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Primordial Black Holes, Ultra Hot Jupiters, and a New Moon Crater In this captivating episode of Space Nuts, hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson delve into some of the most exciting developments in astronomy. From the intriguing possibility of primordial black holes being linked to dark matter to groundbreaking discoveries about the chemical composition of an ultra hot Jupiter, and the recent formation of a massive crater on the Moon, this episode is packed with cosmic revelations.
Episode Highlights:
- Primordial Black Holes: Andrew and Fred Watson discuss the recent findings from LIGO that suggest the existence of black holes with masses less than that of the Sun. They explore how these primordial black holes, predicted by Stephen Hawking, could provide new insights into the nature of dark matter and the formation of the universe.
- Chemical Analysis of WASP 189B: The hosts examine the exciting discovery that the chemical makeup of the ultra hot Jupiter WASP 189B matches that of its parent star, challenging long-held assumptions about planetary formation and composition. This finding reinforces the connection between stars and their planets, providing vital clues for understanding exoplanetary systems.
- New Moon Crater: A recent impact on the Moon has created a stunning new crater measuring 225 metres across. Andrew and Fred Watson discuss the implications of this discovery, including the significance of ongoing lunar observations and the potential for future research into the Moon's geological history.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Andrew Dunkley: Hello once again, thanks for joining us. This
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 is Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 It's great to have your company. We talk
00:00:07 --> 00:00:09 astronomy and space science on this show and
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 we hope you enjoy it. Uh, all five listeners
00:00:12 --> 00:00:14 have actually said at some stage or another
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 in the last decade that they did enjoy one or
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 two episodes out of the 618 we've done. So
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 that's a pretty good record. Uh, but we'll
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 press on. We'll press on. Uh, what we've got
00:00:25 --> 00:00:27 coming up for you today is extraordinary.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:29 We're going to talk about, uh, black holes.
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 Uh, these ones though, uh, are only thought
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 to exist. But they're starting to piece
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 together evidence that they are. And
00:00:38 --> 00:00:40 we're talking about primordial black holes.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 But what's really interesting is
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 how they all began. Maybe we'll
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 get into that. Uh, and uh, planets
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 and their chemical makeup compared to their
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 parent star. There's been a major discovery
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 there. And a fresh moon crater, a
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 big one. You could put a couple
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 hundred thousand people in this one, uh, to
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 watch a football game. Uh, that's all coming
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 up on this episode of space nuts.
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 10, 9. Ignition
00:01:11 --> 00:01:12 sequence start.
00:01:13 --> 00:01:13 Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 Generic: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
00:01:20 --> 00:01:21 Generic: Astronauts report it feels good.
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 Andrew Dunkley: And back once again to fill in the blanks is
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at
00:01:28 --> 00:01:29 large. Hello, Fred Watson.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 Professor Fred Watson: Hi, Andrew. Um, I do apologise for
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 my pre broadcast sneeze there that I hope you
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 didn't pick up on the headphones.
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 Andrew Dunkley: I'll have to listen back, but that's okay. I
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 mean, we've got everything that happens on
00:01:41 --> 00:01:42 this show.
00:01:42 --> 00:01:43 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah,
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 Andrew Dunkley: I used to actually welcome that stuff on my
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 radio show because, um, I just thought it
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 made everything more human. If you had
00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 somebody sneezing or tripping over or banging
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 a wall or walking in on you.
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 That was always fun. Um,
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 ye. I. My philosophy was
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 if you walk in, you're in the show. End of
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 storey. Um, nobody really
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 escaped. Uh, how are things Fred Watson, by
00:02:11 --> 00:02:11 the way?
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, fine, I think. Yes. I don't know why I
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 sneezed. I think I um, might have caught the
00:02:16 --> 00:02:17 lurgy that you.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:19 Andrew Dunkley: Oh yeah, I've got a bit of something. We took
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 the grandchildren out and took them, took
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 them to a place called Inflatable World.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 Okay. You jump in castles and slides and,
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 you know, air guns and things. Not the ones
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 that fire lead pellets, but, uh, they fire,
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 you know, plastic balls. Uh, they had a great
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 time but um, I fear because there were
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 10 million kids there, um, and half of
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 them had lots of stuff coming out their nose.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:44 I might caught something.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 Might have caught something there.
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 Professor Fred Watson: I can't say I've noticed anything coming out
00:02:52 --> 00:02:53 of your nose. So you.
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 Andrew Dunkley: Well, just hang around. Just hang around.
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 I'm all dosed up. It dries you out, that
00:03:00 --> 00:03:02 stuff. It's good. That's why they've made it
00:03:02 --> 00:03:02 illegal.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 Well, no, it's behind the counter now, I
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 think is the rule. You can't get it off the
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 shelf. You've got to ask the pharmacist for
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 the. For the good state. But it is good
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 stuff. Good stuff. All right, let's carry on.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 My voice is already starting to fail me. Uh,
00:03:21 --> 00:03:21 Fred Watson, let's.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 Let's begin because this is a really exciting
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 storey. Uh, we have talked many times about
00:03:27 --> 00:03:28 black holes, about, um,
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 dark matter, um, and we've talked
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 about primordial black holes. And now they're
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 starting to think maybe there's a
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 relationship there. We've got to prove one
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 that might prove the other, which might solve
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 the problem of dark matter. Am I right about
00:03:45 --> 00:03:46 that? That theory?
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, you're right. You are right, yes. In
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 fact, you've told the storey in a much more
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 succinct way than I'm going to now.
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 Andrew Dunkley: Okay, well, that's going to make things fast.
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 Professor Fred Watson: So, um. So this is a storey from
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 ligo, the Large Interferometric
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 Gravitational Wave Observatory, which has
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 two, uh, um, locations, two
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 detectors, one in Washington, one in
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 Louisiana. Uh, and
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 the, I mean, the first of those,
00:04:15 --> 00:04:18 um, detections was quite a number of years
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 ago now. Uh, so we've known about these
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 gravitational waves. I think it was. Might
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 even have been 2015. Um,
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 I, um, might be confusing. I do remember it
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 was, uh. The detection was on Marnie's
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 birthday, the 14th of September. So. Cool. I
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 can't remember what year it was. Anyway,
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 whatever it was, uh, it was a good year
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 because for the first time we could sense the
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 collisions of, um, objects
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 colliding in space. Sorry, there's
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 tautology there. We could sense the
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 gravitational wave signal of objects
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 colliding in space. Yes, we're both in
00:04:54 --> 00:04:55 good form today.
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 Andrew Dunkley: I think we are. 2015.
00:04:57 --> 00:04:59 14-9-2015. Spot on.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 Professor Fred Watson: Thanks. So that
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 was, um, the first time. And, um, the
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 track record of LIGO is incredible. You know,
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 we celebrated the first detection and the
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 second and the third, and then it got a bit
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 routine and now they just churn them out.
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 Um, but we've had black hole. Black hole
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 collisions. We've had neutron star black hole
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 Collisions. And we've had neutron star,
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 neutron star collisions. And each
00:05:26 --> 00:05:28 of them gives a different sort of
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 gravitational wave signature. And that's the
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 critical thing, uh, that you can tell
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 just by looking at the. It's almost like an
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 acoustic wave, but it's on a
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 microscopic scale because the vibrations
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 are, uh, infinitesimally small,
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 as we've discussed before. That's because
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 space is so rigid. But these gravitational
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 waves, as they pass through the Earth, they
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 change the separation of two mirrors
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 in what's called an interferometer.
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 That's how LIGO works, with tiny, tiny
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 differences. Uh, so, uh, those waves
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 have a, uh. Because they come in, actually
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 it's quite interesting. They come in at more
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 or less acoustic, uh, frequency ranges. So
00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 if you amplify them up, you can hear it.
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 Uh, it's a little bit more complicated than
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 that, but you can actually, you know, it's
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 within that wave band that we can hear
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 things, even though it's sound that we, uh.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 And it's the vibration of space itself that,
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 um, LIGO hears or sees.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 Um, so, uh, what
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 has now happened is that,
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 uh, uh, a group of. I think the
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 group is based at the University of Miami,
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 the researchers who've done this work,
00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 um, but they found a signature
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 of a collision that involved,
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 um, a star, or
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 let me put it this way, an object which
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 is a smaller mass than the
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 Sun. Uh, now
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 a black hole that small
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 should not exist in conventional
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 wisdom because the way we believe black holes
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 are formed is by stars
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 collapsing, uh, at the end of their
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 lives, uh, as they
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 detonate with a supernova explosion. The core
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 collapses. The, the outer layers get
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 shed into space, but the core collapses. Uh,
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 and you've got a black hole, uh, an object
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 with very, um, intense gravity
00:07:33 --> 00:07:34 because it basically collapses to a
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 singularity, a point in space.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:37 Generic: Yeah.
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, but, um, the conventional wisdom
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 is that you need stars whose mass,
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 whose initial mass is, you know, 5,
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, perhaps times the mass of the
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 Sun. That sort of level, usually
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 10ish times the mass of the sun, is typically
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 what you get. And so the black
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 hole remnant that you get has a very similar
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 mass to that. The outer envelope has been
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 blown off. But most of the star's
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 mass basically concentrates into the black
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 hole. So finding a signature
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 of an object that has
00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 less mass than the sun is
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 inexplicable, uh, in
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 conventional astrophysics. Um, it's
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 too small. Uh, so,
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 uh, what are the possibilities? And the thing
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 that your mind, I'm sure, went straight
00:08:31 --> 00:08:33 towards, as did mine, is
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 primordial black holes. And these are, uh,
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 objects that were predicted by Stephen
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 Hawking, um, back in the
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 1970s. He proposed the existence
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 of objects that
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 basically turned into black holes
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 in the aftermath of the Big Bang,
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 where you've got pockets of
00:08:55 --> 00:08:58 subatomic material that could
00:08:58 --> 00:09:01 essentially collapse directly into a
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 black hole without needing a, ah, star
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 to go through, you know, to be formed and go
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 through its, um, its lifetime and then
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 collapse at the end of that, um, but all
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 within, you know, the first, well,
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 probably less than a second of the
00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 universe's existence. Uh, Hawking's theory
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 suggests that these, uh, black holes
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 were formed. Uh. Now
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 nobody's proved anything yet. They've
00:09:29 --> 00:09:30 basically been
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 theoretical entities. Uh, and,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 um, there's been no evidence to suggest
00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 that any of them exist.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 Until now. Yes, uh,
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 where you have, um, a
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 primordial. Perhaps a primordial black
00:09:49 --> 00:09:52 hole being detected with its
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 collision, uh, that
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 essentially can, uh, only be replicated
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 if one of the objects has less than the mass
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 of the sun. Uh, so where
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 does that take us? It takes us
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 straight back to dark matter.
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 Because one of the things that was
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 ruled out in the early days of
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 our understanding of dark matter, this is
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 back in the 19, uh, 70s, late
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 1970s and 1980s, was, uh, black
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 holes. Um, we ruled out black holes because
00:10:25 --> 00:10:27 we thought that they would all have masses
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 much greater than the mass of the sun and
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 that would reveal itself because if you
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 did a survey of, uh, like,
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 um, a survey that was done with
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 the, um, what, what used to be called the
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 50 inch telescope at Matt Stromlo Observatory
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 here in Australia, this was in the 1980s.
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 Um, that telescope, which is a storey in its
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 own right, that we haven't time to go into
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 now. Uh, but that telescope was used for a
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 survey which was called macho. And that's
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 because I remember that, yeah, MACHO
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 is massive compact halo objects. And what it
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 was looking for was evidence that the dark
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 matter might be something solid rather than
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 subatomic particles, which is actually the
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 prevalent theory now. And by solid they
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 meant, um, dwarf planets,
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 rogue planets, uh, um, black
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 holes, things that exist as
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 a compact object that would distort
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 the space around them. So that you'd get
00:11:30 --> 00:11:31 this, what's called gravitational
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 microlensing effect. You'd get a
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 magnification as this thing passed in front
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 of a distant star. You get a magnification of
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 the light from that star, which would be
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 detectable by the MACHO experiment and the
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 50 inch telescope, as it was called.
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 Um, and while one or two
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 of these gravitational microlensing events
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 was found. It was nowhere near enough
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 to be able to use black holes as
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 the basis for dark matter, which is why
00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 interest was lost in the idea that this is
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 solid particles and the whole idea of
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 it being WIMPs, the opposite of machos,
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 WIMPs, weakly interactive massive particles.
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 That's where that all emerged and that's
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 where we are now. Um, most of the
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 world of physics believes that there are some
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 atomic particles that account for
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 the dark matter, which of course reveals
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 itself by its gravitational influence either
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 on the rotation of galaxies or the,
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 um, the movement of galaxies in clusters or
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 indeed the structure of the universe at
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 large. It seems to suggest it's there. So
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 the finding of a primordial, of
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 a less than 1 solar mass black
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 hole, which would have to be probably a
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 primordial black hole, uh, opens up that
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 possibility again. Because if you can find
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 one, there might be gazillions of
00:12:52 --> 00:12:52 them out there.
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 And, uh, we might be, you know,
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 misinterpreting what we're looking for. If
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01 we're not looking for small, uh, black holes,
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 we're actually looking for subatomic
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 particles that maybe don't exist. We have at
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 least one listener to space nuts, uh,
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 whose name is Pete, uh,
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 who doesn't think they exist because he's
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 researching one of the alternative
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 theories, the MOND theory, modified Newtonian
00:13:19 --> 00:13:20 dynamics.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it's really interesting, but, um,
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 it's still kind of a theory, isn't
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 it? I know they've made this detection using
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 ligo, but they have to confirm it
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 by making another detection, don't they?
00:13:35 --> 00:13:37 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yes, you'd want to see more
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 and you'd kind of want to start seeing
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 evidence of other kinds. For example, if
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 you revisited the MACHO experiment and look
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 for the gravitation, the um,
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 gravitational macro ending signal of
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 tiny black holes that were created in the Big
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 Bang, then, uh, that might confirm
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 this and give the, um,
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 idea of primordial black holes
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 being the dark matter. It would give it a
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 much more solid observational basis.
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well, it stands to reason that, uh,
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 if Stephen Hawking says so, it's probably
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 true. Um, but,
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 uh, it wasn't so long ago that you and I were
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 talking about black holes and we were saying,
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 look, there's super massive ones and there's
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 small ones, but there's no in between ones.
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 And I think within a week or two of us having
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 that conversation, they found one and now
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 they've found a bunch. So
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 now we're going even smaller and
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 it could reveal a heck of a lot, um, maybe
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 solve some of those Mysteries that we've been
00:14:42 --> 00:14:45 talking about forever and getting bombarded
00:14:45 --> 00:14:46 with in terms of questions.
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, which is just as well because. Oh
00:14:50 --> 00:14:51 yeah, keeps us, keeps us going.
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 Andrew Dunkley: It does indeed. Ah, fabulous storey. If
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 you'd like to read about it, it's at uh,
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 space daily.com. uh,
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 and um, yeah it's a really fascinating
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 article about a uh, sub solar black hole.
00:15:06 --> 00:15:09 Just uh, change the dark matter debate is the
00:15:09 --> 00:15:12 title of the article. Uh, it is
00:15:12 --> 00:15:13 isn't it? It's a really great read.
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 Professor Fred Watson Watson.
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 Generic: Roger, you're lots three here.
00:15:22 --> 00:15:23 Professor Fred Watson: Also Space Nuts.
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 Andrew Dunkley: Our uh, next storey Fred Watson is just as
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 fascinating because they have done uh, a bit
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 of an analysis of chemical analysis on
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 a planet, an ultra hot Jupiter
00:15:35 --> 00:15:37 and they have made some extraordinary
00:15:37 --> 00:15:38 discoveries.
00:15:39 --> 00:15:42 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, they're, these are um, they're
00:15:42 --> 00:15:43 great discoveries because
00:15:45 --> 00:15:47 the technology and the techniques required
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 to make these are uh, phenomenal in their
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 own right. But um, in a way
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 this discovery should set us all sort of
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 yawning with. Well that's what we thought.
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 Andrew Dunkley: Um, well the previous storey probably too,
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 but it's too big not to make you go
00:16:05 --> 00:16:06 wow.
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, this goes wow too but for
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 slightly different reasons. So um, when,
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 when astrophysicists think about the planets
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 going around other stars, they
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 basically make assumptions about
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 the raw materials that those planets
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 were made of. And, and their
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 assumptions come from measurements
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 of the uh, heavy
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 element content in the parent
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 stars. So if you, if uh,
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 you observe a star, uh, you can use
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 spectroscopy to look at the
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 distribution of elements in its
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 atmosphere. Sometimes molecules as well, if
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 it's a cool star. But usually it's just the
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 atomic elements. And uh, this goes back to
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 the beginnings of astronomical spectroscopy.
00:16:57 --> 00:16:59 The idea of you know, splitting the light up
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 into its rainbow of colours and looking for
00:17:01 --> 00:17:03 the signature of different elements in it.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 That goes back to 1869 I think,
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 um, might even have been 59 when um,
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 William Huggins made the first
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 observations of the spectra of stars.
00:17:15 --> 00:17:17 Um, so Huggins
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 basically said, well we know what the
00:17:20 --> 00:17:23 signature of elements is on Earth. In fact
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 some work done by Kirchhoff and Bunsen before
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 that had worked out what the elements were
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 present in the sun were. Uh, and Huggins
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 did it. You're going to cheque up on me here.
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 Is it 1869 or 1859?
00:17:36 --> 00:17:36 Andrew Dunkley: Um,
00:17:38 --> 00:17:41 186. Well there's a few things
00:17:41 --> 00:17:43 on the list that involved it, but
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 1860s is generally the accepted
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 time frame. Um, yeah,
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 I think he used uh, Doppler shift to measure
00:17:53 --> 00:17:55 the radial velocity of Sirius in
00:17:55 --> 00:17:57 1868. And uh, he
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 specifically identified absorption lines in
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 stellar spectra, including veg in
00:18:03 --> 00:18:04 1863 and 1864.
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah. So, so that, that's
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 not the right time. That's when we've, that's
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 how long we've known about the elements that
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 make up the atmospheres of stars. Most of it
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 is hydrogen. Um, and,
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 but that's what basically what is
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 the raw material or the fuel that makes stars
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 burn or they don't burn but they, they
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 have nuclear fusion which keeps them going.
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 Um, but uh, it's the sprinkling
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 of the other elements that uh,
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 make up the atmosphere of the star and they
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 vary depending on the temperature and
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 category and age of the star. We measure
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 something called metallicity. And you and I
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 have chuckled before about the fact that
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 uh, oxygen's astronomy. Yeah.
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 Astronomers call everything heavier than
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 uh, either hydrogen or helium. Everything
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 else is a metal. Including oxygen. That's
00:18:59 --> 00:19:02 right. And neon and things like that.
00:19:03 --> 00:19:05 Um, it's just a term that came about in
00:19:05 --> 00:19:07 probably about the same time as Huggins was
00:19:07 --> 00:19:10 working on it back in the 19th century.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12 Anyway, um, the metallicity is a measurement
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 of the richness in terms of the chemical
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 elements that are in the atmosphere of a
00:19:17 --> 00:19:20 star. And so the
00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 assumption has always been that if
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 you know, a star generates its own
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 solar system and that process takes place
00:19:28 --> 00:19:31 simultaneously, the cloud of gas and
00:19:31 --> 00:19:34 dust collapses into a star, uh,
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 which eventually heats up to the extent that
00:19:37 --> 00:19:39 it. Nuclear fusion occurs as
00:19:39 --> 00:19:42 it is with the sun. Uh, but the swirling
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 disc of material around it called the uh, the
00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 protoplanetary disc, that stuff is where the
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 planets form. But the planets are basically
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 made of the same stuff as the star is.
00:19:53 --> 00:19:55 That's the bottom line. So that's always been
00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 the assumption that if we're observing
00:19:57 --> 00:20:00 planets around other stars they must have the
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 same content. And that's in
00:20:02 --> 00:20:04 terms of whether these planets are going to
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06 be rocky or not. If you got lots of silicate
00:20:06 --> 00:20:09 material, uh, in it, that would have come
00:20:09 --> 00:20:11 from the silicon in the atmosphere of the
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 star. So all these things are inter layered.
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 Um, so that assumption has never been tested
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 until now. And that's why, that's
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 why this is a wow storey, uh, because uh,
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25 this uh, is some observations
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 uh, of exactly as you've said, um, super
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 hot Jupiter. Uh, it
00:20:32 --> 00:20:35 is uh, or an ultra hot Jupiter is
00:20:35 --> 00:20:37 the technical term usually um,
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 abbreviated to uhj. So
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 uh, that's a great new term for us. An
00:20:42 --> 00:20:45 acronym, an urge. An ultra hot
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 Jupiter. Uh, it's about 320 light
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 years away. It is called WASP
00:20:50 --> 00:20:53 189B. WASP is I think the wide angle
00:20:53 --> 00:20:56 search for planets if I remember rightly. Uh,
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 and um, it's um, because it's an ultra
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 Jupiter, um, the
00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 temperature of its atmosphere is
00:21:05 --> 00:21:08 ridiculously hot. Uh, you know it's measured
00:21:08 --> 00:21:11 in thousands of degrees and that means
00:21:11 --> 00:21:14 that the materials within it
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 ah, are vaporised, particularly
00:21:17 --> 00:21:20 the rock forming elements like
00:21:20 --> 00:21:22 magnesium, silicon, iron
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 and um, probably calcium and a few other
00:21:25 --> 00:21:28 things as well. They're the things that make
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 up um, rocks if they're
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 cold, uh, but
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 this one has them in its atmosphere. And the
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 key point about this storey which
00:21:39 --> 00:21:42 was led uh, from Arizona State University
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 along with an international team of
00:21:44 --> 00:21:47 astronomers. The key point is
00:21:47 --> 00:21:50 that the chemical makeup
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 of WASP18B exactly
00:21:53 --> 00:21:56 matches its parent star. Uh, um,
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59 and that is really you know, that's a kind of
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 smoking gun that tells us that we're on the
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 right track when we uh, when
00:22:05 --> 00:22:08 we make the assumption that the material
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 in a planet around the other star,
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 the material of which that planet is made
00:22:13 --> 00:22:15 will have the same, what we call chemical
00:22:15 --> 00:22:18 abundances, the ratios of the, of
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 the different chemical elements to its parent
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23 star. Which is important
00:22:23 --> 00:22:25 information because it means we're on the
00:22:25 --> 00:22:26 right track basically.
00:22:27 --> 00:22:28 Andrew Dunkley: I'm going to ask the obvious dumb question
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 here though. Um, so we've discovered this
00:22:32 --> 00:22:34 thousands um, of light years away with WASP
00:22:34 --> 00:22:37 189B. Why didn't we know
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 that in regard to our own sun and Earth?
00:22:41 --> 00:22:44 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yeah, well we do, um, okay,
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46 that's a good question. We do, um, and
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 so but it's never been tested for
00:22:50 --> 00:22:52 what you might call the general case. And an
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 ultra hot Jupiter is so different from
00:22:54 --> 00:22:57 anything in the solar system that it's
00:22:57 --> 00:23:00 reassuring that you get the same answer
00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 from that as we do from our own solar
00:23:03 --> 00:23:04 system. That's a great question.
00:23:04 --> 00:23:07 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Uh, this um, particular
00:23:07 --> 00:23:09 planet is uh, double the size of
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 Jupiter. It's 1.99
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 planetary masses. Um, when you compare
00:23:15 --> 00:23:18 it to Jupiter um, it was only
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 discovered five, six years ago.
00:23:21 --> 00:23:24 So um, it's a new one. Um,
00:23:24 --> 00:23:27 but it's um, 1 times
00:23:28 --> 00:23:30 bigger than Jupiter in terms of its radius.
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 So it's a big, it's a monster, isn't it?
00:23:34 --> 00:23:35 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yes it is.
00:23:37 --> 00:23:40 Some of the planets that we find orbiting
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 other stars are pretty crazy.
00:23:42 --> 00:23:44 Andrew Dunkley: I said thousands of light years. It's 320.
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, 300, that's right.
00:23:47 --> 00:23:49 That's okay, we'll let you off that.
00:23:49 --> 00:23:49 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah,
00:23:51 --> 00:23:54 I'm not quite with it today. I
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56 don't know how that's different from any
00:23:56 --> 00:23:56 other day.
00:23:56 --> 00:23:59 Professor Fred Watson: But um, well funnily enough neither
00:23:59 --> 00:24:02 am I because I can only hear through one ear
00:24:02 --> 00:24:05 at the moment. Uh, I
00:24:05 --> 00:24:06 hate that. Yeah.
00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 Andrew Dunkley: One of the pitfalls of radio is you, you
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 build up a lot of earwax fast and if you
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 don't keep up up cleaning you go
00:24:14 --> 00:24:17 deaf and then you have to go to the doctor
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 and get syringed. It's not very pleasant.
00:24:20 --> 00:24:22 Uh, I'm sure people really wanted to hear
00:24:22 --> 00:24:22 that.
00:24:22 --> 00:24:23 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right.
00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 I'm thinking that. But you know the stuff
00:24:25 --> 00:24:28 that comes out of your ear is, has the same
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 chemical mix as the stuff that's
00:24:31 --> 00:24:34 inside the sun in some remote way.
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36 So I'm sure there is a link with astronomy.
00:24:37 --> 00:24:38 Oh gosh.
00:24:38 --> 00:24:39 Andrew Dunkley: Um, the article, if you want to read it
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 it's@scitechdaily.com where you can read the
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 paper in Nature Communications.
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47 This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
00:24:47 --> 00:24:49 Professor Fred Watson Watson.
00:24:51 --> 00:24:53 We choose to go to the Moon
00:24:53 --> 00:24:55 Professor Fred Watson: in this decade and do the other
00:24:55 --> 00:24:58 Andrew Dunkley: things not because they are easy but
00:24:58 --> 00:25:00 because they are hard Space nuts.
00:25:01 --> 00:25:03 And we are going to the Moon right now
00:25:03 --> 00:25:05 because something happened. It got hit by a
00:25:05 --> 00:25:08 big rock and it's
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 created massive
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 crater. I mean this is a, this is a very
00:25:13 --> 00:25:14 recent development Fred Watson.
00:25:15 --> 00:25:18 Professor Fred Watson: Yes it is. Uh, it's um, one
00:25:18 --> 00:25:20 that comes uh, about or a discovery that
00:25:20 --> 00:25:23 comes about because of our ability uh,
00:25:23 --> 00:25:26 to detect changes on the Moon given ah,
00:25:26 --> 00:25:29 that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
00:25:29 --> 00:25:31 ah, uh, is
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 still photographing the lunar surface and
00:25:35 --> 00:25:36 it's been doing that. I can't remember when
00:25:37 --> 00:25:39 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was uh,
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 commissioned, uh, when it came on stream, but
00:25:42 --> 00:25:44 it's quite a few years ago. It's probably a
00:25:44 --> 00:25:46 decade ago now. I'm sure you'll tell me in a
00:25:46 --> 00:25:49 minute. Um, LRO
00:25:49 --> 00:25:52 as it's called. And because it's doing this
00:25:52 --> 00:25:54 sort of continuous survey we can
00:25:54 --> 00:25:57 see when something changes. And
00:25:57 --> 00:26:00 in the late northern uh hemisphere spring
00:26:00 --> 00:26:03 of 2024 uh something did
00:26:03 --> 00:26:06 change. Uh, a rock, um,
00:26:06 --> 00:26:08 probably several metres
00:26:09 --> 00:26:12 in diameter, maybe even tens of
00:26:12 --> 00:26:15 metres, um, uh, hit the
00:26:15 --> 00:26:17 moon and produced a crater
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 225 metres across uh
00:26:20 --> 00:26:23 on the surface of the Moon. Um,
00:26:23 --> 00:26:26 and that is something that
00:26:26 --> 00:26:28 we know happens. We expect this to happen
00:26:28 --> 00:26:31 because we get bombardment by
00:26:31 --> 00:26:33 objects that size of the Earth's atmosphere.
00:26:33 --> 00:26:35 They're relatively, relatively rare.
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 Something like um, you know it will
00:26:38 --> 00:26:41 be once every 30 years or so for a 10
00:26:41 --> 00:26:43 metre object to uh, hit the
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 Earth's atmosphere. Probably explode in the
00:26:45 --> 00:26:47 Earth's atmosphere. But with the Moon not
00:26:47 --> 00:26:49 having an Atmosphere go straight down to the
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 surface and what do you get? You get a
00:26:51 --> 00:26:53 crater. Um, and it's
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 apparently, uh, this is by far
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59 the largest new crater that's
00:26:59 --> 00:27:01 been found during the lifetime of the Lunar
00:27:01 --> 00:27:03 Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission. The last
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06 record was 70 metres across. This one's
00:27:06 --> 00:27:09 much more. Yes, and suggests, um,
00:27:09 --> 00:27:12 that, that this is a much rarer object. And
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 one of the reasons I, I like this storey,
00:27:15 --> 00:27:17 Andrew, is that it has echoes of something
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 we've just heard about this last week.
00:27:20 --> 00:27:23 Andrew Dunkley: The meteorite flashes that the
00:27:23 --> 00:27:24 Artemis crew saw.
00:27:24 --> 00:27:25 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, exactly.
00:27:25 --> 00:27:26 Andrew Dunkley: They saw things hitting the moon.
00:27:27 --> 00:27:30 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, indeed. And they saw these flashes that,
00:27:30 --> 00:27:32 um. And that's what they are. And so, um,
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34 this one would have been a very big flash.
00:27:34 --> 00:27:36 Uh, I'm not sure whereabouts on the moon it
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 is as to was on the Earth, uh,
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42 facing side of the moon or not. Uh, but
00:27:42 --> 00:27:45 it made, certainly made. It would have made
00:27:45 --> 00:27:47 quite a bright flash. Uh, and
00:27:47 --> 00:27:50 you know, we've known for more than, well,
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53 60 years, uh, that these things do happen.
00:27:53 --> 00:27:55 It took a while before people worked out
00:27:55 --> 00:27:58 that, uh, and before the Apollo era, that
00:27:58 --> 00:27:59 people worked out that these were caused by
00:27:59 --> 00:28:02 impacts rather than, uh, rather than by
00:28:02 --> 00:28:04 volcanic activity. I remember old Patrick
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06 Moore, the doyen of space communicators in,
00:28:06 --> 00:28:09 in the uk. I, um, remember him.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:12 In fact, one of the things he did research on
00:28:12 --> 00:28:14 was what he called TLES, transient lunar
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 events. But nobody knew back in the 40s and
00:28:17 --> 00:28:20 50s whether these were volcanic eruptions or,
00:28:20 --> 00:28:23 uh, meteorite impacts. Now we know and,
00:28:23 --> 00:28:25 um, we've almost seen them happen before our
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 eyes with this newly discovered crater.
00:28:28 --> 00:28:31 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, and It's a whopper, 225 metres
00:28:32 --> 00:28:34 across. So, um.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:38 Yeah, and I suppose you could have a guess at
00:28:38 --> 00:28:39 how big the rock that hit it was, what, 10
00:28:39 --> 00:28:40 metres, you think?
00:28:40 --> 00:28:42 Professor Fred Watson: Maybe something. Yeah, yeah, that sort of
00:28:42 --> 00:28:43 order.
00:28:43 --> 00:28:44 Andrew Dunkley: And, and would that rock still be on the moon
00:28:44 --> 00:28:46 or did it get obliterated? Because it gets
00:28:46 --> 00:28:48 really hot, the impact, it just melts
00:28:48 --> 00:28:50 everything and then it freezes instantly or
00:28:50 --> 00:28:50 something, doesn't it?
00:28:50 --> 00:28:53 Professor Fred Watson: That's, that's right. Vaporised. It would
00:28:53 --> 00:28:54 have been vaporised. Right. The energy of
00:28:54 --> 00:28:57 impact, um, you know, this is coming in at 30
00:28:57 --> 00:28:59 or 40 kilometres per second.
00:29:00 --> 00:29:02 Um, and when it hits rock, I mean, we know
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 from simulations of these meteorites,
00:29:05 --> 00:29:08 uh, small asteroid impact on Earth, that
00:29:08 --> 00:29:10 the crust, uh,
00:29:11 --> 00:29:14 turns literally into a liquid, uh, behaves
00:29:14 --> 00:29:16 like a liquid. Um, I've got a simulation that
00:29:16 --> 00:29:19 I showed on yesterday to a class of physics
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21 students at the University of Wollongong, uh,
00:29:22 --> 00:29:25 um, online. Um, it's a Simulation that shows
00:29:25 --> 00:29:26 what would have happened to the Earth's
00:29:26 --> 00:29:29 surface with the, uh, 10 kilometre
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31 diameter asteroid that took out the
00:29:31 --> 00:29:34 dinosaurs. And it. In, you know,
00:29:34 --> 00:29:35 you got within the first
00:29:36 --> 00:29:39 60 seconds, you've, you've got both
00:29:39 --> 00:29:42 a hole 20 kilometres deep
00:29:42 --> 00:29:45 and a mountain range 20 kilometres high
00:29:45 --> 00:29:48 being formed within the first few seconds.
00:29:48 --> 00:29:49 Andrew Dunkley: Just mind blowing.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. And so, um, yes,
00:29:52 --> 00:29:54 this, this new crater, in fact one of the
00:29:55 --> 00:29:58 salient points about it is it's quite, it
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00 is actually quite deep. It's 43 metres deep.
00:30:01 --> 00:30:04 Um, the, there's a nice article about this in
00:30:04 --> 00:30:07 Universe Today that makes the point that
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09 40, um, three metres deep, that means the
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 walls of the crater would be steep enough
00:30:12 --> 00:30:15 that you'd struggle to stand on them. Um, and
00:30:15 --> 00:30:18 so, um, uh, it's got, uh, yes,
00:30:19 --> 00:30:21 quite a significantly deep object.
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 Andrew Dunkley: Indeed it is, yes. Um, and as
00:30:24 --> 00:30:25 Fred Watson said, you can read about
00:30:25 --> 00:30:28 that@universetoday.com and for the
00:30:28 --> 00:30:31 record, uh, the, uh, Lunar
00:30:31 --> 00:30:33 Reconnaissance Orbiter started observing the
00:30:33 --> 00:30:35 moon close in 2009.
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38 Professor Fred Watson: Really? 16, 17 years.
00:30:39 --> 00:30:39 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
00:30:39 --> 00:30:40 Professor Fred Watson: Fantastic.
00:30:40 --> 00:30:41 Andrew Dunkley: It's impressive.
00:30:42 --> 00:30:45 All right, uh, that brings us to the end of
00:30:45 --> 00:30:47 the programme. Fred Watson, thank you so
00:30:47 --> 00:30:47 much.
00:30:48 --> 00:30:50 Professor Fred Watson: Time flies when you're having fun does,
00:30:50 --> 00:30:51 doesn't it?
00:30:52 --> 00:30:54 Andrew Dunkley: We'll be back. We'll be back and we'll see
00:30:54 --> 00:30:54 you then.
00:30:55 --> 00:30:56 Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great. Thanks, Andrew.
00:30:56 --> 00:30:58 Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Fred Watson. Professor Fred Watson
00:30:58 --> 00:31:00 Watson, astronomer at large. Don't forget to
00:31:00 --> 00:31:01 visit us online while you're out and about or
00:31:01 --> 00:31:03 listening to us, um, at our website,
00:31:03 --> 00:31:06 spacenutspodcast.com spacenuts
00:31:06 --> 00:31:09 IO the AMA tab is there to
00:31:09 --> 00:31:12 ask us anything. It says ask me anything,
00:31:12 --> 00:31:15 but don't bother asking me, but ask, um, me
00:31:15 --> 00:31:17 anything. And, uh, you can send messages.
00:31:18 --> 00:31:20 You can, um, uh, send
00:31:20 --> 00:31:23 questions, audio or text. Don't forget to
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00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 we'll fix them up, uh, in our Q and A
00:31:28 --> 00:31:30 episodes. And, uh, while you're there, have a
00:31:30 --> 00:31:32 look around. Visit the Space Nuts shop.
00:31:32 --> 00:31:34 There's lots of goodies in there. It's coming
00:31:34 --> 00:31:37 on to winter in Australia, so you might need
00:31:37 --> 00:31:39 yourself a hoodie. I mean, you can look like
00:31:39 --> 00:31:41 a thug and be an astronomer at the same time.
00:31:42 --> 00:31:44 Fred Watson does. And, um.
00:31:47 --> 00:31:48 Damn, I should.
00:31:48 --> 00:31:48 Professor Fred Watson: No.
00:31:48 --> 00:31:51 Andrew Dunkley: I usually have a crack at Huw, but he's not
00:31:51 --> 00:31:53 an astronomer. Um, but yeah. And thanks to
00:31:53 --> 00:31:55 Huw in the studio, who couldn't be with us
00:31:55 --> 00:31:57 today, he's once again in police custody
00:31:57 --> 00:32:00 because they found a giant. A giant,
00:32:01 --> 00:32:03 I'm saying, slingshot in his backyard, aimed
00:32:03 --> 00:32:06 at the moon. Oh. Oh,
00:32:06 --> 00:32:08 yeah. And from me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for
00:32:08 --> 00:32:10 your company. We'll see you on the next
00:32:10 --> 00:32:12 episode of Space Nuts. Bye. Bye.
00:32:13 --> 00:32:15 You've been listening to the Space Nuts
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00:32:27 --> 00:32:29 Professor Fred Watson: has been another quality podcast production
00:32:29 --> 00:32:31 from bytes.com.