Little Bangs, Outer Planets & the Cosmic Budget Crunch

Hi there, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley. It's great to have your company yet again. Coming up on this episode, we will be looking at a new Big Bang theory, so to speak. It's sort of wrapped up with dark matter and dark dark energy and all that dark and foreboding stuff, so we'll talk about that. Some other data is pointing to a potential outer planet and it may not be Planet nine, or is it. We're not sure yet. We'll talk about that and. Some space science stuff. An old Russian spacecraft is headed back to Earth and unfortunately that's not where it was originally supposed to go back in nineteen seventy two. Artemis too. An update on that, and a bit of a budget cut issue with NASA. That's all coming up on this episode of Space Nuts fifteen in Channel ten nine Ignition Space Nut or three. Two one Space Nurse when I report it. Neil Good and it's good to see Professor Fred Watson again joining us on this episode of space and that's high Fred. Hello, Andrew, very good to see you too. You're looking hale and hearty. I have to say yes, I've got I've got a new background you like my new office. Yes, my new virtual office. It's it's saying a lot of hellos at the moment it is has. Got a low error. And if I put my hands in the right place, they're invisible. Yes. In fact, if I go yeah, if I look around, I go invisible. Do Yes. Yes, you went invisible a minute or two ago, and I thought you'd lock it in into space. Never mind, it was one day, No doubt you will. But now you've been away, haven't you. We were over in lord How Island, which is an island some some kilometers off of the coast of New South Wales, is on the same latitude of Port Macquarie. I used to broad to. Yes, yes, she did that. I didn't actually have that much chance to talk to many of the locals in detail, or else I would have asked them if they In fact, I think I did ask one person whether they listened to. You, and they said yes. But we were there for a dark sky festival. Lord How is. Working on the prospect of becoming Australia's first dark sky island, which is like a dark sky park, but it's an island. I'm not giving away any secrets there, but there are people working on that very enthusiastically and we wish them every success with it. So one of this was a sort of kickoff festival with talks and presentations and I took the old Gibson guitar and Marny and I did a set in their music night. We did seven songs between us. I was cool and I've done that for about fifty years. And then you know, we did some experiments with the friend of ours, Marcuscaro, launching rockets with which were fueled by vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, which meant we all ended up smelling of vinegar for the next four days. And yeah, it went. It went went very well. That was a fun thing for the kids to do. So it was a good festival and it wound up on Thursday evening with very nice meal cooked up by one of the top chefs on the island. Wow, it's fantastic. I haven't been the lord here, but to get there you need. To go, you do need. It's also the home of some unique wildlife I believe. There are yes, and particularly the wood hen which is ubiquitous. They had a program four or five years and three or four years ago I think it was to eliminate all the rats on the island which were eating the woodhens, and that was quite controversial, but it's worked, and the woodhens are there in remarkable proflicty. Was that there? And they also have those quite rare stickings. Is it on the spire it's on Balls Pyramids? Yeah, Balls Pyramid twenty kilometers off. Lord how we had a very rough crossing to Balls Pyramid. We went because I always wanted to see it up close and personal. It's this stick of rock five hundred. Meters high and remarkable and as you said, it does have I think it's the only place where these nocturnal stick insects are phoned, and they're usually quite big. So a photograph of one. Yeah, I remember that story breaking many years ago when they found them and they went, oh my goodness, didn't know they were here. That's right. Yeah, incredible place it is. It's amazing. So what about you have? How's your week been? Pretty quiet? Actually, just sort of settling back into normal life, even though that's going. To be temporary. But I did want to show you something from our trip. As you know, we went to San Francisco, and San Francisco is the home of a big rock known as Alcatraz. Indeed, and you know, I like to collect souvenirs wherever I go, particularly particularly little rocks from different places. But this one's legal. There it is save the rock. Yeah, and inside that box, yes, two pieces, two pieces of the cell block of Alcatraz because they're trying to do renovations to keep it going for future generations, and so as a part of the renovation process, they've had to demolish certain sections and they're selling the rock to fund the renovations. There you go. I've got two pieces of the cell wall from Alcatraz. In my collections. Now see them as your screen tries to wipe them out and make them part of the background. But if I tip it forward a dispute can see them. So that's yeah. They are. Oh there they are, yes. Looking very very penal commonly this. Chunk of concrete, It says, this chunk of concrete is a byproduct of a major rehabilitation effort now underway on the island. It's been inspected by park historic preservation specialists to be sure that it contains nothing of research potential. So it's just looks like a piece of concrete but it's actually a piece of Alcatraz. It's all mine. And interestingly it's in the news at the moment, of course, because President Trump wants to reinstate it. As a jail, does he. I didn't hear that one. It needs well, I'll tell him one thing for free. It needs work. It needs work. But it's only a fifteen minute trip to get over there. Yes, that's right, thirty nine, So yeah's it's worth visiting. Though, we better get down to the business of the day, and that is astronomy in space science. And we'll start off with this story fred a new theory on the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, all of that stuff is rolled into this this paper that's been released through the Universe. City of Alabama in Huntsville. This is this is a physics professor who's come up with alternative theories in the past or other things. This one, though, is probably going to get pulled apart under the microscope. What he's suggesting is there might not have been one big bang, but lots of little bangs. That's right exactly, and you know you've you've described it perfectly. It's a really interesting theory in that if you have lots of little bangs rather than one big one. Apparently, mathematically you can get rid of dark matter and dark energy, which are of course the two big problems in current cosmology. What are these And just a bit of background there. Dark energy, we think is the property of space that makes the expanding universe accelerating its expansion, although there's just we're just starting to see evidence that that might slow down that acceleration. It looks as though it was more rapid five billion years ago than it is today. And that's, you know, new news. I guess on the on the what you might call the conventional picture, and of course the other half of that is the dark matter, which is something that we believe holds galaxies together and holds clusters of galaxies together, which is invisible and undetectable except by its gravity. Two big problems for modern cosmology. So Professor new It thinks that he's solved both of these with a theory that it's got a name. I can't remember what it is. It's his paper is entitled I can't find the title of his paper. It's something like getting rid of dark matter and dark energy. It's basically the idea exactly as you've said, is that you instead of having one big bang, you you have several little ones that sort of every time you get one, they you know, it sort of restarts things in an odd way. And that's the bit of this that I have to say, I don't understand because we have such great evidence that there's only been one big bang, and that is the fact that we still see it the cosmic microwave background radiation. Yeah, wasn't that wouldn't that just wipe this theory out instantaneously? Well, unless he suggests that you get, you know, a new microwave background radiation every time there's one of these mini big bangs. But that actually flies in the face of the research, the observations that Professor lew is suggesting that we do to detect these multiple big bangs. I think the cosmic microwave back radiation is a showstopper for this. And the reason is when we look out into space, we see progressively objects, most notably galaxies, at different red shifts. They're increasing red shift. It's the red shift is the move of the of the light to the red end of the spectrum. It's what we measure. We believe it's happening because space is expanding. That stretches the light waves and gives you the red shift. And if you look at a high enough redshift, what you see you see the big Bank, You see the cosmic microwave background radiation, the flash of the Big Bang when it became from when the universe became transparent about three hundred and eighty thousand years after the Big Bang event. Now, what Professor lew is saying is that you could test his theory by looking for as you look back in time, in other words, that increasing red shifts, look for jumps in red shift, which you know it might mean that if you're looking along a particular line of sight, you see all the galaxies along that line of sight, you see them gradually increasing in red shift, and then suddenly you see a jump in redshift, which looks as though something's missing. And what he's suggesting is that's where you get a mini Big Bang. But that, as I said, flies in the face of the cosmic micround radiation, because that is at the most extreme red shift we can observe. It's a the red shift of about thirteen hundred because the universe has expanded by a factor similar to that in the time since since it became transparent, which is what we can see. We can see the opaque universe at that great distance. So that's my take on it for what it's worth from a non cosmologist. But it's causing interest. It's really, you. Know, actually an interesting piece of work. I haven't looked at the original paper, but as you pointed out, I think you found this one, Andrew. This is on the Brighter Side of News website. There's a lovely piece of pros at the end of that article which I'd love to read out to you, quotching the brighter side of news. Instead of hunting for invisible ingredients i e. Dark matter and dark energy. Instead of hunting for invisible ingredients, scientists might start listening for the echoes of ancient, unstoppable bursts, the hidden rhythms of a universe still in motion. Very poetic, very very I think the paper is titled are dark matter and dark energy Omnipresent? Yes? That's yeah, I had that, but I couldn't remember it. Now, Well why would you remember that? Yes, So watch this space. We'll see what other physicists and astronomers may of it, and hopefully see a bit more. That's What I like about these papers is that everybody gets to read them and go, Okay, I think that's wrong and this is why, or I think that could be on the money, and this is why. You know, everybody gets a say in it. So it gets. Bounced around like a yeah, it's a pinball until everyone seems to settle on some agreeable potential answer. Would that be right? Yeah, that's right, And it's a consensus. It's you know, as the scientific consensus emerges, that's what we then regard as as the standard. Model, if I can put it that way. But often, like some of this particular work, is going to take a lot to verify it, and looking for redshift steps might be one way of doing it. And in fact I was going to mention this that is not new. I remember back in the seventies when I was working at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, one of my colleagues was looking for what he called quantized redshifts, redshifts that appeared in groups among the galaxies, which is the sort of thing that you might expect Professor Lew's research. To throw up. He didn't find them. That the person who was my colleague at Edinburgh he did, he never found them, so but that was, of course, with nineteen seventy technology. We have moved on a very, very long way since then. Just a little bit. Yes, I'm sure we'll hear more about this story as people analyze his theory. So we'll keeping on that. And as Fred said, it's available for you to read on the bright side dot news website. 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You can do individual plans, unlimited plan of course, which I've mentioned, standard plans, family plans, you know, whatever suits you. There'll be an offer available as a space Nuts listener through in Cogni and if you sign up for their annual package, you'll save sixty percent. And don't forget that thirty day money back guarantee. It's in cognit dot com slash space Nuts and you can cancel anytime. Don't forget that in Cogni dot com slash space Nuts. Now back to the show space Nuts. Now, Fred, let's move on to another story that we've looked at many times, and that is planet nine. Although this is probably not about planet nine, but they have been looking at data that suggests there is an out of planet further out than I think we're planet dark nine should be. So this could is this planet ten or nine point five or what. I think they're calling it eight and a half because we've got yes, this is not planet nine, that is planet eight point five. Right, that's okay, So what's the story. So well, let's scan backwards to two thousand and sixteen. I think it was, yeah, twenty sixteen, when two US astronomers basically puts out paper suggesting that the fact that we've got all these distant asteroid orbits these are objects trans Neptunian objects, objects that are beyond the orbit of Neptune, and in fact, some of them are called extreme trans Neptunian objects, objects a long way beyond the orbit of Neptune, whose orbits are highly elliptical, they're very very elongated, but they seem to line up the you know, the elongated orbit seemed to line up, and they suggested that was because there's a planet out there that we haven't found. They call it Planet nine. They think it's probably ten times the mass of the Earth, what you might call a super Earth or a sub Neptune. Those are the planets that are kind of common in other solar systems but are missing in our Solar system. So it sort of fit fit the bill. Lots of enthusiasm for this, but also again lots of controversy. I think I've probably mentioned to you at the beginning of last year, was it. I think yes. When I was in Canada, I spoke to a planetary scientist there who said Planet nine is rubbish. And that was somebody who was well tuned with you know, with the with the science anyway, we now have a. New theory or. Sorry, some new observations which come from astronomers in Taiwan, Japan and here in Australia. And what they've done is they've looked through archival images from two infrared satellites. One was called IRAS, which I remember well. It was a NASA Netherlands UK satellite dating from nineteen eighty three, a very very productive satellite, infrared astronomy satellite, that's what the abbreviation was. And Akari, which was a kind of Japanese equivalent, which was launched quite a long time later in two thousand and six. And that means, excuse me, both these satellites surveyed the sky. Excuse my frog in my throat. But they are you know, they're doing it at two completely different times, which are twenty five ish years apart. And so what that means is that if there's something deep in the Solar system that is slowly moving, you will you might be able to pick it up, pick up its motion on these sets of images that were taken so far apart in time. That's what they've found. They basically had two million objects in the two catalogs, and they got down to I think it was thirteen candidates of objects that moved slowly across the sky in the time, and then they looked at each one by eye. Some of them probably turned out to be flaws in the data and things of that sort, but one of them actually looked very promising because the two observations, the Iras and Nikari observations, separated by twenty odd years, showed an object that had moved, but its color and its brightness were the same in both images, and so they are suspecting that that makes it the same object rather than two bits of data or. Something like that. Now it's it's actually. Something different from what Planet nine has been suspected. First of all, this object, if it is real, goes around the Sun in the opposite direction from everything else. It's tilted way over its orbits tilted at one hundred and twenty degrees, which because it's more than ninety degrees, means it's going the wrong way around. Whereas planet nine, the theory that was built around these extreme trans Neptunian objects that you know, provided a model for planet nine that really needed a very low orbit tilt fifteen degrees or so in order to do the stretching of these orbits or the alignment of these orbits. So the two scientists who were the original proposers of planet nine might grow and constanting Latigin, they say, well, whatever this is, it's not planet nine, and it's it's but it may be something else. That's the. Inference that this thing may be real, and it clearly needs more data to determine whether it's a real object. If it is, it might as exactly as we were said before, might be planet eight and a half or nine and a half. I guess the best bet for finding it is going to be when we get the V. C. Rubin Observatory online, which is going to be towards the end of this year, and that is going to be able to look at the Southern Sky, which I think is where this object is. I can't remember what constellation it was in, but it's going to be able to look at the Southern sky in much detail, and it may find Planet nine, or it may confirm Plant eight and a half, or may just tell us there's nothing out there at all. So this is something that we're going to look forward to, and you and I will talk about it, I'm sure. Yeah, And this has also created another issue because if this is a planet beyond where planet nine should be, there is another theory that suggests that it will basically eliminate the potential existence of planet nine because they would interfere with each other, and that's not evident in this data. That's correct, that's right. So, yeah, you picked up on something I've forgotten when I when I read the piece. That's right. It's if this is a real object, it would not be compatible with there being a planet nine, which would actually be much nearer than this. This is a long long way away, right on the edge of the Solar System, if it's real, and it would conflict with the idea of a planet nine. Yes, So so it may be that this will if it turns out to be the right thing, If it turns out to be a real thing, then it might not the planet nine theory on the head altogether. But it's still just as exciting because it's it's it's a planet. Yeah, it could be a planet that's. Want to be a planet regardless, So yeah, forget planet nine, yeah, whatever, whatever it is. Yeah, Well, hopefully we can we can find that one they might end up calling a planet nine anyway, because well. That's what it will be, what it will be exactly. Yeah, it's really interesting. This one just keeps coming up. Yes, I'm giving it does. Yeah, I love it. If you would like to read up on that, it's been published on the website science dot org. This is space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Space Nuts now Fred quick stories about various things that are happening, mainly involving space craft or space missions or lack of although the last story is more of a budget cut issue. But let's go back to nineteen seventy two when the Soviet Union and the United States were very heavily involved in the space race, and the Soviet Union launched a spacecraft that was supposed to send a lander to Venus, didn't quite make it, and now it's coming it's probably going to crash back down to worse. That's right. So Cosmos four to eight to two was the name of the mission, and it was on its way to Venus. You're absolutely right. But apparently one of the final stages in the rocket, the upper stage, the booster, basically malfunctioned and so the spacecraft went in orbit around the Earth. It's probably quite a big orbit. I'm not sure if its dimensions, but it's so it's been in orbit around the Earth for the last fifty three years, and that time has now come when its orbit is decaying and it looks as though it is going to re enter the Earth's atmosphere, and with actually a prediction for its century almost as soon as the end of this week. It's and that's very hard to predict because it is it's uncontrolled. It doesn't have you know, it doesn't have any any sort of way of being being directed as to where it will re enter the atmosphere, so it'll come down in a random place. And as you mentioned earlier on, it's it's dangerous in a sense because this spacecraft was designed to penetrate the atmosphere of Venus, and Venus's atmosphere is much thicker than our atmosphere. Now, it would have been a controlled entry into the atmosphere of Venus, it would have had breaking rockets to slow it down, which it doesn't have coming into the Earth's atmosphere. But it does mean that there might be bits of this capsule which will actually survive re entry and could land on the grounds. One to watch I think is this because we could see a headline that this piece of ancient space junk has landed in somebody's paddic or we're still landed on somebody's house, and we'll probably cause global news. So look out for news on that within the next few days. It might create one heck of a fireball. It could, Yes, that's right, Yeah, it could. As it comes. Down, we don't know. We don't know where it might. Land at this stage. It's one of these. Very unpredictable, unpredictable scenarios, So it could just land anywhere. I mean, odds are it's going to miss something significant. It's just probably going to land in Probably water would be most likely. Well, that's that's correct, because water is what covers most of the Earth or seventy five percent, that's right, And that sort of tends to be what happens with re entering space ABAE. Most of it goes into the ocean. Yeah, but they go on to say that the risk of something getting hit is not particularly high, but not zero. That's right. That's great, But I guess that's always the case with anything coming through the atmospheres. Yes, watch with interest, keep your eye on the sky. That story in Space Daily dot com. Let's move on to our next story. This is really exciting news. Lockheed Martin has finished the Orion capsule which is going to be put on top of Artemis two. Indeed, that's right for launch next year, and Artemis two will will carry four astronauts and in a in a repeat mission of Artemis one, which was basically going to the Moon and back, going into a very elongated orbit around the Moon, and then coming back to Earth, re entering and landing back on Earth. That was all done as a dress rehearsal. It's I think it's two years ago now, and it worked flawlessly. Actually, everything worked very well after a few hiccups on the launch pad. So Artemis two is the same thing, but will carry a crew. I think the capsule has been I think it's had some upgrades from the original planned one. And I think they I think they put a toilet in it. That would be very good if they did. These are We've got a quote here that comes from one of the Lockheed Martin technical engineers. To support the health and safety of the crew, this new systems have been added, which include life support, air water, thermal control, waste management as you said, displays and controls, audio communications, an exercise machine, and a fully functional launcher boort system and so and lots and lots of other bells and whistles on it. And so there'll be a lot of work now to kind of get the thing ready for launch next year. But yes, Artemis is on track for Artemists too, flying very soon. Yeah, and they will carry astronauts this time. This will be a human. Mission and they're going to go way past the Moon like the first mission. Yes, will this be a record as to the furthest people have been out? It will indeed, that's right, it's going to be the you know, it's going to be the furthest from Earth that any human has ventured. So that's yes, Yeah, the moment, I think that record is held by Michael Collins because he was by himself, wasn't he in the Apollos actual? Yeah, that might be right. I mean, all the Apollo astronauts, the the what was it it was the capsule commander I think were left in orbit around the Moon. I don't know, until some of those orbits might have been higher than others. Yeah, yeah, I just said rings a bell. I think I think that's right. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be corrected. I could look it up. But yeah, bother we've got Space notes listeners. They're very quick to correctors. Absolutely, But this is all the exciting news and it looks yeah, they're looking at was it April next year or launch? Everything on schedule at the moment. But this is another example of the collaborative effort to put these missions together. It's Lockheed Martin's just one company. I think air Bus is involved in this as well, and so many others. So we will watch with interest. I'm kind of glad they put that life support system in. That would probably be useful. It might be, yes, it might be helpful. Indeed, you can find plenty of stories that talk about that particular mission online if you care to search. One final thing, Fred, and this is probably not good news, and that is a potential budget cuts that will hit NASA pretty hard. Very hard. Yeah. So this is the White House has proposed federal spending budget for twenty twenty six, and there's cuts in many, many areas. But NASA have actually taken the brunt of this with a cut facing a possible cut has to be approved clearly, but it's twenty four point three percent, coming down from twenty four point eight billion in this financial year to eighteen point eight billion in the next financial year. And of course, so many of NASA's programs are very very sensitive to funding. Many of them are on shoe string budgets, you know, like keeping the Voyagers in Touch and the deep space programs, all of that, possible future missions for new horizons, that's all you have to worry about the future of them. What's perhaps more significant, and you know, I can see sort of where this is going is we've just been talking about Artemis. The current Artemis program has I think five missions, which the last ones would have you know, would have. The Gateway, the Gateway. Space station in orbit around the Moon. Basically, the cuts would bring the Artemis mission to an end. After Artemis three, Gateway would be canceled, and those later Artemis landings would be canceled as well, and the sort of load on lunar exploration would then be taken by the private sector. That's the idea that you get the. Private sector to do it, which probably means SpaceX and Blue Origin and companies like that, and so it will be a remarkably big change to what's currently planned. So the. Launch vehicles for Artemis are the Space Launch System SLS, which uses recycled Shuttle components, and the Orion capsule. That's what we've just been talking about. The capsule will hold astronaut. The idea would be to phase it out after the three flights, after Artemis three, so that includes the SLS as well. That would go. Yeah, and what I found in regards like twenty four point three percent funding cut, that is a huge, huge cut. It is, and most of that would be felt in the Space and Earth Science divisions of NASA. And when you look at what they do. Space Science Division does heliophysics, planetary science, and astrophysics, and the Earth Science Division looks at atmospheric sciences, oceanography, land sciences, criosphere technology, biosphere technology. I would have thought they were pretty important areas. But yes, yes, that's rue. They could get hammered in this if this budget cut goes ahead. Do you think Elon has sort of been saying to mister Trump, look, I can do this, you don't have to pay for. I couldn't possibly guess that the conversations that go between those two, but it wouldn't be rised. Yeah, it's a it's a bit of a worry. Someone else told me that they've totally cut funding to national public Radio NPS, which is that's the US equivalent to the A b C. So I heard that. So that that's fairly tragic, I think in this scheme of things. Yeah, so this this these budget proposals have to go to the US Congress because they appropriate the funds, and it's you know, it's remains to be seen what happens after that. The Congress is fairly evenly balanced, I think politically, so. Yeah, unlike unlike our new government that's just been elected there, I think it's looking pretty lopsided at the moment. Yeah, quite quite quite a result. That was Okay, thank you for Verdi. If you'd like to look into that story about the budget the potential budget cuts to that's a spaceflight now dot com is the website. We're all done, Fred, Thank you. It's been a pleasure, always good to talk and to bring us ourselves up today as well as everybody. Else on what's going on in the world of space and astronomy. Very true, all right, we'll catch you on the next episode. Thank you Fred, Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large. And we would say thanks to here in the studio, but he's not where us. Budget cuts or you know how it goes. And don't forget to visit us on our website social media, and please leave reviews on your favorite podcasting platform apparently they're quite helpful. And from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. See you on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at bides dot com. This has been another quality podcast production from sites dot com.