world. But they also
00:30:05 --> 00:30:08 do astronomical observations. And as
00:30:08 --> 00:30:11 I understand it Fred, uh, this particular
00:30:11 --> 00:30:13 observatory is
00:30:13 --> 00:30:16 um, operated remotely. So I've got a
00:30:16 --> 00:30:18 feeling that somewhere along the line Fred,
00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 you have um, you've had a bit of a play
00:30:20 --> 00:30:23 around with the equipment at Mount Teedi,
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 uh, on Tenerife. Uh, uh, I did take some
00:30:26 --> 00:30:28 photos of the observatory from across the
00:30:28 --> 00:30:31 valley and with my long range pocket
00:30:31 --> 00:30:34 camera. Um, it's got several
00:30:34 --> 00:30:37 uh, domes and pieces of equipment all
00:30:37 --> 00:30:40 um, hidden inside white painted
00:30:40 --> 00:30:42 buildings because they need to protect them
00:30:42 --> 00:30:44 from the heat. And white is a uh, very
00:30:44 --> 00:30:47 reflective color of course, but
00:30:47 --> 00:30:50 uh, quite extraordinary. You climb up the
00:30:50 --> 00:30:52 mountain on a very windy, steep road and
00:30:52 --> 00:30:55 all of a sudden at around 2000 meters you
00:30:55 --> 00:30:57 break through the tree line and
00:30:58 --> 00:31:00 all of us and you're in what you could
00:31:00 --> 00:31:03 describe as a tundra desert like environment.
00:31:04 --> 00:31:06 And there have been so many eruptions over so
00:31:06 --> 00:31:09 many millennia. There's all sorts of
00:31:09 --> 00:31:12 different colored lava and pumice and layer
00:31:12 --> 00:31:14 upon layer, uh, in the cliffs you can see
00:31:14 --> 00:31:16 where the eruptions have happened, happened
00:31:16 --> 00:31:18 over so many, many, many, many years.
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21 And uh, the big 10 mile wide
00:31:21 --> 00:31:24 caldera where there used to be a super
00:31:24 --> 00:31:27 volcano which is uh, no longer there,
00:31:27 --> 00:31:29 it collapsed and now you've got Mount
00:31:29 --> 00:31:32 Tedi in its place which is uh, behaving
00:31:32 --> 00:31:35 itself um, rather well at the moment, which
00:31:35 --> 00:31:35 is good.
00:31:35 --> 00:31:38 Anyway, we've left Tenerife behind us and
00:31:38 --> 00:31:40 we're heading now for Morocco.
00:31:41 --> 00:31:43 Uh, actually by the time I speak to you next,
00:31:43 --> 00:31:45 we'll have made several stops. We've, uh,
00:31:45 --> 00:31:47 we've reached the busy end of our tour, so,
00:31:47 --> 00:31:49 uh, looking forward to telling you all about
00:31:49 --> 00:31:51 that. Most of our visits between now and then
00:31:51 --> 00:31:54 will be Morocco or Spain. Of course, Tenerife
00:31:54 --> 00:31:57 is Spanish. Lovely, uh, lovely place.
00:31:57 --> 00:31:59 Very, very popular with, uh, Germans and
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 English people, uh, on holidays. All right,
00:32:01 --> 00:32:04 until next time, Andrew Dunkley signing off.
00:32:04 --> 00:32:04 See ya.
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