In this holiday replay episode from the Space Nuts archives, hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson explore groundbreaking astronomical phenomena and inspiring stories from the cosmos. From the intriguing discovery of frame dragging in space-time to the triumphs of young minds in the field of astronomy, this episode is packed with fascinating insights.
Episode Highlights:
- Frame Dragging Phenomenon: Andrew and Fred delve into the recent detection of frame dragging around a white dwarf pulsar binary system, discussing its implications for general relativity and our understanding of gravity in the universe.
- Naming the Next Mars Rover: The hosts share the story behind the naming of the Mars 2020 rover, "Perseverance," chosen by a young student, highlighting the importance of perseverance in scientific exploration.
- Young Intern's Discovery: A remarkable tale of a 17-year-old intern at NASA, who discovered a new planet just three days into his internship, showcasing the potential of the next generation in astronomy.
- Listener Questions: The episode wraps up with insightful listener questions about black holes and the mysterious nature of singularities, prompting deep discussions on the complexities of the universe.
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Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Andrew Dunkley: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:06 --> 00:00:07 sequence start.
00:00:07 --> 00:00:08 Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts I.
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 Andrew Dunkley: 4, 3, 2,
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 reported meals Good. Hello once again
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 and thank you for joining us on this edition
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 of the Space Nuts podcast.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 And my name's Andrew Dudley, your host. And
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 with Me for episode 193 is
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 Astronomer in Charge from Professor Fred
00:00:31 --> 00:00:33 Watson. Hello, Fred.
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. I did used to be the
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 Astronomer in charge. That was my.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:38 Andrew Dunkley: I thought I said Astronomer at Large.
00:00:39 --> 00:00:40 Professor Fred Watson: Well, it's quite all right.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 Andrew Dunkley: No, it's Freudian slip.
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 Professor Fred Watson: It's very. And of course, um, uh,
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 that's why I became the Astronomer at Large.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 Because you only had to change four letters
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 on the office door to make it unknown to you.
00:00:51 --> 00:00:52 Yes, yes.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 Andrew Dunkley: Um, the organ. And that sort of harps on
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 something we talked about a while ago where
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 your organization has changed names about two
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 or three times, but didn't change the
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 lettering. So didn't change the logo.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. Same logo since
00:01:06 --> 00:01:07 1991.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 Andrew Dunkley: I think that's amazing. Uh, very
00:01:12 --> 00:01:12 good.
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 Now, um, Fred, have you got enough toilet
00:01:14 --> 00:01:16 paper at your place? Is my big question.
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 Professor Fred Watson: Well, it's very kind of you to ask. Um,
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 we haven't yet started tearing pages out the
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 Astrophysical Journal to use in the bathroom.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:27 Andrew Dunkley: Did you hear about the Northern Territory
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 News? Uh, the newspaper in Darwin?
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 They published an edition last week with
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 several blank pages for people.
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 This whole thing is just insanity at the
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 highest level. There's so many people
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 panicking over nothing. It's.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:50 Professor Fred Watson: You might want to explain the toilet paper
00:01:50 --> 00:01:51 issue, though.
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 Andrew Dunkley: I think most people are aware, but if you're
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 not aware, I don't know where you've been.
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 But, uh, there's been a panic buy up of
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 toilet paper in Australia and all the
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 supermarket shelves are empty. Every
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 supermarket where I live has got no toilet
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 paper because people have been panic buying
00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 because the prime minister said stock up
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 because you might have to be isolated for a
00:02:11 --> 00:02:12 couple of weeks because of the coronavirus.
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 And everyone's freaking out about it. Well,
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 not everyone. I mean, we don't care. But a
00:02:17 --> 00:02:19 lot of people are freaking out about it. But,
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 uh, I'm going to bring some astronomy
00:02:22 --> 00:02:23 into this, Fred.
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 Professor Fred Watson: Oh, good. I wondered where it was going.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 Andrew Dunkley: I think this is the 2020 version
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 of a caveman seeing an eclipse and thinking
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 the world's going to end. Oh, probably that's
00:02:34 --> 00:02:34 what this is.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:35 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 Andrew Dunkley: So I think people need to take a long, hard
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 look at themselves and give themselves an
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 uppercut, to use an Australian term, and just
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 get on with it. This is
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 ridiculous. Totally ridiculous.
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 Professor Fred Watson: The good news is that um,
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 those particular people will, you know,
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 they'll never need to go and buy another
00:02:56 --> 00:02:57 toilet roll again.
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 Andrew Dunkley: Not for eternity. They'll
00:03:00 --> 00:03:02 get like, they'll get buried with the stuff.
00:03:02 --> 00:03:03 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 Andrew Dunkley: I'm suggesting that if they're going to, you
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 know, panic, buy toilet paper, get some baked
00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 beans and some long life milk so that when
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 you eat it it'll taste a bit better.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 M Now let's get down to business.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 Today on Space Nuts we're going to uh, look
00:03:18 --> 00:03:20 at something that scientists have discovered
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 for the first time and that is that space
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 time is dragging. Not everywhere, but they've
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 found that it is dragging in one particular
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 place, which sounds unusual. And what does
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 dragging actually mean? Uh, we're also going
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 to look at a couple of clever, uh, students,
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 um, uh, in terms of a name for the
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 next Martian rover. This follows on from
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 Sojourner, which I think is a great name.
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity. So what are
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 they calling the next one? We will tell you.
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 And a 17 year old intern at
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 NASA Day 3 on the job has
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 found a planet six times, uh, or nearly seven
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 times larger than Earth. I mean,
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 how lucky is that? Uh, those are some of the
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 things we'll look at today on Space Nuts with
00:04:03 --> 00:04:04 Fred Watson.
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 Let's uh, start off Fred, with um, the
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 fact that space time is dragging. What is it
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 dragging and why?
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, it's a phenomenon
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 to do with the theory of general
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 relativity, or rather the general theory of
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 relativity, which of course was produced by
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 Albert Einstein in 1915. Uh, not
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 long after that, I think about three years
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 later. Well, uh, let me just step back a
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 minute. That theory of course says that
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 as soon as you put matter into space time
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 and space time's really just space, but with
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 a fancy name as, uh, soon as you put matter
00:04:43 --> 00:04:44 into it, because of course time's part of it
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 as well. Uh, as soon as you put matter into
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 space time it is distorted and that
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 distortion is what we feel as gravity. Uh,
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 and that in itself is pretty hard to
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 get your head around. Space time bends
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 because matters there. But it was about,
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 uh, I think three years later
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 that two Austrian
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 scientists, uh, by the name of
00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 Josef Lenzer unt Hans Turing,
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 um, they worked out that
00:05:15 --> 00:05:16 uh, you would get a phenomenon,
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 um, if you have a
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 massive object rotating, you get a
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 phenomenon which is almost a swirling of
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 the space time around the object. It's called
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 frame dragging. Um, and
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 so as the Earth does it, as the Earth
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 turns, it's not only distorting the
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 space that's holding us on with the Force
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 of gravity, but to a much less,
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 a much lesser degree, it's also
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 dragging the surrounding space time with
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 it. Now I know you're
00:05:51 --> 00:05:52 looking baffled, Andrew.
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 Andrew Dunkley: It's just a lack of sleep because I'm worried
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 about where I'm going to get a roll of toilet
00:05:56 --> 00:05:57 paper.
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 Professor Fred Watson: Well, just watch out. Don't drag your space
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 time with it when you find it.
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 Um, we usually Anglicize,
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 uh, uh, Josef and Hans
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 names to the lens theory
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 precession or lens theorying effect.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:15 Andrew Dunkley: Okay.
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 Professor Fred Watson: Um, that's um, how most people speak of
00:06:18 --> 00:06:19 it, even though they wouldn't have called
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 themselves that. Uh, so, uh,
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 okay, it has been tested, this
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 theory. It was um, as I said, I think it
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 was 1918 when it was uh, when
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 it was produced. Um, but
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 uh, the first test of it was
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 done in the early 2000s.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 A spacecraft called Gravity Probe B
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 was launched into orbit around the Earth
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 by NASA in collaboration, I think with
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 Stanford University, um,
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 which carried on board very, very sensitive
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 gyroscopes. And by using
00:06:56 --> 00:06:58 those, uh, the
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 uh, physicists running the experiment could
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 detect the frame dragging of the Earth
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 itself. So it's all about subtle
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 motions in the satellite
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 and that tells you that yes, you have proved,
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 because there's nothing else that would give
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 rise to those subtle motions, you've proved
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 that frame dragging is true, uh,
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 but it's only been detected around the Earth.
00:07:24 --> 00:07:26 So now cut to the chase, uh, because
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 uh, for the first time, uh, it has
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 now been detected in an astronomical object.
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 Uh, and this is a really nice story because
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 it pulls together uh, the
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 fundamental physics of frame dragging with
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 some of the big adventures that here
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 in Australia we are taking part in, uh,
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 particularly in terms of radio astronomy. The
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 story goes back 20 years actually, Andrew,
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 uh, to the Parkes Radio
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 Observatory, uh, in New South
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 Wales, the very same state that we are both
00:08:01 --> 00:08:01 in at the moment.
00:08:03 --> 00:08:04 Andrew Dunkley: One hour drive from that telescope.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:06 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, that's right. You are indeed.
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 Exactly. It's just down the road for you. Ah,
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 very, very well known telescope, uh, the Big
00:08:11 --> 00:08:12 Dish it's usually called.
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 Andrew Dunkley: And very distracting when you're driving
00:08:15 --> 00:08:16 along the highway because you just want to
00:08:16 --> 00:08:17 look at it.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 Professor Fred Watson: You can't stop looking at it. I know
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 I don't have that problem because usually
00:08:22 --> 00:08:24 when I go down there, that's where I'm going.
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 So I just watch it getting bigger as you get
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 nearer to it. Um, 20 years ago,
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 uh, the Parkes radio telescope
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 discovered uh, a white
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 dwarf pulsar binary system.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 Um, I'll tell you its name and then we can
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 get that out of the way. It is, actually.
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 I've got to magnify the screen so I can read
00:08:45 --> 00:08:45 it.
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 Now, Fred, you're showing your PSR, uh,
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 J1141 minus 6545.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 There you are. Uh, put that in your diary.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 That's good already. As have
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 I. Uh, it is a white dwarf pulsar, uh, binary
00:09:03 --> 00:09:04 system. What does that mean? It means you've
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 got a white dwarf star, which is, um, an
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 object the size of the Earth, but with the
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 mass of a star in it. Uh, made of electrons
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 all crushed together. Uh, or the electrons
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 are the only thing that hold that. Hold the
00:09:17 --> 00:09:18 thing that start the thing from collapsing.
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 So, um, that is a massive object. Uh,
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 around it is this pulsar, which is another
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 massive object, uh, a neutron star. Uh,
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 the two are in mutual orbits and
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 the, uh. So the
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 telescope discovered that
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 phenomenon, the binary system. So the
00:09:39 --> 00:09:41 pulsar itself is beaming out radiation from
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 its poles. Pulsars, as you know, because you
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 and I have spoken about this before, uh,
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 effectively are extremely accurate clocks.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 They basically blip out
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 radio radiation as they rotate.
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 That's what the Parkes dish detected.
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 And, um, the precision with which
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 they do that is better than atomic clocks.
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 They are so regular. Um, Just
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 as one smaller piece of information in this.
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 The pulsar itself orbits the white
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 dwarf every 4.8 hours.
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 So it's, you know, it's a. It's
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 whizzing round. That's right. Um,
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 now what has happened over the last 20 years
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 is that astronomers have been able to use
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 this timing phenomenon,
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 the regular timing of the pulsar,
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 to measure the pulsar's
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 position in respect to the white
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 dwarf. Uh, because
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 essentially time. Accurate time means
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 accurate distance in terms of, uh, measuring
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 where the pulsar is. And it's that
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 measured over 20 years that has
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 demonstrated that this frame dragging
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 phenomenon is taking place out there,
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 uh, at PSR, whatever it was. Uh,
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 J1141 minus 6545.
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 Um, so what the
00:11:05 --> 00:11:07 scientists. And there's a group of scientists
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 from, uh, many different institutions,
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 including, uh, institutions in Germany, the
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 Square Kilometer Array Organization. That
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 is, uh, the headquarters of this great
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 new telescope that we're planning, the Square
00:11:20 --> 00:11:23 Kilometer Array in Western Australia and in
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 South Africa. Uh, the headquarters are in
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 Manchester, uh, or near Manchester at the
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 Jodrell Bank Radio Observatory. One of the
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 scientists involved with this work, uh, comes
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 from that organization. Uh, so that
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 means, uh, he is relatively closely connected
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 with Australia because Australia is one of
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 the host nations. Uh, and
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 I should just mention that the Parkes dish,
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 uh, plus another telescope called the
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 Malonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 again here in Australia, uh, which has been
00:11:54 --> 00:11:55 involved with this work. They are both
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 Pathfinder telescopes for the Square
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 Kilometer Array. So very important
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 in this large scale project that
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 is currently uh, under construction or,
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 uh, soon will be under construction, um,
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 that's getting in the plug for ska. But the
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 research itself, as I said, involves
00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 scientists from Germany, Australia, New
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 Zealand and actually Denmark too. Um, and
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 what they've done is they've um, looked at
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 the way these pulsar signals have changed
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 over the 20 years and they find
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 a change in the pulsar's
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 orbit which amounts to
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 150 kilometers. Uh, and
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 we're now talking about something that's
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 10 light years away. Andrews Being
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 able to measure uh, a change in orbit of
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 150 kilometers, uh, at that distance is
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 an astonishing accomplishment. But it turns
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 out that that change is exactly what you
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 would expect from frame dragging by
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 the white dwarf itself. And that's the only
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 thing that can account for it. So it is the
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 first time that we've demonstrated this
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 swirling of space actually, uh, uh,
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 beyond the Earth's vicinity. And it's an
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 important, um, you know, a really important
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 result which is rightly being celebrated all
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 over the science media, um, astronomers,
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 detective, Distant space time dragging for
00:13:16 --> 00:13:17 the first time.
00:13:17 --> 00:13:20 Andrew Dunkley: So I guess the point of
00:13:20 --> 00:13:23 this is the massive um, or the
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 mass of this event rather than, you know, we
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 talked about how Earth does it, but we're
00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 talking about something on a much larger
00:13:30 --> 00:13:30 scale.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 Professor Fred Watson: That's right, yes. Uh, well, the white dwarf
00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 itself, whilst it's probably not much bigger
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 than the Earth, uh, its mass is much larger.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 Yeah, uh, and yeah, you're talking about,
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 um, you know, you are talking about something
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 happening on a larger scale. I
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 confess that um, I am not an
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 expert on the lens searing effect, uh, but
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 it is very interesting stuff. Uh, and when
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 you read up about it, it's quite inspiring
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 that, you know, all those years ago these
00:13:58 --> 00:14:00 guys worked out that space time is being
00:14:00 --> 00:14:01 dragged around by the Earth.
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 Andrew Dunkley: And if you like me and you don't want to read
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 anything about it, there's a fabulous
00:14:06 --> 00:14:07 animation on the
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 skatelescope.org website where you
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 can see um, in about 1 minute
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 and 20 seconds what they've learned over 20
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 years. It shows you how uh, effect works.
00:14:19 --> 00:14:20 It's very, very good.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 Professor Fred Watson: Um, I might give a call out to the, the
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 person who put that uh, animation together,
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 Mark Myers, who's at Swinburne University,
00:14:28 --> 00:14:29 uh, because I was in touch with him
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 yesterday. I'm using one of his, um, graphics
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 in a newsletter that I prepare and I asked
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 him if that was all right. He said he, uh,
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 was delighted to let us use it. And
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 I absolutely agree with you, Andrew. His
00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 animation, uh, which is on that website, the
00:14:45 --> 00:14:48 skatelescope.org website, is terrific.
00:14:48 --> 00:14:49 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, indeed.
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 All right, you're listening to the Space
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 Nuts podcast. Andrew Dunkley here with Fred
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 Watson. Let's
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 take a break from the show and hear a word or
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 two from our sponsored Grammarly. Now, I have
00:15:02 --> 00:15:04 to say I'm a big fan of Grammarly uh, because
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 I've been using it for a few years now. Very
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00:15:12 --> 00:15:14 few occasions. Um, particularly with
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00:16:19 --> 00:16:21 download Grammarly today, go to
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 getgrammarly.com spacenuts
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 again, that's getgrammarly.com
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 spacEnuts to download Grammarly
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 for free and let them know you came from
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 us. Uh, I'll include the link in the show
00:16:35 --> 00:16:36 notes as well.
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 And now back to Space Nuts.
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 Three, two, one.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 Space Nuts. Now, Fred, uh, just,
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 uh, another shout out to our patrons who
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 support our podcast with dollars and cents.
00:16:50 --> 00:16:52 We, um, thank you again for doing that. If
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 you would like to become a patron or just
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 look into the possibility, uh, you can go to
00:16:57 --> 00:16:59 Our Patreon website, patreon.com
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 spacenuts all the information's there. If you
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 would like to contribute to the program, you
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 can set your own limit. Um, but
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 it's not mandatory. We're not asking you to
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 do it as, as a condition of listening to the
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 podcast. If you want to go on listening to
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 it, uh, as you are, that is fine too.
00:17:17 --> 00:17:20 But uh, anybody who contributes does get the
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 benefit of bonus content on the Patreon
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 website. Uh, they also get the commercial
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 free edition of the podcast,
00:17:28 --> 00:17:30 uh, ahead of time. So, um, something to
00:17:30 --> 00:17:33 consider anyway, um, now, uh, by the
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 way, Fred, um, my uh, new book,
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 um, Shameless Plug coming up, uh, is now
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 available for pre order as an
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 ebook. So, um, have a look for that
00:17:46 --> 00:17:49 on the Amazon website. So, um,
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 that's, that's pretty exciting. I very, very
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 pleased with how it's all turned out. Uh,
00:17:54 --> 00:17:55 someone actually messaged me the other day
00:17:55 --> 00:17:57 and said I've ordered it, better be good.
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, you've got to remind us of the title,
00:18:01 --> 00:18:01 Andrew.
00:18:01 --> 00:18:04 Andrew Dunkley: It's called, uh, the Turanian Enigma. The
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 Tyranny Enigma. I'm starting. First time I
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 wrote that down and read it out, my tongue
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 tripped over it and I thought, no, this is,
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 this is too hard. But I'm getting used to it
00:18:14 --> 00:18:14 now.
00:18:15 --> 00:18:15 Professor Fred Watson: Very good.
00:18:15 --> 00:18:17 Andrew Dunkley: I've developed a couple of synapses in my
00:18:17 --> 00:18:19 brain that have got my mouth around the
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 Turanian in. No, no, I tripped over it. But
00:18:21 --> 00:18:24 um, yeah, have a look for it. Uh, the
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 official release date of the ebook and
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 the paperback will be April 15th.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:34 And um, a few people have
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 asked if I could turn it into an audiobook as
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 well. So I'll look into that. It's just
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 so time consuming to create an audiobook.
00:18:42 --> 00:18:45 Uh, not so much the reading and recording of,
00:18:45 --> 00:18:47 but the editing. Oh my gosh, that's a
00:18:47 --> 00:18:49 nightmare. Uh, having.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 Professor Fred Watson: Well, you did that for, um, almost.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54 Andrew Dunkley: There's Mud, which was a World
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 War I story about my grandfather in the Great
00:18:56 --> 00:18:58 War. But that, that started
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 as an audiobook. So that was. I sort
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 of flipped the egg on that. I did the
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 audiobook and then, uh, made the paperback.
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 But these last two I've done the other way
00:19:09 --> 00:19:10 around or haven't done the other way around.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:13 But um, I'll, I'll look into it. I'll just.
00:19:13 --> 00:19:16 It's got to be feasible. And that,
00:19:16 --> 00:19:19 that sort of becomes the question. But, um,
00:19:19 --> 00:19:22 we'll see how the demand goes. But yeah, have
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 a look for it. Um, Huw tells me he's going to
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 put it on our um, bytes.com
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29 spacenuts page. So you might be able to pre
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 order through there. I haven't checked.
00:19:32 --> 00:19:34 Uh, now let's get down to a couple of things
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 involving students. Fred. These are, uh,
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 um, exciting stories. I particularly like
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 this one, which involves the naming of the
00:19:41 --> 00:19:44 next Mars rover. Now we've uh, heard of
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 Sojourner and Spirit and Opportunity and
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 Curiosity, uh some of which
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 have gone above and beyond the call of duty.
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 Uh, but um, they aren't the last rovers.
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 They'll be future rovers. And uh, it looks
00:19:59 --> 00:20:00 like some students have got involved in the
00:20:00 --> 00:20:01 naming of the next one.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's right. It was uh, uh,
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 uh, you know, I think this is what NASA
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 does normally with its rovers. Uh, it puts
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 out a um, competition, uh,
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 to uh, actually to
00:20:17 --> 00:20:19 school students, uh, and
00:20:20 --> 00:20:22 says suggests names for our next
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 rover. And of course the next rover is
00:20:25 --> 00:20:27 what's been called until now Mars 2020.
00:20:28 --> 00:20:31 Um, it will be launched uh, July or August
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 this year. I think its landing date
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 on Mars is the 18th of February next
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 year. So, um, uh, just under a year
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 away until now, called Mars
00:20:42 --> 00:20:45 2020. So during the closing
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 months of last year, NASA put out the
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 invitation to school
00:20:50 --> 00:20:53 students, I think it was, uh, school students
00:20:53 --> 00:20:56 of all ages from kindy to year 12.
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 Uh, and uh, invited
00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 them to submit
00:21:03 --> 00:21:03 suggestions
00:21:06 --> 00:21:08 uh, for the um, name, uh, of the
00:21:08 --> 00:21:10 rover. And they received
00:21:11 --> 00:21:13 uh, 28
00:21:13 --> 00:21:14 submissions.
00:21:14 --> 00:21:16 Andrew Dunkley: I know, that's amazing.
00:21:16 --> 00:21:19 Professor Fred Watson: It's not bad, is it? That was uh, back in
00:21:19 --> 00:21:21 August, at the end of August last year when
00:21:21 --> 00:21:23 they put the invitation out. Uh,
00:21:24 --> 00:21:26 but fortunately, uh, it wasn't just one
00:21:26 --> 00:21:28 person who had to read all 28 because
00:21:28 --> 00:21:30 these were essays, uh, saying why it should
00:21:30 --> 00:21:33 be a particular name. They had 4
00:21:33 --> 00:21:35 volunteer judges. They were educators, uh,
00:21:35 --> 00:21:38 professionals in the space field and space
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 enthusiasts. And they eventually got down
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 to 155 semi
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 finalists and then nine finalists. And I
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 think, I can't remember, but I think you and
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50 I talked about this last year because
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 there was a list of uh, very elegant. They
00:21:53 --> 00:21:56 were all great names actually for uh, a
00:21:56 --> 00:21:56 rover.
00:21:56 --> 00:21:57 Andrew Dunkley: Robert.
00:21:58 --> 00:22:00 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, and then they put that out for public
00:22:00 --> 00:22:03 voting and in fact it was worldwide and there
00:22:03 --> 00:22:05 were many submissions came from Australia.
00:22:06 --> 00:22:08 They received a total of
00:22:08 --> 00:22:10 770 votes
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 to, to, you know, to chew through, to work
00:22:14 --> 00:22:17 out what uh, the final name should be.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 And eventually, uh, they
00:22:20 --> 00:22:23 got one answer and it came.
00:22:23 --> 00:22:25 Andrew Dunkley: Hang on, Drumroll, drumroll.
00:22:25 --> 00:22:28 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, it came from uh,
00:22:29 --> 00:22:32 a youngster by the name of Alex
00:22:32 --> 00:22:35 Mather, uh, who's at a school. I've
00:22:35 --> 00:22:37 forgotten. I think he's in Virginia. I can
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 check that in a minute. Uh, but he. And
00:22:40 --> 00:22:42 here's the drum roll. He was the person who
00:22:42 --> 00:22:45 suggested the name Perseverance,
00:22:45 --> 00:22:47 which is nice of the new
00:22:48 --> 00:22:49 spacecraft. Yeah, yeah.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:52 Andrew Dunkley: That is a fabulous name for it because it
00:22:52 --> 00:22:55 does actually tell a story
00:22:55 --> 00:22:57 behind all the missions to Mars over the
00:22:57 --> 00:22:58 years and all the work that's gone into it.
00:22:58 --> 00:23:01 They just, you know, uh, all the successes
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 and the failures and the near misses. It
00:23:04 --> 00:23:07 is Perseverance that's going.
00:23:07 --> 00:23:10 Professor Fred Watson: That's right. I mean this spacecraft as well
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 could be uh, it could be the one that
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 discovers life on Mars because
00:23:15 --> 00:23:18 that's what it's, you know, what the aim is.
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 Um, uh, unlike Curiosity, whose mission was
00:23:21 --> 00:23:24 to discover whether Mars was ever habitable,
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26 which it did within about the first fortnight
00:23:26 --> 00:23:28 of its presence on the planet, um, uh,
00:23:29 --> 00:23:31 Perseverance is looking for evidence of past
00:23:31 --> 00:23:34 or present life, um, with many different
00:23:34 --> 00:23:37 instruments that will, will do that. Uh,
00:23:37 --> 00:23:40 and I suspect perseverance might be
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 the characteristic that it needs more than
00:23:42 --> 00:23:44 anything else. It will probably be quite a
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 long mission. Uh, it's unlikely that, you
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 know, as soon as it drops down it's going to
00:23:48 --> 00:23:51 find evidence of um, Martian
00:23:51 --> 00:23:53 microbes. One would expect that it might have
00:23:53 --> 00:23:55 to move around on the surface a bit, but it
00:23:55 --> 00:23:56 will do that.
00:23:58 --> 00:24:00 Andrew Dunkley: Only slightly pipped, uh, the number
00:24:00 --> 00:24:03 two, which was Do I have to go to Mars?
00:24:05 --> 00:24:07 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's the one.
00:24:07 --> 00:24:10 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Um, I'm fascinated by the fact
00:24:10 --> 00:24:12 that uh, they got 28 submissions for the
00:24:12 --> 00:24:14 name. It reminds me of an author, a
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 children's author in Sri Lanka last week who
00:24:16 --> 00:24:19 got 20 submissions for the ending of her
00:24:19 --> 00:24:22 latest book. And they came out
00:24:22 --> 00:24:24 and they're going to publish it with
00:24:24 --> 00:24:27 1 endings, which is,
00:24:27 --> 00:24:30 which is a, um, Guinness World Record. And I,
00:24:30 --> 00:24:32 I think those sorts of responses really show
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 where you stand in the world. So when I asked
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36 for a title for my book, I got five.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, you did. I think that's pretty good.
00:24:40 --> 00:24:42 More than, more than the number of people who
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 read my book. Um, um,
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47 the bottom line here is congratulations to
00:24:47 --> 00:24:50 young Alexander Mather. He
00:24:50 --> 00:24:53 is uh, a year, sorry a grade
00:24:53 --> 00:24:56 seven student. Now I, I'm, I'm guessing that
00:24:56 --> 00:24:58 that means he's about 13, uh, or
00:24:58 --> 00:25:00 thereabouts. Um, and
00:25:01 --> 00:25:04 uh, he put in, put together a really
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 uh, remarkable, um, you know,
00:25:07 --> 00:25:10 remarkable uh, um,
00:25:10 --> 00:25:12 entry. Um, he said some
00:25:13 --> 00:25:15 very, very, very uh,
00:25:15 --> 00:25:18 nice comments about the, the competition. And
00:25:18 --> 00:25:21 his, his uh, his, his um
00:25:21 --> 00:25:24 entry to it, he says, um, this
00:25:24 --> 00:25:26 is actually in the NASA press release. He
00:25:26 --> 00:25:28 says this was a chance to help the agency
00:25:28 --> 00:25:30 that put humans on the moon and we'll soon do
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 it again. This Mars rover will help pave the
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 way for human presence there. And I wanted to
00:25:35 --> 00:25:38 Try and help in any way I could. Refusal of
00:25:38 --> 00:25:39 the challenge was not an option.
00:25:40 --> 00:25:43 Lovely. That is great stuff, isn't it?
00:25:43 --> 00:25:45 Andrew Dunkley: Good on him. Okay, uh, so watch out for
00:25:46 --> 00:25:49 perseverance, uh, which should hit
00:25:49 --> 00:25:51 the Martian surface in little under a year.
00:25:52 --> 00:25:55 Still, uh, on students doing great things.
00:25:55 --> 00:25:58 Uh, this is a fabulous story about a 17 year
00:25:58 --> 00:26:01 old who's doing an internship at NASA and
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 has found a planet on day
00:26:03 --> 00:26:04 three.
00:26:04 --> 00:26:07 Professor Fred Watson: Day three. That's right, it is.
00:26:07 --> 00:26:10 It's great stuff. Um, so, uh, this
00:26:10 --> 00:26:13 is a young man called, uh, Wolf, Cukier,
00:26:13 --> 00:26:14 I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly.
00:26:15 --> 00:26:17 Uh, he scored a two month
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 internship with NASA. Uh, so during
00:26:20 --> 00:26:22 last northern summer he was at the Goddard
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 Space Flight center in Greenbelt in Maryland.
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 And, um, what he was doing, uh, on
00:26:28 --> 00:26:30 day three, I think he probably started off
00:26:30 --> 00:26:33 doing this. He was trawling through data from
00:26:33 --> 00:26:36 tess. Uh, so TESS is a
00:26:36 --> 00:26:39 NASA spacecraft. It is currently operational,
00:26:39 --> 00:26:42 doing a great job. The name is an acronym
00:26:42 --> 00:26:45 for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
00:26:45 --> 00:26:48 So it's actually looking for the dimming
00:26:48 --> 00:26:50 of the light of stars as planets
00:26:50 --> 00:26:53 pass in front of them. And unlike Kepler,
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 which only looked at a small, uh,
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59 area of the sky to do the same job,
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 Kepler, now effectively defunct tess, uh,
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06 actually looks at the whole sky. Uh, so
00:27:07 --> 00:27:10 the word survey in its name is very important
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 because it actually has a chance to look at
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 the entire sky. So he was looking
00:27:15 --> 00:27:17 through the data. Actually there's a nice
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 quote again, um, from Wolf. He
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 says, I was looking through the data for
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 everything the volunteers had flagged as an
00:27:24 --> 00:27:27 eclipsing binary. That means, uh,
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29 two stars orbiting around their common center
00:27:29 --> 00:27:32 of mass. One passes in front of the other as
00:27:32 --> 00:27:35 seen from the Earth. And so you get what we
00:27:35 --> 00:27:38 call an eclipse. So they're well known stars.
00:27:38 --> 00:27:40 They've been well known for more than a
00:27:40 --> 00:27:43 century. It was looking, uh, through
00:27:43 --> 00:27:45 everything Volunteers had flagged as an
00:27:45 --> 00:27:47 eclipsing binary. A system where two stars
00:27:47 --> 00:27:49 circle around each other and from our view,
00:27:49 --> 00:27:52 eclipse each other every orbit. About
00:27:52 --> 00:27:55 three days into my internship, I saw a signal
00:27:55 --> 00:27:57 from a system called TOI
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00 1338. At first I thought it was a
00:28:00 --> 00:28:03 stellar eclipse, but the timing was
00:28:03 --> 00:28:05 wrong. It turned out to be a planet.
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08 Uh, I noticed a dip or a transit from the TOI
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 1338 system. And that was the first signal of
00:28:11 --> 00:28:13 the planet. First saw the initial dip and
00:28:13 --> 00:28:16 thought, oh, that looked cool. But then when
00:28:16 --> 00:28:18 I looked at the full data from the telescope
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 at that start, I and my mentor also
00:28:20 --> 00:28:23 noticed three different dips in the system.
00:28:23 --> 00:28:25 So great stuff and very well
00:28:25 --> 00:28:26 spotted.
00:28:26 --> 00:28:27 Andrew Dunkley: And it's a big one too.
00:28:28 --> 00:28:29 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right.
00:28:29 --> 00:28:30 Andrew Dunkley: Planets, I suppose.
00:28:32 --> 00:28:34 Professor Fred Watson: Um, it's somewhere between the size of
00:28:34 --> 00:28:37 Neptune and Saturn. Uh,
00:28:37 --> 00:28:40 rather larger than Uranus, about seven
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 times larger than the Earth. It's in the
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 constellation of Pictor and it's about 1300
00:28:45 --> 00:28:46 light years away.
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 Andrew Dunkley: Um, is it a gas giant or a rocky planet?
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 Professor Fred Watson: Probably. Probably a gas giant. Yeah.
00:28:53 --> 00:28:56 The name, uh, uh, uh,
00:28:56 --> 00:28:59 TOI 1338. TOI
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 is an acronym for TESS, Object of
00:29:02 --> 00:29:04 Interest. Uh, and, uh, um,
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 it's one that's floating around a lot these
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 days with a number attached to it.
00:29:09 --> 00:29:12 So of course, um, because of the convention,
00:29:12 --> 00:29:15 uh, that planet that, uh, Wolf has
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 discovered is now called TOI1338B
00:29:18 --> 00:29:20 because the B signifies it is the first
00:29:20 --> 00:29:22 discovered planet around the star.
00:29:23 --> 00:29:24 Andrew Dunkley: Excellent. All right.
00:29:24 --> 00:29:25 Professor Fred Watson: Great stuff.
00:29:25 --> 00:29:27 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, good, good stuff with involving
00:29:27 --> 00:29:30 students, um, doing wonderful things. You're
00:29:30 --> 00:29:32 listening to Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley
00:29:32 --> 00:29:34 and Professor Fred Watson.
00:29:38 --> 00:29:41 Space Nuts and a big hello to all our
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 social media followers that contribute, um,
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00:30:10 --> 00:30:13 it's actually for you, the Space Nuts podcast
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 group, so you might want to take advantage of
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17 that. And of course YouTube Music. Uh, the
00:30:17 --> 00:30:19 numbers continue to grow, so if you'd like to
00:30:19 --> 00:30:22 subscribe to the Space Nuts YouTube Music
00:30:22 --> 00:30:24 channel, you can do that too.
00:30:25 --> 00:30:28 Now, Fred, uh, we have a couple of questions.
00:30:28 --> 00:30:30 I didn't, uh, preview these because I forgot,
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 but, uh, we, we are going to tackle a couple
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 of questions and then we're going to do, um,
00:30:34 --> 00:30:35 a little bit of homework or go back to
00:30:35 --> 00:30:37 something we talked about a couple of weeks
00:30:37 --> 00:30:39 ago just to finish it off, which was the
00:30:39 --> 00:30:41 Roche limit, which, which actually came about
00:30:41 --> 00:30:42 as a result of a question.
00:30:43 --> 00:30:45 But our first question today comes from
00:30:45 --> 00:30:47 Andrew Mitchell. I think Andrew's been in
00:30:47 --> 00:30:49 touch with us before. Dear Fred and Andrew,
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51 all this recent talk about black holes has
00:30:51 --> 00:30:54 been fascinating. And the last installment
00:30:54 --> 00:30:56 got me thinking. According to Einstein's
00:30:56 --> 00:30:58 equations, black holes are supposed to have,
00:30:58 --> 00:31:01 uh, infinite, uh, supposed to be infinitely
00:31:01 --> 00:31:04 small, infinitely dense singularities
00:31:04 --> 00:31:07 at their center. If that's the case, then how
00:31:07 --> 00:31:10 do uh, two actually merge into one black.
00:31:10 --> 00:31:12 Shouldn't they just keep orbiting each other,
00:31:12 --> 00:31:15 getting closer forever? Or is the fact that
00:31:15 --> 00:31:17 black holes do merge actually evidence that
00:31:17 --> 00:31:20 singularities have size? Perhaps a sphere
00:31:20 --> 00:31:23 with a diameter of one Planck length?
00:31:23 --> 00:31:25 Uh, your regular plugs and YouTube Music
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 channel have been paying off. I just became
00:31:28 --> 00:31:30 subscriber number 993, so it would, you know,
00:31:30 --> 00:31:32 we're a bit overdue getting your question
00:31:32 --> 00:31:33 done, Andrew. Thanks for joining us on
00:31:33 --> 00:31:35 YouTube Music though still loving the show.
00:31:35 --> 00:31:38 Um, please keep up the mind blowing stories.
00:31:39 --> 00:31:41 Thank you, Andrew. Um, black holes, gee, we
00:31:41 --> 00:31:42 don't talk about them very often.
00:31:43 --> 00:31:46 Um, but yeah, it's an interesting
00:31:46 --> 00:31:49 question because we talk about how the, the
00:31:49 --> 00:31:52 black hole itself is quite small when
00:31:52 --> 00:31:54 you compare it to the event horizon or the,
00:31:54 --> 00:31:57 or the, you know, what's going on around it.
00:31:57 --> 00:32:00 Um, but yeah, two
00:32:00 --> 00:32:02 merging black holes, do they actually merge?
00:32:02 --> 00:32:04 And how is it. So.
00:32:07 --> 00:32:09 Professor Fred Watson: It'S a really good question. Um,
00:32:10 --> 00:32:10 it's,
00:32:12 --> 00:32:15 you know, the
00:32:15 --> 00:32:18 whole black hole thing is hard to get your
00:32:18 --> 00:32:20 head around, whether you're a physicist or an
00:32:20 --> 00:32:23 astronomer or somebody fighting
00:32:23 --> 00:32:25 over toilet rolls in the ah, aisle.
00:32:25 --> 00:32:28 Andrew Dunkley: Vesuva involves a black hole too, doesn't it?
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 Professor Fred Watson: I'm sure it does, yeah. They are very, very
00:32:31 --> 00:32:33 hard, uh, objects to understand. Uh,
00:32:33 --> 00:32:35 and Andrew's question
00:32:36 --> 00:32:39 made, um, how do two black
00:32:39 --> 00:32:41 holes merge into one?
00:32:42 --> 00:32:45 Um, I don't think
00:32:46 --> 00:32:48 there is any need for them
00:32:48 --> 00:32:51 to keep orbiting around each other
00:32:51 --> 00:32:54 if they are of infinitely small
00:32:54 --> 00:32:56 size. I do get his point that if you've got
00:32:56 --> 00:32:59 something that's infinitely small, uh, and
00:32:59 --> 00:33:01 you put something else that's infinitely
00:33:01 --> 00:33:02 small next to it, they're never going to,
00:33:03 --> 00:33:05 they're never going to touch, uh, because
00:33:05 --> 00:33:08 the dimensions are infinitely small. But in
00:33:08 --> 00:33:11 fact, as Andrew says, they do merge.
00:33:11 --> 00:33:14 We have evidence of that, uh, from the
00:33:14 --> 00:33:16 gravitational wave observations that have
00:33:16 --> 00:33:19 been made, um, over the past, uh, two or
00:33:19 --> 00:33:21 three years. Um, and
00:33:22 --> 00:33:24 uh, there is this phenomenon, um,
00:33:25 --> 00:33:27 called the ring down, which is
00:33:28 --> 00:33:30 the sort of aftermath of the merging. Now I
00:33:30 --> 00:33:33 don't know enough about black hole physics to
00:33:33 --> 00:33:36 understand specifically what the mechanism of
00:33:36 --> 00:33:38 the ring down is, but I suspect that is where
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 the evidence comes that you actually
00:33:41 --> 00:33:44 have now merged black holes. In fact,
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 we know the evidence is there, um, because
00:33:48 --> 00:33:50 you wind up with a black hole whose mass
00:33:51 --> 00:33:54 is actually usually slightly less than the
00:33:54 --> 00:33:55 sum of the masses of the two black holes that
00:33:55 --> 00:33:58 have merged. And um, the excess has gone into
00:33:58 --> 00:34:01 creating the gravitational waves. It's mass
00:34:01 --> 00:34:04 into energy. Uh, but um,
00:34:04 --> 00:34:06 Andrew goes on to make an interesting point.
00:34:06 --> 00:34:09 He says, or is the
00:34:09 --> 00:34:11 fact that black holes do merge. Actually
00:34:11 --> 00:34:14 evidence that singularities have a size,
00:34:14 --> 00:34:16 perhaps a sphere with a diameter of one
00:34:16 --> 00:34:19 Planck length. Now
00:34:19 --> 00:34:22 introducing the Planck length is a
00:34:22 --> 00:34:25 really, ah, neat way of sidestepping the idea
00:34:25 --> 00:34:28 of an infinitesimally small object,
00:34:28 --> 00:34:31 because the Planck length is defined
00:34:31 --> 00:34:33 as being the smallest
00:34:34 --> 00:34:37 distance. And it does have a
00:34:37 --> 00:34:39 proper physical definition. In fact, it's
00:34:39 --> 00:34:41 actually the distance that light travels in
00:34:41 --> 00:34:44 one unit of Planck time. Uh, so that
00:34:44 --> 00:34:46 raises the question, well, what's Planck
00:34:46 --> 00:34:49 time? Um, let me just
00:34:49 --> 00:34:51 summarize though, and this is coming directly
00:34:51 --> 00:34:53 off Wikipedia. The Planck length can be
00:34:53 --> 00:34:56 defined. Uh, sorry, uh, from. Yeah,
00:34:56 --> 00:34:58 let me read it. The Planck length can be
00:34:58 --> 00:35:00 defined from three fundamental physical
00:35:00 --> 00:35:01 constants. The speed of light in a vacuum,
00:35:02 --> 00:35:04 the Planck constant. That's something, um,
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 which physicists are very familiar with. And
00:35:06 --> 00:35:09 the gravitational constant. It's the smallest
00:35:09 --> 00:35:12 distance about which current
00:35:12 --> 00:35:15 experimentally corroborated models of
00:35:15 --> 00:35:18 physics can make meaningful statements.
00:35:19 --> 00:35:22 So what it says is. And I'll go on. At such
00:35:22 --> 00:35:24 small distances, the conventional laws of
00:35:24 --> 00:35:27 macrophysics no longer apply, and even
00:35:27 --> 00:35:29 relativistic physics requires special
00:35:29 --> 00:35:32 treatment. The bottom line is that a Planck
00:35:32 --> 00:35:35 length below that, all bets are off. We
00:35:35 --> 00:35:37 really don't understand what is happening to
00:35:37 --> 00:35:39 the physics. And maybe Andrew's point is well
00:35:39 --> 00:35:42 made that, uh, a Planck length
00:35:43 --> 00:35:45 black hole is actually what you
00:35:45 --> 00:35:47 have at the center of, uh,
00:35:48 --> 00:35:51 constituting a black hole system. Um, I need
00:35:51 --> 00:35:54 to talk to my, uh, expert friends about
00:35:54 --> 00:35:56 this because, um, at this level of
00:35:56 --> 00:35:59 technicality, my knowledge is
00:35:59 --> 00:36:02 not specialist, But I do know people
00:36:02 --> 00:36:05 whose knowledge is far better than mine.
00:36:05 --> 00:36:08 And next time I run into them, uh, I'm going
00:36:08 --> 00:36:10 to ask them exactly about these questions and
00:36:10 --> 00:36:13 hopefully feed back to space nuts and to
00:36:13 --> 00:36:15 Andrew and his, um, fellow listeners.
00:36:15 --> 00:36:18 Andrew Dunkley: Okay, so the question remains open, Andrew.
00:36:19 --> 00:36:19 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:36:19 --> 00:36:21 Andrew Dunkley: I think we'll give you a definite maybe.
00:36:22 --> 00:36:23 Professor Fred Watson: Maybe it's the answer. Yes.
00:36:23 --> 00:36:25 Andrew Dunkley: All right, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for the
00:36:25 --> 00:36:27 question. Let's move on to a question from
00:36:27 --> 00:36:29 Ulf Petersen in Sweden.
00:36:29 --> 00:36:31 Yeah, uh, alf, I've got some news from you
00:36:31 --> 00:36:33 which you may or may not be aware of, but,
00:36:33 --> 00:36:36 uh, a young lady named Julia Engstrom,
00:36:36 --> 00:36:39 A professional golfer from Sweden, Just
00:36:39 --> 00:36:42 won the new south wales women's open,
00:36:42 --> 00:36:44 which we hosted here in dubbo a couple of
00:36:44 --> 00:36:44 weeks ago.
00:36:45 --> 00:36:45 Professor Fred Watson: Great.
00:36:45 --> 00:36:48 Andrew Dunkley: I. Because our course was closed to play for
00:36:48 --> 00:36:51 members, um, uh, we got to go out there and
00:36:51 --> 00:36:52 watch these young ladies go around. It was a
00:36:52 --> 00:36:55 European tour event. Uh, she won
00:36:55 --> 00:36:57 not only her share of the prize money, but a
00:36:57 --> 00:36:59 two year exemption on the European tour.
00:36:59 --> 00:37:02 She's 18 years old. And she
00:37:02 --> 00:37:04 swings it like a champion. I mean, she was
00:37:04 --> 00:37:07 hitting it 260 to 280 meters,
00:37:07 --> 00:37:10 whaling it past me. And she's just a slip of
00:37:10 --> 00:37:12 a kid, but, uh, remarkable player and
00:37:12 --> 00:37:14 someone to watch out for in the future, if
00:37:14 --> 00:37:16 you're a golfer. Julia Engstrom is her name.
00:37:16 --> 00:37:19 So there you go, Ulf. A little bit of. I can
00:37:19 --> 00:37:20 feel his pride swelling now.
00:37:21 --> 00:37:24 Um, now he says hello, uh, Andrew and
00:37:24 --> 00:37:26 Fred, uh, what a fantastic community you've
00:37:26 --> 00:37:28 started. And it's a global one, too. I've
00:37:28 --> 00:37:30 been a faithful listener of your pods now for
00:37:30 --> 00:37:32 a year and enjoy them very much. Never
00:37:32 --> 00:37:34 imagined Thursdays could be that exciting.
00:37:34 --> 00:37:36 I'd usually say something derogatory, but I'm
00:37:36 --> 00:37:39 feeling good today. Um, don't know if
00:37:39 --> 00:37:41 this question might be of interest to the
00:37:41 --> 00:37:44 show. Is there any chance that it's a black
00:37:44 --> 00:37:45 hole question? By the way, Fred, is there any
00:37:45 --> 00:37:48 chance that a black hole might not exist in
00:37:48 --> 00:37:51 its, uh. Inside its event horizon? After all,
00:37:51 --> 00:37:53 black holes are claimed to be singularities
00:37:53 --> 00:37:55 that is infinitesimal in size.
00:37:56 --> 00:37:58 In practical terms, nothing. Right. Uh, if
00:37:58 --> 00:38:01 so, could an event horizon act as a sort
00:38:01 --> 00:38:04 of a delayed postal service, never
00:38:04 --> 00:38:06 informing anyone outside what has
00:38:06 --> 00:38:08 happened? So, like Australia Post, really?
00:38:09 --> 00:38:11 Um, no, they're great. Actually, uh, there's
00:38:11 --> 00:38:14 another piece of news. Dubbo Post Office
00:38:14 --> 00:38:17 here in town. Got Post Office of the Year.
00:38:18 --> 00:38:20 Professor Fred Watson: Oh, uh, fabulous. That's great, Nick.
00:38:20 --> 00:38:22 Andrew Dunkley: About a month ago. So we're doing it right
00:38:22 --> 00:38:23 here, aren't we?
00:38:23 --> 00:38:24 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, you're doing well in Dubbo.
00:38:24 --> 00:38:27 Andrew Dunkley: Extra questions. Would physics allow matter
00:38:27 --> 00:38:30 still to be pulled into the vent event, uh,
00:38:30 --> 00:38:33 into the horizon, even if the black hole was
00:38:33 --> 00:38:33 gone?
00:38:35 --> 00:38:37 Professor Fred Watson: Great, uh, question, Ulf. And, um,
00:38:38 --> 00:38:41 In. In a sense, the. The, um. He's right
00:38:41 --> 00:38:44 about the event horizon acting as a delayed
00:38:44 --> 00:38:46 postal service because,
00:38:47 --> 00:38:49 um, it stops the transfer of information.
00:38:49 --> 00:38:52 We do know that, uh, black holes can
00:38:52 --> 00:38:55 evaporate courtesy of Hawking radiation.
00:38:55 --> 00:38:58 But, um, basically. And that
00:38:58 --> 00:39:00 involves the transfer of information. We know
00:39:00 --> 00:39:02 that, but it's very, very slow. So
00:39:03 --> 00:39:06 the event horizon does shield the black
00:39:06 --> 00:39:08 hole from the outside world, if I can put it
00:39:08 --> 00:39:11 that way. But, um, in terms of
00:39:11 --> 00:39:13 whether the black hole itself exists,
00:39:14 --> 00:39:16 it's kind of the other way around. The only
00:39:16 --> 00:39:19 way the event horizon can exist is if there
00:39:19 --> 00:39:21 is a black hole at the center. Uh,
00:39:22 --> 00:39:24 in other words, this infinitesimally small
00:39:24 --> 00:39:26 singularity, essentially
00:39:27 --> 00:39:29 distorting space time to the extent that
00:39:29 --> 00:39:31 you've got this shield around it, this black
00:39:31 --> 00:39:34 hole. The black hole. Uh, sorry, the black
00:39:34 --> 00:39:37 hole. Event horizon. The event horizon, in
00:39:37 --> 00:39:39 some ways, Is an illusion, Andrew, because,
00:39:40 --> 00:39:42 um, it's just the point of no return. It's
00:39:43 --> 00:39:45 the thing that won't let light out. And it
00:39:45 --> 00:39:47 certainly is black. We've seen that from the
00:39:47 --> 00:39:50 event horizon image, uh, that was released
00:39:50 --> 00:39:53 last year. But, uh, without the black
00:39:53 --> 00:39:56 hole, the event horizon doesn't exist. So,
00:39:56 --> 00:39:59 uh, there has to be this
00:39:59 --> 00:40:01 singularity at the middle with all its
00:40:01 --> 00:40:04 complicated, uh, infinitesimally small
00:40:04 --> 00:40:06 planck length dimensions that we've just been
00:40:07 --> 00:40:10 discussing. Um, yeah, great question though,
00:40:10 --> 00:40:12 and thank you very much. And yes, Sweden
00:40:12 --> 00:40:13 rocks. I was there not very long ago.
00:40:14 --> 00:40:16 Andrew Dunkley: And as monty python says, nothing can come
00:40:16 --> 00:40:19 from nothing. Can't be nothing.
00:40:20 --> 00:40:20 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, yes.
00:40:20 --> 00:40:23 Andrew Dunkley: Um, thanks, alf. Appreciate the question.
00:40:23 --> 00:40:26 One more thing before we finish up, fred, and
00:40:26 --> 00:40:28 this is, um, a little bit of, um, an add on
00:40:28 --> 00:40:30 from a question about the roche limit. A
00:40:30 --> 00:40:32 couple of weeks ago, we were trying to figure
00:40:32 --> 00:40:34 out the roche limit between
00:40:35 --> 00:40:36 the earth and the moon. And as you explained,
00:40:36 --> 00:40:39 the roche limit is the point where gravity,
00:40:39 --> 00:40:42 uh, will destroy one of the
00:40:42 --> 00:40:45 objects involved, um, uh, in
00:40:45 --> 00:40:47 the, uh, situation. So, um, you could
00:40:47 --> 00:40:49 probably explain it better than I just did.
00:40:49 --> 00:40:52 But, um, uh, basically we were trying
00:40:52 --> 00:40:54 to figure out how close the moon could get to
00:40:54 --> 00:40:57 the earth before it was obliterated. Yeah,
00:40:57 --> 00:40:59 life on earth would probably be obliterated
00:40:59 --> 00:40:59 too.
00:40:59 --> 00:41:01 Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's right. It would be a tricky
00:41:01 --> 00:41:03 situation for all of us. But it is. It's much
00:41:03 --> 00:41:06 less than I thought it would be, Andrew.
00:41:06 --> 00:41:08 Um, the roche limit for the moon is
00:41:08 --> 00:41:11 9 kilometers.
00:41:11 --> 00:41:13 And I think that's from the center of the
00:41:13 --> 00:41:16 earth. So it's actually 3, uh,
00:41:16 --> 00:41:19 114 kilometers above the surface. Imagine
00:41:19 --> 00:41:21 the moon 3 kilometers above the surface.
00:41:21 --> 00:41:22 Whoa.
00:41:22 --> 00:41:23 Andrew Dunkley: Wouldn't it look amazing?
00:41:23 --> 00:41:25 Professor Fred Watson: It would look pretty amazing. That's right.
00:41:25 --> 00:41:27 Andrew Dunkley: Just for a few moments until we all died of
00:41:27 --> 00:41:28 fire or die.
00:41:28 --> 00:41:31 Professor Fred Watson: I guess that's right. Yeah.
00:41:31 --> 00:41:32 Andrew Dunkley: But that's okay. We'd have plenty of toilet
00:41:32 --> 00:41:33 paper.
00:41:33 --> 00:41:35 Professor Fred Watson: Ah, ah, we would. We'd be all right. Yes.
00:41:35 --> 00:41:37 Andrew Dunkley: So three, uh, so 9.
00:41:39 --> 00:41:42 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, 9 kilometers
00:41:42 --> 00:41:43 from the center of the earth.
00:41:43 --> 00:41:45 Andrew Dunkley: Close as it could get before it was destroyed
00:41:45 --> 00:41:48 by our gravity. And we would go down with the
00:41:48 --> 00:41:49 ship.
00:41:49 --> 00:41:51 Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. Yeah.
00:41:51 --> 00:41:53 Andrew Dunkley: In a nutshell. All right, now we've got that
00:41:53 --> 00:41:55 sorted out. Uh, thank you, Fred, so much.
00:41:55 --> 00:41:56 It's always a pleasure.
00:41:57 --> 00:41:58 Professor Fred Watson: It's always a pleasure talking to you too,
00:41:58 --> 00:42:00 Andrew. And we'll speak again soon, I hope.
00:42:00 --> 00:42:02 Andrew Dunkley: You will indeed. And thank you for, uh,
00:42:02 --> 00:42:04 listening. Thank you for your contributions.
00:42:04 --> 00:42:06 Keep them coming. We love to hear from you,
00:42:06 --> 00:42:08 whether it's on social media or via our
00:42:08 --> 00:42:10 website where you can send us emails. Uh, we
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00:42:12 --> 00:42:15 send us questions and, uh, to the
00:42:15 --> 00:42:17 patrons. There'll be some bonus material
00:42:17 --> 00:42:20 coming up real soon. Uh, other than that,
00:42:20 --> 00:42:22 thank you and we'll see you again next time
00:42:22 --> 00:42:25 on another edition of the Space Nuts
00:42:25 --> 00:42:27 Podcast, Space Notes. You'll be this
00:42:28 --> 00:42:29 to the SpaceNuts Podcast,
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