Cosmic Queries: Tides, Meteor Showers, and the Goldilocks Zone
In this enlightening Q&A episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson dive into a series of thought-provoking questions submitted by listeners. From the gravitational effects of the moon to the dynamics of meteor showers and the concept of the Goldilocks Zone, this episode is a treasure trove of astronomical insights.
Episode Highlights:
- Moon's Gravitational Pull: Listener Ash asks why the moon's gravity affects ocean tides so drastically but not humans. Fred explains the difference in gravitational pull across the Earth, emphasizing that while we do experience slight shifts, our size prevents us from feeling the same tidal effects as the oceans.
- Scheduled Observations in Astronomy: Ben's audio question prompts a discussion on whether certain astronomical observations are immune to interruptions. Fred shares insights on time-sensitive observations like occultations, which are crucial for understanding celestial bodies.
- Meteor Showers Explained: David and Brian ponder why we experience annual meteor showers and how the Earth interacts with comet debris. Fred clarifies that comets leave trails of dust, and as the Earth passes through these trails, we witness spectacular meteor showers without depleting the debris.
- The Goldilocks Zone: Lou wonders if the Goldilocks Zone applies to all life in the universe. Fred discusses its significance for Earth-like life and explores the possibility of life forms existing in extreme conditions, such as those found on Titan, Saturn's moon.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another episode of space
00:00:02 --> 00:00:03 nuts.
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
00:00:17 --> 00:00:18 report. It feels good.
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 Heidi Campo: This will be a Q A episode where you, the
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 listeners, have written in your questions and
00:00:25 --> 00:00:27 we will answer them for you.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 I am your host, Heidi Campo, joining you
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 for possibly my last episode.
00:00:33 --> 00:00:36 We don't know quite yet. Andrew might be back
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 next week, but if he's not, then
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 I'll be back and I will say goodbye again.
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 But until then, we still have, um, for now
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 and the foreseeable future, we have our
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 beloved professor Fred Watson, astronomer at
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 large. How are you doing, Fred?
00:00:52 --> 00:00:54 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, good to see you again, Heidi, as
00:00:54 --> 00:00:56 always. And, um, yes, this could be the
00:00:56 --> 00:00:59 longest goodbye ever. Couldn't it really? It
00:00:59 --> 00:01:00 could go on for weeks.
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 Heidi Campo: It's like when you, uh, are parting ways with
00:01:03 --> 00:01:04 someone, you say goodbye and then you realize
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 you're walking the same direction.
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I know. Yeah. I do that
00:01:08 --> 00:01:09 all the time.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:11 Heidi Campo: And then I never quite know. It's like, well,
00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 do I keep talking to them? Do I say goodbye
00:01:13 --> 00:01:14 again? Do I pretend they're not there?
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 I usually end up commentating and narrating
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 the whole thing to make it more awkward.
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 Um, well, anyways, let's just jump into
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 our questions because you guys have some
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 really fantastic questions, as always, which
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 we appreciate. Our first question of the
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 evening is a written question from John
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 Kerr. And John says,
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 hey, space nutters. This dilemma is driving
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 me nuts. If the moon's gravitational
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 pull has such an effect on our Ocean's
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 tides, for example, a, uh, 30 centimeter
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 rise in tidal waters twice a day, that's a
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 lift of 300 kg worth of water per
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 meter square. Why doesn't the moon's gravity
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 affect us as drastically as the
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 oceans? I will sleep better once resolved
00:02:02 --> 00:02:03 with. Thanks.
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 Oh, so I have so much. I have so much. I feel
00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 like I could say about this one too. But
00:02:09 --> 00:02:10 please get Fred.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:12 Professor Fred Watson: You might give a better answer than me,
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 Heidi. Um,
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 so it. Yes, well, it does. The
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 moon's gravity does affect us as drastically
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 as the oceans because we go up and down with
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 the oceans. Uh, in fact, the land itself
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 goes up and down slightly. If I remember.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 It's about a foot or something. Oceans
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 sometimes go, uh, much, much more
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 than that. Um, that 30 centimeter that
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 John mentions. Uh, you know, sometimes it's
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 many, many meters. So what's, um,
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 happening here? It's. The critical
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 feature of tides is that they
00:02:48 --> 00:02:51 are caused because of the
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 difference in the gravitational pull
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 of a body like the moon. And let's just think
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 about the moon and the Earth. Uh,
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 it's a difference between the moon's pull on
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 one side of the earth and the other side
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 of the Earth. So tides are all about
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 the difference in the gravitational pull of
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 an object, uh, across the diameter of
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 another object, a big object, and that's the
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 Earth. And so, um, the reason why our
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 bodies don't stretch and shrink is that we're
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 only, you know, we're only a couple of meters
00:03:25 --> 00:03:27 tall. Uh, actually my son's a two meters
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 tall, but that's quite tall. All right, one
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 and a half meters tall. But we're certainly
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 not, uh, tens of thousands of kilometers,
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 uh, which is what you need for the
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 gravitational effect to be noticeable,
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 um, as it is with the ocean tides. So
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 we don't get stretched and um,
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 shrunk. We would if we were near a black
00:03:47 --> 00:03:48 hole. That's the principle of
00:03:48 --> 00:03:51 spaghettification. It's when your feet feel a
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 higher gravitational pull than your head head
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 and you get turned into spaghetti. Uh, that's
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 a uh, tidal effect, uh, an extreme
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 tidal effect. But um, you need
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 something very peculiar like a black hole to
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 notice that. So for, ah, an
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 object like the moon, we simply just go up
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 and down with the oceans. If we're on the
00:04:11 --> 00:04:12 ocean, we go up and down with the land if
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 we're on the land. But we don't get stretched
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 and shrunk because we're too small.
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 I hope he's Jonas. I hope you sleep better
00:04:20 --> 00:04:20 after that.
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 Heidi Campo: Well, maybe I'll scare him because I was
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 gonna say, but it does affect us
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 a little bit. Not like the oceans at all.
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 But the human body is roughly
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 60% water and every cell in our body is
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 roughly 70 to 80% water. Now
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 what I'm about to say next is not something
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 I'm looking at a science review for. It's
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 more anecdotal. But, um,
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 nurses will all stay like often
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 say that there is way more um,
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 emergency room activity on a full moon.
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 Police officers will say that people are
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 crazier on a full moon. And there's a lot
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 of lore around women's cycles
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 aligning, ah, with moon cycles. Um,
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 more women go into labor and give birth
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 around the moon cycles. And
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 historically there is a lot of
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 um, I guess stories
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 about personality around moons. You
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 think of werewolf stories. So humans do. We
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 are affected by the moon to some degree. And
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 that would be an interesting, probably
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 further research. And I'm sure there's whole
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 departments dedicated to the
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 psychobiological effects of humans and the
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 moon. But it is interesting. So no we're not
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 affected like the oceans but there is
00:05:40 --> 00:05:41 some, something to that.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:43 Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. Yeah. And you, you, you're quite
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 right. You know this natural cycles that
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 align with um, with the moon and,
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 and it's not just humans as well with things
00:05:51 --> 00:05:53 like coral spawning that's um, very much tied
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 to lunar phases. Uh and some of that's
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 not very well understood. Uh, but uh, I think
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 the thrust of, of John's question is
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 why, why aren't we being stretched and shrunk
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 like the oceans are? Uh, perhaps I've got it
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 wrong. But anyway that's the answer. Um, and
00:06:10 --> 00:06:10 I agree.
00:06:16 --> 00:06:17 Ben: Space nuts.
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 Heidi Campo: Our next question is an audio
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 question from Ben. Uh, with our
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 audio questions. We like to cue those up so
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 you the listeners can hear their question as
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 well. I'm just going to give Fred a second to
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 get his question ready as well and we are
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 going to play Ben's question for you now.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 Ben: Hey guys, uh, it is Ben.
00:06:38 --> 00:06:40 Um, American, living in Mexico.
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 Um, thanks for answering my last question
00:06:43 --> 00:06:46 about how observatories interrupt
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 their observing schedules to deal with
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 transient events. And I've just got a follow
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 up question. Are there any,
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 any um, scheduled observing
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 things that uh, might be immune to these
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 sorts of interruptions? Um,
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 I know sometimes uh, there are time sensitive
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 observations of uh, like
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 transits or something um, that
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 astronomers use to determine shapes of ah,
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 objects and stuff like that that uh, need to
00:07:17 --> 00:07:18 occur at a specific time. So I was thinking
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 maybe those are something that wouldn't be
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 interrupted. Um, but yeah, that's
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 my question. Thanks, loving the show.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:26 Voice Over Guy: Bye.
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 Professor Fred Watson: That's a great question from Ben. Uh, and
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 Ben's absolutely right and he's actually
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 um, highlighted at least one of the uh,
00:07:36 --> 00:07:37 the reasons why you wouldn't interrupt
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 observ. So um, his original question
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 was about what we might call target
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 of opportunity observations where uh,
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 an observer on the telescope would
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 stand aside if there was something
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 like a supernova explosion, uh, that
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 needed the same instrument uh to
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 observe it to give us something that was only
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 going to last for a very short time. And that
00:08:02 --> 00:08:05 happens a lot. Um, the, the,
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 perhaps the best known of those was back
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 in 1987 which I remember very well when
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 that was the last time a naked eye
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 supernova uh, went off in our skies
00:08:17 --> 00:08:18 down here in the southern hemisphere. It was
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, our nearest
00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 uh, dwarf large dwarf galaxy.
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 Uh, it was visible to the unaided eye first
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 for 400 years. Uh and of course
00:08:29 --> 00:08:31 the Telescope, our telescope was only 10
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 years old then. It was state of the art and
00:08:34 --> 00:08:35 pretty well everything was pushed off for
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 observations of this, of this object.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 Um, but um, it
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 is usually um, you
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 know, it's not usually uh,
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 an event, uh, where there will
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 be a conflict between the scheduled
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 observer and the person who was
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 requiring the target of opportunity
00:08:58 --> 00:09:01 observations. It's uh, usually the
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 scheduled observer would have uh, uh,
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 had an understanding at the outset that
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 uh, they might need to stand by and um,
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 let somebody else take over the telescope for
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 the purpose of whatever their observations
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 are. However, uh, Ben's
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 absolutely right. There are some observations
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 which are scheduled which themselves are time
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 critical. And so you would rule
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 out the telescope being taken over
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 uh, for those events. Uh, one I was
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 involved with, um, because I was astronomer
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 in charge of the telescope at the time. And
00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 this is probably 10 years ago there was an
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 occultation of Pluto.
00:09:42 --> 00:09:45 Um, so what that means is
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 uh, actually it was an occultation of a star
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 by Pluto. What that means is Pluto passed in
00:09:50 --> 00:09:53 front of a distant star, uh, and
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 we could observe the brightness of the star.
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 And what we wanted to do was
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 look uh, at the way the star's
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 light um, diminished uh, as
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 it passed through Pluto's atmosphere. This
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 actually it was before um, New Horizons
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 flew by Pluto in 2015.
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 So we didn't really know much about Pluto's
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 atmosphere. It's very thin, very tenuous. But
00:10:17 --> 00:10:18 the observations that were made actually
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 allowed us to um, you know, form
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 details of it. In particular that it's quite
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 layered. It's not a smooth, smoothly changing
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 distribution. So that was very much a time
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 critical observation. And you would not get
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 uh, even if there'd been a bright supernova
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 uh, in the sky that night, it probably would
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 not have taken over the telescope. I think it
00:10:39 --> 00:10:40 would have, uh, the occultation
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 by uh, Pluto would have been, would have been
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 the thing. And as uh, exactly as Ben says,
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 occultations are when an object passes in
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 front of a star usually or another object.
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 Uh, but it's a way of allowing us to work out
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 the shapes of asteroids and things of that
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 sort if they pass in front of a star. So
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 that's really quite, quite important
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 observations and very much time critical in
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 themselves. So you wouldn't want them to be
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 taken over by others. But it's a great
00:11:08 --> 00:11:08 question.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 Heidi Campo: It was a really interesting one. Yeah, it
00:11:11 --> 00:11:12 kind of gives us the inner workings of
00:11:12 --> 00:11:13 astronomy.
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 Our next question, um, I'm actually going to
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 read two questions because they are
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 similar, but we want to get both
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 questions perspectives. So the first one
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 we're going to read is from David and
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 David says hello Heidi and Fred. My
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 question is regarding meteor showers and why
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 we keep seeing them annually. If meteor
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 showers such as Persidius occur
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 when the Earth passes through the debris left
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 behind by comets as they orbit the
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 sun, what prevents the Earth from clearing
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 the debris from our orbital path after
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 the first pass, leaving our orbit free of
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 debris until the next comet pass, uh, uh,
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 next comet comes past. Cheers
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 Dave. And then we have
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 Brian with his question which is similar.
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 And then Brian says, can you explain the
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 orbital dynamics associated with annual
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 meteor showers? We orbit the sun, but
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 the whole solar system is rotating around the
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 Milky Way, which itself is moving. So
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 is the comet trail in a static stripe of
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 debris which we bisect on the same
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 point in our orbit total in our orbit each
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 year or is it in the orbit
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 of the sun or a galactic
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 center or other? If it's in our
00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 solar orbit, why do we catch up with it? And
00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 why don't we effectively leave a hole in the
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 debris diminishing the meteors every year
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 from the dark state, uh, from the dark
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 stars. North Yorkshire Moons
00:12:50 --> 00:12:51 National Park.
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, the national, It's North Yorkshire, um,
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 Moors National Park. It's a place I know well
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 in fact, uh, in the north of England and
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 they do have dark sky, dark stars. Uh, this
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 is from Brian there. I wonder whether Brian
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 knows my friend Paul Cass who also works at
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 the North Yorkshire Moors Dark Sky
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 Park. Anyway, that's a different uh, aspect
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 of all this Heidi. Um, and I might mention
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 that um, they've uh. Dave who
00:13:19 --> 00:13:19 had.
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 The other question was from, from Inverell
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 here in New South Wales. So a question from
00:13:23 --> 00:13:25 the UK and a question from Australia, both
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 effectively asking the same thing which I
00:13:27 --> 00:13:30 thought was uh, worth while bringing
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 these two people together. So yes,
00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 the, the bottom line is, and you've got to
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 sort of think of it in three dimensions, um,
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 it is to do with the orbits of
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 comets. Uh, a uh, comet
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 moves in a usually a very elongated
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 orbit. Um, and the sun is um, one
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 end of um, uh, passes close to
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 the sun and then disappears into the depths
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 of the solar system. Uh, when it gets near
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 the sun, uh, the comet starts
00:14:00 --> 00:14:03 basically projecting dust, uh,
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 and that dust trail remains within
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 the comet's orbit. And so those dust
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 particles are sort of moving with the
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 comet. They're um, moving in the orbit as
00:14:14 --> 00:14:15 well. But they smear out because they've got
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 their own uh, motion. And so
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 essentially ah, a comet leaves a trail of
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24 dust exactly in its orbit and
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 if that orbit intersects the Earth's orbit,
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 then the Earth will pass through the trail of
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 dust. And that's exactly what it does. And
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 when that happens, that's when we get a
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 meteor shower. But the reason why,
00:14:37 --> 00:14:39 um, you know, it doesn't soak up all the dust
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 as it goes through is because that dust
00:14:42 --> 00:14:45 itself is moving. Uh, and, um,
00:14:45 --> 00:14:48 it's not just a single dust cloud that you're
00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 punching a hole in. The dust is a stream of
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 stuff that's moving through space with the
00:14:53 --> 00:14:55 same velocity, more or less as the comet had.
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 Uh, and so what you've got is a region of
00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 space that's rich in dust, but it's being
00:15:00 --> 00:15:03 replenished, um, by the motion of the
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 particles. So, yes, the Earth plows through,
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 uh, doesn't really make a hole in it because,
00:15:09 --> 00:15:12 you know, we only sweep up,
00:15:12 --> 00:15:14 um, 12 km diameter
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 worth of it, because that's the Earth's
00:15:17 --> 00:15:20 diameter. Um, and the dust stream might
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 be many, uh, tens of thousands
00:15:23 --> 00:15:25 and perhaps even millions of kilometers, uh,
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 wide. Maybe not millions, but certainly
00:15:28 --> 00:15:31 tens, hundreds of thousands, possibly.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 So you've got a wide trail of dust that is
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 a reservoir for the Earth to
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 sweep up and see the meteor showers. So
00:15:40 --> 00:15:41 it's constantly being replenish. That's the
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 bottom line. Uh, and hopefully that's the
00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 answer to both those gentlemen's questions.
00:15:47 --> 00:15:47 Voice Over Guy: Oh.
00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 Heidi Campo: Ah, that is fantastic, Fred.
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 Generic: Okay, we checked all four systems, and.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 Heidi Campo: Being with a girl, space nuts, I'm getting
00:15:56 --> 00:15:56 sad.
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 I'm gonna do my last question now. Unless.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 Unless I'm back next week. We will see.
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 So backstory for. For um, those of you who
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 might be new listeners, our regular host,
00:16:06 --> 00:16:07 Andrew. He's been on a cruise around the
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 world and he's back now, but he
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 has quite the conundrum. Uh,
00:16:14 --> 00:16:16 getting settled back in. We'll let him tell
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 you all that story and him and Fred get
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 caught up when. When he is back. But he's had
00:16:21 --> 00:16:22 quite an exciting time.
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 All right, so our last question is. Excuse
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 me. An audio question from Lou.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 Voice Over Guy: Hello, Heidi, and, um, Fred. My name is Noah
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 from Manchester, England. I'm asking
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 question about the Goldilocks Zone. The
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 Goldilocks Zone is only habitable for
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 life on, uh, Earth. For estrus rescues,
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 however, they might need to exist at the very
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 edge of the solar system or at the very
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 center of it. Is the Goldilocks Zone nearly
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 compatible for all life in the universe? Love
00:16:52 --> 00:16:53 the podcast. Hope you keep making more.
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 Professor Fred Watson: Lovely question from Lou. Um, Manchester,
00:16:57 --> 00:16:59 again, a place I know well. I grew up not
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 very far from Manchester in the north of
00:17:01 --> 00:17:03 England. So this has been a bit of, a, bit of
00:17:03 --> 00:17:06 a nostalgia segment for me. Um, but the
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 great question, uh, you know, is the, is
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 the Goldilocks Zone applicable to all
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 extraterrestrial life? And I think the answer
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 is no. Uh, because
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 we, when we talk about the Goldilocks Zone,
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 it's that region surrounding a star where
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 the temperature is not too hot and it's not
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 too cold, but it's just right for, for life
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 to exist. It's why it's called the Goldilocks
00:17:32 --> 00:17:33 Zone. I've got a feeling it was a colleague
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 of mine who coined that expression as well. A
00:17:36 --> 00:17:38 long, long, um, uh,
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 it relies on the fact
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 that we are, ah, beings. In
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47 fact, all life on Earth is
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 uh, based uh, on water. We use water
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 as our working fluid. Uh,
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 as you mentioned, um, in our question on
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 tides, Heidi, most of our bodies are made of
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 water. Uh, and the same is
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 true of most living organisms. Uh, water
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 is a large part of it. And so
00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 liquid, uh, water is for us,
00:18:12 --> 00:18:12 uh, the,
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 perhaps the strongest feature that
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 um, might be used
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 as an indicator of where life might form. If
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 you've got water, maybe you will have life.
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 That's always been the mantra. Follow the
00:18:29 --> 00:18:32 water. Um, so the
00:18:32 --> 00:18:35 Goldilocks Zone is where you could put a
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 planet and it would be capable of having
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39 liquid water on its surface. Not frozen, not
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 vapor, but liquid, which is what we need.
00:18:42 --> 00:18:45 So it's very specific is the Goldilocks Zone
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 to um, life forms that are like
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 ourselves, that are based on water and.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 Yeah, well, maybe if there is life anywhere
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 else in the universe, it will be based on
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 water. But there are other possibilities as
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 well. And people have wondered whether
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 perhaps the season lakes of Titan,
00:19:03 --> 00:19:06 one of Saturn's moons, uh, whether. Which
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 are made of liquid ethane and methane,
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 whether they might have, uh, living
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 creatures in them that rely on those
00:19:13 --> 00:19:16 supercooled liquids as their working fluid.
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 We don't know. We've not seen any evidence of
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 that. But it is possible. And so if that was
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 the case, then you'd be looking at entirely
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 different type of Goldilocks Zone. If
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 liquid natural gas was what you needed,
00:19:29 --> 00:19:32 uh, for these creatures, uh, then your
00:19:32 --> 00:19:34 Goldilocks Zone will be a very different one
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 from the one that we have. It will be much
00:19:36 --> 00:19:38 further from your parent star. Uh, so
00:19:38 --> 00:19:41 Goldilocks Zones are not universal. They're
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 not, um, kind uh, of, you know, common
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 to all species because
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 we don't know enough about what other species
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 might be like. But it's a good start. That's
00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 why we look at the Goldilocks Zone with
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 interest because the only life forms that we
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 know use water. Uh, and Goldilocks
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 Zone is where water might exist. So that's
00:20:02 --> 00:20:02 why we look there.
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06 Heidi Campo: Fred, have you ever seen that TV show, I
00:20:06 --> 00:20:09 think it's on Netflix or Amazon, called
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 Alien Worlds, where they. They break
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 down scientifically the conditions that would
00:20:14 --> 00:20:16 be needed for. For different life on
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 different planets. Then they hypothetically
00:20:18 --> 00:20:21 come up with a planet that's a
00:20:21 --> 00:20:22 certain way. Have you seen it?
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25 Professor Fred Watson: M. I haven't, but it sounds like one that I
00:20:25 --> 00:20:25 ought to see.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 Heidi Campo: It's very interesting. And that might be one
00:20:28 --> 00:20:30 that Lou's interested in, because they come
00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 up with four hypothetical planets. One of
00:20:33 --> 00:20:35 them's a jungle, one of them's a desert. One
00:20:35 --> 00:20:38 of them is, um, the
00:20:38 --> 00:20:41 atmosphere is so dense that it's
00:20:41 --> 00:20:44 almost like water. So there's all these
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 animals that look marine like, but they are
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 like birds. And it's very cool just to play
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 around because they use real physics and then
00:20:52 --> 00:20:54 talk about the hypothetics. It's kind of fun.
00:20:54 --> 00:20:56 Then I won't tell you about the last planet,
00:20:56 --> 00:20:58 because it's kind of a. It's a fun surprise.
00:20:58 --> 00:21:00 It's a fun surprise planet. It's not Earth.
00:21:00 --> 00:21:03 It's not Earth. Um, it's a very
00:21:03 --> 00:21:06 interesting hypothetical planet. Um, but I do
00:21:06 --> 00:21:07 recommend that show.
00:21:08 --> 00:21:10 Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great. I'll check it out. Sounds,
00:21:10 --> 00:21:11 Heidi.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:12 Heidi Campo: Yeah, it's a good one.
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 Um, well, I guess that's it for our Q
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 and A episode. So I just want to say, if this
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 is my last episode, that it has been an
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 absolute pleasure and delight being on here.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 Thank you all for your wonderful and kind
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 questions. Fred, thank you for having me. If
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29 y' all want to stay in touch, you can follow
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32 me on LinkedIn. My. It's just my name, Heidi
00:21:32 --> 00:21:35 Campo, which is C, A, M, M, P, O.
00:21:35 --> 00:21:37 And then I think it's on. There is comma, C
00:21:37 --> 00:21:40 S, C S, which is one of my certifications.
00:21:40 --> 00:21:43 That would be Comet sun, if we're spelling
00:21:43 --> 00:21:46 it phonetically. Comet son. Comet son. So,
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 Heidi Campos, C.S.C.S. if you want to follow
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50 me on LinkedIn, I'm also on Instagram, but
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 it's mostly just pictures of my dog and me
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 talking about fitness stuff, which may not be
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 everybody's cup of tea. Um, Fred,
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 it's been a delight. Thank you.
00:22:00 --> 00:22:03 Professor Fred Watson: Oh, it's been a delight for me too, Heidi.
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 And, um, I hope we do this again sometime.
00:22:06 --> 00:22:08 It might be next week, but. It might be next
00:22:08 --> 00:22:08 week.
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 Heidi Campo: It might be next week. Yeah, we'll be in
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 touch. And I'm. I'm always here if you need
00:22:13 --> 00:22:15 me. Um, till then,
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 we'll catch, uh, you all next time.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:18 Professor Fred Watson: Take care.
00:22:20 --> 00:22:23 Voice Over Guy: To the Space Nuts podcast, Mission complete
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 Eastern. Available at Apple, Apple Podcasts,
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 favorite podcast player. You can also stream
00:22:31 --> 00:22:34 on demand at bitesz.com this. Has been
00:22:34 --> 00:22:36 another quality podcast production from
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