Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson cover a packed astronomy episode that moves from a tentative dark matter signal to a newly spotted ten sided storm pattern on Saturn. They also dig into two upcoming sample return style missions, one to Mars and one to Titan, before finishing with listener questions about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, solar missions, gravitational waves, and AI in astronomy.
Key topics
In this episode, Andrew and Fred discuss the Lux-Zeppelin underground detector result, where researchers saw a low-energy flash that might be consistent with dark matter, though the signal is still far short of discovery level.
Fred explains why dark matter is inferred from galaxy rotation and gravitational lensing, and why direct detection experiments need to be buried deep underground and shielded from background noise.
The discussion covers Fred’s own migraine aura experience, including the zigzag visual pattern he describes as a brain-based phenomenon that affects both eyes.
In this episode, they celebrate an outback astronomy success story involving Trevor Barry of Broken Hill, whose long-term Saturn observations helped connect amateur and professional work on planetary atmospheres.
Fred explains Saturn’s famous north polar hexagon and the newly reported south polar decagon, noting that the southern feature appears to have formed only since 2023.
They cover China’s Tianwen-3 Mars sample return plans, including the narrowing of candidate landing sites from 86 to 12 and the mission’s focus on clay-rich terrain that may preserve signs of ancient life.
Fred and Andrew also discuss NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Titan, including the chosen region near Selk crater, the expected 3.3-year primary mission, and why Titan’s dense atmosphere makes rotorcraft flight more practical there than on Mars.
Timestamps
00:00 - Pre-show timing and getting ready to go live
00:49 - Welcome to Space Nuts and what’s coming up
02:23 - Fred joins the show and mentions recovering from knee surgery
03:17 - First story: a possible dark matter detection at Lux-Zeppelin
05:28 - Why dark matter is hard to detect directly
06:56 - Underground detectors and the LZ experiment in South Dakota
08:50 - The flash event and why it is only a hint, not a discovery
11:44 - The 2.6 sigma result and what that means statistically
13:55 - Trevor Barry and the discovery of Saturn’s south polar decagon
16:23 - Saturn’s north polar hexagon and why the south is unusual
17:49 - The decagon’s possible recent formation and what comes next
21:26 - China’s Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission
23:40 - Candidate landing sites narrowed down and why clays matter
25:20 - NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Titan
26:03 - Why the Titan landing region near Selk crater is scientifically interesting
27:31 - Dragonfly’s three point three year primary mission and Titan’s chemistry
29:09 - Listener shout-outs and wrapping the first half
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Andrew Dunkley: Hello again. Thanks for joining us on Space
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 Nuts where we talk astronomy and space
00:00:04 --> 00:00:06 science. My name is Andrew Dunkley. Thanks
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 for joining us. We've got a jam packed
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 programme today, lots of things happening.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 Uh, Casey from Colorado, one of our regular Q
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 and A contributors, uh, uh, put
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 a post on Facebook and I believe
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 sent through an email to us saying
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 have we found dark matter? Well, according
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 to uh, the Lux Zeppelin uh,
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 scientists, there's a tiny weeny,
00:00:31 --> 00:00:33 small chance we might have.
00:00:34 --> 00:00:35 Yeah, I think that's the best way to describe
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 it. Uh, there's a wonderful storey
00:00:38 --> 00:00:41 uh, involving outback astronomy and
00:00:41 --> 00:00:44 there's been a new Saturn Decagon
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 discovered. We'll tell you all about that and
00:00:46 --> 00:00:49 a couple of upcoming missions. China is
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 uh, planning a sample return mission to Mars
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 and they've uh, whittled down their 84
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 potential landing zones to 12. And I think
00:00:58 --> 00:00:59 they're going to get it down to less than
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 that perhaps. Uh, and another similar
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 mission headed for Titan. We'll talk
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 about all of that on this episode of Space
00:01:07 --> 00:01:08 Nuts.
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 10, 9. Ignition
00:01:13 --> 00:01:14 sequence start.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:15 Professor Fred Watson: Space Nuts.
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3. 2. 1. 2, 3, 4,
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Space
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 Nuts astronauts report it feels good.
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 Andrew Dunkley: And joining us again is Professor Fred Watson
00:01:27 --> 00:01:28 Watson, astronomer at large.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 Professor Fred Watson: Hello Fred Watson. Hi Andrew. How are you
00:01:30 --> 00:01:31 doing?
00:01:31 --> 00:01:31 Andrew Dunkley: I am well.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 Professor Fred Watson: How are, um, still nursing a new
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 knee. But uh, the great thing of
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 course always when you've had a um,
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 replacement knee is that day by day it gets
00:01:41 --> 00:01:44 better. Whereas before the operation day by
00:01:44 --> 00:01:44 day it gets worse.
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well that makes a lot of sense. You
00:01:48 --> 00:01:49 wouldn't want it the other way around.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:50 Professor Fred Watson: No, you wouldn't. That's right.
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 Andrew Dunkley: Well if it was the other way around you
00:01:52 --> 00:01:53 wouldn't need a knee operation. There you
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 are. Okay.
00:01:56 --> 00:01:57 Uh, we should get straight into it because
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 we've got a lot of topics to discuss
00:02:00 --> 00:02:01 and our first storey,
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 uh, I know you've done a bit of radio on this
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 one, uh, but uh, Casey in Colorado sent this
00:02:08 --> 00:02:09 one through and
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 physicists at the Lux Zeppelin detector in
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 the United States think they may have,
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 may have uncovered
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 dark matter. This would be extraordinary
00:02:22 --> 00:02:25 if they have. Now the odds are pretty low
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 but they haven't said it's definitely
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 not dark matter. Would that be a fair
00:02:31 --> 00:02:31 assessment?
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Um, actually I'm looking
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 at um, uh, the wrong
00:02:37 --> 00:02:38 uh, script on this at the moment and in fact
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 I'm struggling to see anything because I've
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 got a migraine going on here at the moment.
00:02:44 --> 00:02:45 Do you get those where you just get this
00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 lovely Zigzag pattern and cross your face.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:50 Andrew Dunkley: No, I'm very lucky, but my brother and sister
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 both get, uh, those kinds of, uh, headaches.
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 Professor Fred Watson: Well, listen, there's no headache. There's no
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 headache with it. It's just this
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 extraordinary pattern that has ticked, uh,
00:02:59 --> 00:03:02 about half an hour to mature. It starts off
00:03:02 --> 00:03:03 in the middle of your field of view when you
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 can't see anything, and then it, uh, broadens
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 out and it's, um, something I've observed
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 since, uh. I think the first time I remember
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 it. I was about 16. The first time I remember
00:03:14 --> 00:03:14 noticing it.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 Andrew Dunkley: You know what? I used to have that.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:18 Professor Fred Watson: There you go.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:20 Andrew Dunkley: And I couldn't explain. I never got it
00:03:20 --> 00:03:21 checked out. I just thought it was my eyes
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 doing stupid things. But I used to have a
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 zigzag in my vision and
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 it happened only a few months ago and
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 hasn't happened again since. But it used to
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 be quite regular and now it's very rare.
00:03:34 --> 00:03:35 Well, there you go.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:36 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:03:37 --> 00:03:37 Professor Fred Watson: Wow.
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 Professor Fred Watson: It's, uh, basically a spasm
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 in a nerve in your brain. And
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 the reason, you know, it's something going on
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 in your brain is that it's in both eyes. It's
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 not, you know, you can't distinguish between
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 the two. I'm so sorry to have diverted.
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 Andrew Dunkley: No, no, it's fascinating. Well, you've
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 actually alerted me to something that I
00:03:57 --> 00:03:59 didn't even know existed.
00:03:59 --> 00:04:01 Professor Fred Watson: There you go. That's a, uh. It's a, uh,
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 headachless, uh, migraine. And it's.
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 Yeah, they sometimes come with quite
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 striking colours as well. This one's fairly
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 benign, the one I'm looking at at the moment.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 Andrew Dunkley: But it can disrupt what you're trying to do.
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it's not. Not good if you're driving.
00:04:16 --> 00:04:17 Andrew Dunkley: No, definitely not.
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Yeah. So sorry, um, about that.
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 Andrew Dunkley: No, I'm gobsmacked because I never knew it
00:04:24 --> 00:04:24 was a thing.
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 Professor Fred Watson: It is a thing. It is a thing. And you had it,
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 you see, and you didn'. It needs me to tell
00:04:29 --> 00:04:30 you what you. What your ailments are.
00:04:31 --> 00:04:31 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 Professor Fred Watson: Um, but back to Dark matter.
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 Maybe, um, migraines are caused by dark
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 matter interaction. So, um, as,
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 uh, I think probably all our listeners know
00:04:44 --> 00:04:45 because we go on about this stuff
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 interminably, the evidence for Dark
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 Matter prime primarily
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 has come from the astronomy world
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 because we see evidence that,
00:04:58 --> 00:04:59 uh, there is material in the universe.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 Universe which we cannot detect. Uh,
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 and that, uh, evidence ranges from galaxies
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 spinning faster than they ought to, if all
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 that's there is normal matter, uh,
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 to what we call gravitational microlensing,
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 uh, where, um, objects, uh,
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 galaxies or gravitational lensing, rather
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 than microlensing galaxies in deep space,
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 uh, their dark matter halos act as a lens and
00:05:25 --> 00:05:26 you can see its effect on the stars behind.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 And that lets you plot out where the dark
00:05:29 --> 00:05:30 matter lies. And we know dark matter is where
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 normal matter is. So, um, it's some
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 stuff that is real. Uh, but the
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 conjecture has always been that if
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 it interacts with normal
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 matter at all, it is
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 extremely rarely. In other words, you know,
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 you need gazillions of collisions, uh,
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 between matter and dark matter
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 for one of them to produce a
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 measurable signal. Um,
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 and so that is the basis of some of the
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 detectors that have been built around the
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 world to try and detect dark matter, um,
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 directly. Um, and in fact, there's
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 one here in Australia, Um, it's at a place
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 called Stoyle, uh, in Victoria. Uh,
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 it's down a gold mine, I think. Uh, you bury
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 these things deep in the Earth so that you're
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 minimising terrestrial effects. You minimise
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 anything that could be happening, uh, near
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 the surface. Um, and what you do is
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 you typically. And the one that we're. I
00:06:31 --> 00:06:32 should just go straight to the one that we're
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 talking about. It's an experiment, uh, at
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 the Sanford Underground Research
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 Facility, uh, in South
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 Dakota. Uh, and that
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 is an experiment called Lux
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 Zeppelin, usually, uh, abbreviated to
00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 lz, I guess it would be, rather than lz.
00:06:52 --> 00:06:54 Lz. Uh, that, uh, is
00:06:56 --> 00:06:57 an experiment that, if I remember rightly, I
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 don't have my notes in front of me on this.
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 Um, it's got, uh, something like
00:07:02 --> 00:07:04 about, I think it's 10 tonnes
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 of liquid xenon,
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 something that's normal temperature and
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 pressure, but it's liquefied. So 10 tonnes of
00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 this stuff deep underground. And what you
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 do is you have a tank which is festooned with
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 photo detectors. So if
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 anything flashed in the,
00:07:26 --> 00:07:28 in the tank of xenon, uh, you could
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 identify it. And more especially, uh,
00:07:32 --> 00:07:33 because you've got lots of detectors, you
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 could, uh, track a
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 particle if that's, you know, the
00:07:39 --> 00:07:40 way it goes, because you've got multiple
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 detectors which are all active all the time.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 So, uh, that is
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 where it's got to in terms of the experiment.
00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 But, uh, what's happened is
00:07:53 --> 00:07:54 they've detected a flash.
00:07:54 --> 00:07:55 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, which, um, is a result.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 Uh, I think it was announced, um, only a few
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 days ago, first of September. Um,
00:08:05 --> 00:08:05 uh,
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 in many ways it's the first hint, certainly
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 the first hint that's come from the usa, uh,
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 that maybe one of these collisions has been
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 Observed. Now, um, I'm not a particle
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 physicist, Andrew, as you know. I'm supposed
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 to be an astronomer. Probably am actually, in
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 some ways. Um, and, uh,
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 the. Uh. So I'm not sure of
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 the exact nature of the observation,
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 whether they observe, uh,
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 this flash in different wavelengths, in other
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 words, using different filters, uh, and can
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 analyse what the spectrum of that flash looks
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 like or whether it's something more subtle
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 than that. Uh, but that is what
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 is currently going on now. And I
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 think, uh, the surprise is
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 that this thing has a relatively low energy.
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 Uh, it's a slow particle.
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 Uh, and, um, they're talking about energies
00:09:02 --> 00:09:03 of. I think it's in the region of
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 250, uh, kilo
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 electron volts, kev, 248 kev of
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 energy in the detector. Um. Now, the
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 Large Hadron Collider collides
00:09:16 --> 00:09:17 particles up to, uh,
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 teravolt energies. Uh, so
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 a kilovolt and a teravolt are very wide
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 apart. But that's an interesting aspect of
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 this. So I think it's one of these storeys
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 that, um. Um. Uh,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 will evolve. Um, I mentioned a minute ago
00:09:37 --> 00:09:38 that this was the first time it's been
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 detected or there's any kind of detection in
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 the U.S. and that's because there's an
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 experiment at, uh, uh, a
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 facility called Gran Sasso National
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 Laboratories, which is in Italy,
00:09:52 --> 00:09:55 uh, and there's one in China too. Um, which
00:09:55 --> 00:09:57 I think, uh, these.
00:09:58 --> 00:09:58 Professor Fred Watson: Uh.
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 Professor Fred Watson: Certainly the Italian one has picked
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 up things before and there's evidence
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 from the Italian operators that they thought
00:10:08 --> 00:10:09 they'd found a. Uh. And I think we talked
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 about this on Spacenuts. They thought they'd
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 found a seasonal variation in
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 the flux of what might be dark matter.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 Uh, but that's not been replicated
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 anywhere else. I think that was one of the
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 reasons why the Stoyle facility was, uh,
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 initiated down in Victoria. Um, in order
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 to cheque whether this is real, this
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 storey that's coming from Italy, um,
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 unfortunately, I can't read anymore in my
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 book. Has got these zigzags across
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 the field of view, which are interesting in
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 their own right. But, um, I think that's the
00:10:42 --> 00:10:43 bottom line there.
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I think they're saying, look, it could
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 be, uh, the odds of it being a
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 dark matter discovery are, uh, 0.5%.
00:10:52 --> 00:10:53 I think they're quoting.
00:10:53 --> 00:10:54 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right.
00:10:55 --> 00:10:55 Professor Fred Watson: Um.
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, isn't that the odds that it's
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 not real? I can't remember which way.
00:11:01 --> 00:11:02 Andrew Dunkley: Is that what they're saying?
00:11:03 --> 00:11:04 Professor Fred Watson: I need to just look at that again.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:06 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I'M trying to find it now.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 Professor Fred Watson: You know we think in terms of um,
00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 sigma, the number of standard deviations.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 Uh, um, this doesn't, I think five sigma is
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 the normal acceptance for a fact. This I
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 don't think is anywhere near that. But it's
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 still, I think it's still got quite a high
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 level of probability attached to it. Uh, and
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 just to clarify, I'm sorry, um, uh, what I
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 said was just a bit misleading. That
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 248 kilo
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 electron volts is actually a
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 recoil, that's a recoil of a particle.
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 Um, and so they can deduce from that that it
00:11:42 --> 00:11:43 would be uh, at least
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 200 giga electron volts that your dark matter
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 particle uh, would have
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 to work out. That's quite an interesting.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:54 Andrew Dunkley: I found it, uh, the team reached what is
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 known as 2.6-sigma, a
00:11:57 --> 00:12:00 0.5% chance that the event could be
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 explained by known backgrounds.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 Uh, and that is still below a five sigma
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 threshold needed to confirm a discovery. So
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 there you go. Bit more complicated than what
00:12:11 --> 00:12:11 I thought.
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, but it's uh, intriguing.
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 It's. You know this could just be the first
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 chink in new physics that we've
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 been looking for that might give us an
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 explanation for what dark matter is.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 Andrew Dunkley: Indeed, uh, they've published their findings
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 in the archive. It is yet to
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 be uh, peer reviewed but I'm sure it
00:12:33 --> 00:12:34 will be,
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 Professor Fred Watson: it'll be reviewed to death. You can believe
00:12:37 --> 00:12:37 it.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Uh, you can also read
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 about it on the ABC Science website.
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 Yes, this is space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 with Professor Fred Watson Watson.
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 Professor Fred Watson: Tranquilly Base here. The eagle has landed.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:55 Professor Fred Watson: Space nets.
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 Andrew Dunkley: This storey Fred Watson I love, uh, because
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 it involves an outback astronomer. Uh,
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 it is uh, a new decagon
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 that's been discovered on Saturn uh, around
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 its south pole. And Trevor Barry has
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 made the news uh, out of Broken Hill in
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 Outback New South Wales because uh, he was a
00:13:14 --> 00:13:14 part of this find.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. Trevor's an old friend. Trevor
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 and I go back to the mid-1990s when he first
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 visited me at Siding Spring Observatory and
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 we hit it off and we've been in touch ever
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 since. Um, he, let's uh, just
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 do the Trevor bit of the storey. Um because
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 this is certainly a double barreled
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 storey here. Uh, he um,
00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 discovered uh, astronomy when he was a, he
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 wasn't a miner, he was a mine worker in the,
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 I think he was a fitter actually in the mines
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 in Broken Hill. Uh, and um,
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 one of his colleagues built a telescope and
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 had a look through it at the planet Saturn
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 and has been hooked ever since. Um, and built
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 a succession of telescopes which are
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 impressive. I've seen uh, the one that he
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 uses currently it's a 400 millimetre
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 telescope, homemade. Some of its components
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 came from an old washing machine. It's great
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 stuff. It's kind of you know the absolute
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 um ah essence in a way of
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 good amateur astronomy. But with that
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 telescope he observes Saturn. Uh I think
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 actually it's not just Saturn. He cheques out
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 other giant planets as well but Saturn is
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24 certainly his area of
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 speciality and he cheques it out
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 every clear night. And that was why he
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 got co opted onto the Cassini team
00:14:33 --> 00:14:35 back in the early 2000s with uh, Carolyn
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 Porco, uh, the image uh scientist
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 of uh Cassini. Um, uh Trevor
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 was the one that said uh there's a storm in
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 Saturn's northern hemisphere, you might want
00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 to take a look at it with Cassini because of
00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 course the Cassini spacecraft didn't have the
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 global view of Saturn, it just had its
00:14:53 --> 00:14:55 instruments that could be pointed in any
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 direction. Uh whereas Trevor with his
00:14:57 --> 00:15:00 telescope could see where the activity was
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 and he was their ah, guide. Uh
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 so of course he received lots of honours from
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 that. Um, I know he has spent a lot of
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 time studying uh, the north
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 polar hexagon of Saturn and
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 that's a feature that was uh discovered
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 actually by the Voyager spacecraft back in
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 the 1980s but was uh,
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 analysed deeply by the Cassini
00:15:25 --> 00:15:28 mission. So this is a, it's a jet stream. Uh
00:15:28 --> 00:15:31 it is a very, very
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 regular hexagon. Uh it almost
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 looks as though there should be a spanner
00:15:36 --> 00:15:39 somewhere nearby because it's that shape. Um
00:15:39 --> 00:15:42 and it's formed by, it's basically a
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 six peaked wave that's formed in a circle.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 Uh but it looks like a hexagon. You wouldn't
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50 be able to take a spanner to it because each
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 side of the hexagon is 2 kilometres
00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 bigger than the diameter of the Earth. Uh so
00:15:55 --> 00:15:58 this is large. Now, now Trevor has studied
00:15:58 --> 00:16:00 the hexagon in great detail but of course one
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 of the, and he's got papers with his
00:16:02 --> 00:16:04 colleagues from NASA and elsewhere with that.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 Uh, one of the um, things that has
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 puzzled astronomers, excuse me astronomers
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 is um why isn't the one in
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 the South Pole, why isn't there a hexagon or
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 something like it near the southern polar
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 region? And so that is something Trevor has
00:16:21 --> 00:16:24 long kept an eye on working with his
00:16:24 --> 00:16:26 colleagues, um one of whom is actually in
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 Spain. In fact uh, we were very close to his
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 colleague Augustine Works. Uh, we were very
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 close to where it is, um, about a
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 month ago when we were there for the eclipse.
00:16:37 --> 00:16:40 Um, the bottom line is that
00:16:40 --> 00:16:43 within the last three years they've
00:16:43 --> 00:16:45 started seeing evidence of something fishy
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 going on which has now been followed up by
00:16:48 --> 00:16:50 the Hubble telescope. And what has been
00:16:50 --> 00:16:53 revealed is not a hexagon
00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 but a decagon, a ten sided uh,
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 figure around the south pole of
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 Saturn. And the big difference between
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 that and the hexagon, we don't know how old
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 the hexagon is, we don't know how long it's
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 been there. But we do know that this decagon
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 has only been there since 2023. It's probably
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 still in the process of formation. Um,
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 and so this is the result of the,
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 or the um, announcement that's been made in
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 this paper within the last couple of weeks in
00:17:22 --> 00:17:24 Science Advances. Trevor is
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 absolutely over the moon. Uh, he
00:17:27 --> 00:17:30 me an email when the paper was released. Uh,
00:17:30 --> 00:17:32 and you could tell he was bursting with
00:17:32 --> 00:17:34 delight as to what's happened. He's had um,
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 as always when Trevor makes a discovery
00:17:36 --> 00:17:38 because he's the, you know, the astronomer of
00:17:38 --> 00:17:41 Broken Hill, he gets a lot of media, uh,
00:17:41 --> 00:17:43 coverage and quite rightly too, uh, this
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 year saw the publication of a book on his
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47 life, Outback Astronomer, which is a, uh,
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 very nice book. Uh, I was privileged to write
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 the foreword for it. Um, so it's one to look
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 out for if you're interested in following
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 Trevor's career. More especially though, if
00:17:57 --> 00:17:59 you're interested in following the decagon,
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 there's really good news and that is that
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 at the moment Saturn, where it is in its
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 orbit, it's moving towards
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 the southern summer
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 solstice, which means that the south polar
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 region um, of Saturn
00:18:17 --> 00:18:19 is tilted towards the inner solar
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 system, in other words towards us. Uh,
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 and so the solstice is uh, I think it's April
00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 2020, 2032. So between now
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 and then we'll get better and better views of
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 this decagon, assuming it lasts. I mean
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 it could be something that is so temporary it
00:18:36 --> 00:18:37 just collapses, but it's definitely there.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:41 Uh, it's easy to find pictures um, of it for
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 our listeners who might want to chase it up
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 on the web. Um, it's um, yeah, so a great
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 discovery with a lovely backstory as well
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50 concerning somebody who's uh, I think very
00:18:50 --> 00:18:51 special in the world of astronomy.
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 Andrew Dunkley: Me, uh, even right down to his corrugated
00:18:54 --> 00:18:57 ironclad observatory.
00:18:57 --> 00:19:00 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right, absolutely. It's
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 got all the bells and whistles I think
00:19:03 --> 00:19:05 I remember, um, I need to cheque it in.
00:19:05 --> 00:19:07 Outback Astronomer. One of his telescopes is
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 called Fred Watson. Um and um,
00:19:10 --> 00:19:13 he's made it into an acronym. But um, uh,
00:19:13 --> 00:19:16 um, he's done me the honour of naming his
00:19:16 --> 00:19:16 telescope.
00:19:17 --> 00:19:20 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah, there's a fabulous storey
00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 on the ABC about him. Uh, if you
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 want look it up, uh, should be easy to find.
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 Just do a search for Trevor Barry,
00:19:28 --> 00:19:31 uh, ABC and uh, it'll pop up. Um, you
00:19:31 --> 00:19:34 can read the published paper
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 in the journal Science Advances. But uh,
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 yeah, great storey, great local connection
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 and congratulations to Trevor and everybody
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 involved. And I forgot to say thank you to
00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 Casey for um, um, sending us that
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 first storey about Lux Zeppelin. This is
00:19:50 --> 00:19:53 Space Nuts, the podcast and the radio show
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 on Community, um, Radio Across Australia with
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 Andrew Dunkley and Fred Watson Watson.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 0G and I feel fine Space
00:20:03 --> 00:20:04 Nuts.
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06 Now we've got a double bunger Storey here
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 because they're of a similar ilk in very
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 different parts of the solar system. Uh, and
00:20:11 --> 00:20:13 the first part of this storey involves China
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 and they're um, getting right
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 down to the nuts and bolts. Nothing to do
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 with Saturn's south pole, but right
00:20:23 --> 00:20:24 down to the nuts and bolts of finding
00:20:24 --> 00:20:27 somewhere to land on Mars for
00:20:28 --> 00:20:30 a sample return mission.
00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 Looking for ancient life. This is very
00:20:33 --> 00:20:33 exciting.
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 Professor Fred Watson: It is. Um, and I think this is going to
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 um, I think it's something that's going to
00:20:41 --> 00:20:44 not go unnoticed in the halls of
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46 NASA. Uh, because of course
00:20:46 --> 00:20:49 NASA has perseverance on the surface of Mars
00:20:49 --> 00:20:51 at the moment which has gathered up all these
00:20:51 --> 00:20:54 samples of soil and dirt
00:20:54 --> 00:20:57 from the surface of Mars. I, it's
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 more than 20 samples I think they've got now
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 which have been left in little containers
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 with the idea of picking them up to bring
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 them back to Earth, ah for um,
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 analysis on our planet. But at the moment
00:21:09 --> 00:21:11 there's no mission planned to do that.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:13 Andrew Dunkley: No, they've just left them lying around like.
00:21:13 --> 00:21:14 Just like a dog would do.
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, exactly. Whereas
00:21:17 --> 00:21:20 China, um, uh, they've,
00:21:20 --> 00:21:22 they're planning a mission that will actually
00:21:23 --> 00:21:26 do it all. Basically it'll
00:21:27 --> 00:21:30 have um, a lander on the surface with a rover
00:21:30 --> 00:21:33 which will scout around. I've got a
00:21:33 --> 00:21:35 feeling there's a drone involved as well. Um,
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 ah, it's going to cheque
00:21:39 --> 00:21:42 out good sites, it'll drill
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 and I think the drill goes is the
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 idea is to go down up to 2 metres which is
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50 actually what ESA's ExoMars as um,
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 rover is planning to do, uh, grab
00:21:53 --> 00:21:56 samples and then send them back to Earth,
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59 uh, more or less immediately. And
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 so this Is, you
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 know, if that happens before we get the
00:22:05 --> 00:22:07 perseverance samples back, I think a lot of
00:22:07 --> 00:22:09 people are going to be miffed about that. Um,
00:22:09 --> 00:22:12 what would be even more spectacular would be
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 if there were signs of past life among the
00:22:14 --> 00:22:17 Tianwen 3 Mars sample returns.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 So, um, it's an exciting, um, uh,
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23 project. I think 2028 is when
00:22:24 --> 00:22:27 the launch is going
00:22:27 --> 00:22:30 to take place. Two spacecraft will
00:22:30 --> 00:22:31 actually be launched. There'll be two launch
00:22:31 --> 00:22:34 vehicles, um, one, I think, for the
00:22:34 --> 00:22:37 lander and rover, one for the orbiter and the
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 return spacecraft. Uh, so as you said.
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 Quite right. They had 86 candidate sites
00:22:43 --> 00:22:45 originally. They've narrowed it down, uh, to
00:22:46 --> 00:22:48 uh, a dozen. Is that right?
00:22:48 --> 00:22:49 Andrew Dunkley: I think it was 12.
00:22:49 --> 00:22:52 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're all
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 in, I think, a similar part of Mars's
00:22:54 --> 00:22:57 equatorial region. Places where we know
00:22:57 --> 00:23:00 that there are clays, and of course clays are
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 minerals that were formed in water, um, and
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 they are good at preserving organic molecules
00:23:06 --> 00:23:09 and maybe, uh, give us more,
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 um, more of a chance of finding evidence
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 of past life there, you know, DNA evidence or
00:23:15 --> 00:23:17 something of that sort. Yeah. So, um,
00:23:18 --> 00:23:20 is exciting news and I, um, I think
00:23:20 --> 00:23:23 it's um, you know, it's, it's hats off to
00:23:23 --> 00:23:26 the China national, uh, Space Administration,
00:23:27 --> 00:23:30 um, for, for the plans that they're carrying
00:23:30 --> 00:23:30 out.
00:23:30 --> 00:23:33 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, Indeed, it's the Tianwen
00:23:33 --> 00:23:35 3 mission because they've already done it
00:23:35 --> 00:23:38 twice in the past, um, landing things on
00:23:38 --> 00:23:40 Mars. But, um, I, I do believe there is a
00:23:40 --> 00:23:43 copter involved. I can see that in
00:23:43 --> 00:23:46 the right, uh, in the storey there. I just
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 can't find any reference to it, but I think
00:23:48 --> 00:23:51 they've got a. Yeah, it looks like
00:23:51 --> 00:23:53 it does ground tracking from
00:23:54 --> 00:23:57 the sky, but, uh, a little drone. Yeah.
00:23:57 --> 00:23:59 Professor Fred Watson: Now we know drones work on Mars.
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 Andrew Dunkley: They do, yeah. Ah, fantastic.
00:24:01 --> 00:24:04 And they will, um, be launching
00:24:04 --> 00:24:07 this probably in 2028,
00:24:08 --> 00:24:08 is that right?
00:24:09 --> 00:24:12 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, late 2028, yes. Uh, two separate
00:24:12 --> 00:24:13 long March 5th rockets.
00:24:14 --> 00:24:17 Andrew Dunkley: And so we may have answers in the
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 not too distant future, all things being
00:24:19 --> 00:24:22 equal, which, um, is fantastic. We wish them
00:24:22 --> 00:24:23 well with the mission.
00:24:23 --> 00:24:26 There is a similar mission, speaking of NASA,
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 um, which is headed to Titan,
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 Uh, they're looking at a 2028 launch, uh,
00:24:32 --> 00:24:35 as well. Um, and
00:24:35 --> 00:24:38 they're off to Titan and they should get
00:24:38 --> 00:24:41 there in 2034 if they don't forget to
00:24:41 --> 00:24:43 pay their tolls along the way. Uh,
00:24:44 --> 00:24:47 this miss, uh, the Dragonfly
00:24:47 --> 00:24:48 mission, I think we have mentioned it before,
00:24:48 --> 00:24:49 but.
00:24:49 --> 00:24:49 Professor Fred Watson: We have, yes.
00:24:49 --> 00:24:52 Andrew Dunkley: It's getting ever closer and
00:24:53 --> 00:24:54 um, they're really getting to the pointy end.
00:24:54 --> 00:24:55 By the sound of it.
00:24:57 --> 00:24:59 Professor Fred Watson: That's right. So um, and the
00:24:59 --> 00:25:02 announcement's very similar coming from the
00:25:02 --> 00:25:04 Dragonfly team. They've basically
00:25:05 --> 00:25:07 decided where they are going to land
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09 on Titan. It is
00:25:10 --> 00:25:13 uh, an area called
00:25:14 --> 00:25:16 uh, um, Amakik Undei
00:25:17 --> 00:25:20 which is a region of dunes. Um
00:25:20 --> 00:25:23 and dunes are uh, these are probably
00:25:23 --> 00:25:25 dunes of ice actually ice
00:25:26 --> 00:25:29 particles rather than sand. But uh, there's a
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 crater called the Salk Crater which this
00:25:32 --> 00:25:34 dune region is to the south of. Uh,
00:25:34 --> 00:25:37 they think it is a uh, really
00:25:37 --> 00:25:38 interesting geologically
00:25:39 --> 00:25:41 ah, productive region.
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 Uh and the idea is
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 to give the drone, uh you
00:25:48 --> 00:25:50 know, as much of a variety of landscape
00:25:51 --> 00:25:53 uh as possible to cheque out.
00:25:54 --> 00:25:57 Um, this is the Dragonfly drone. I uh,
00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 think it's an octocopter if I remember
00:25:59 --> 00:26:01 rightly. So I think
00:26:02 --> 00:26:04 there's a sort of range of hills and
00:26:04 --> 00:26:07 mountains at the edge of this region. And so
00:26:07 --> 00:26:10 um, that's the plan to go there with a
00:26:10 --> 00:26:12 3.3 year uh, primary mission.
00:26:13 --> 00:26:15 Uh and as I'm reading
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 a little blog post here, uh, about
00:26:19 --> 00:26:22 uh, what is going to um, be done
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 with Dragonfly comes from Leonard David.
00:26:25 --> 00:26:27 Um, once Dragonfly reaches Titan the
00:26:27 --> 00:26:30 rotorcraft will conduct a uh, 3.3 year
00:26:30 --> 00:26:32 primary mission exploring diverse
00:26:32 --> 00:26:35 environments from organic dunes to deposits
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 associated with Salt Crater, a place where
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 liquid water and complex organic, organic
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 materials key to life once existed
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 together. Remembering of course that the
00:26:45 --> 00:26:47 surface of Titan is at about -190
00:26:47 --> 00:26:48 degrees Celsius.
00:26:49 --> 00:26:52 Andrew Dunkley: How is something made on Earth
00:26:52 --> 00:26:55 like the Dragonfly spacecraft and more
00:26:55 --> 00:26:57 particularly the equipment they're going to
00:26:57 --> 00:27:00 put down at Selk Crater or that area
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 going to survive that long in such a hostile
00:27:03 --> 00:27:04 environment? It's not a nice place.
00:27:05 --> 00:27:07 Professor Fred Watson: No, not really, no. Uh, it's got quite high
00:27:07 --> 00:27:09 atmospheric pressure so that'll make the
00:27:09 --> 00:27:12 drone easier to fly. That's
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 one of the challenges with Mars of course
00:27:14 --> 00:27:16 flying the um, the helicopter
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19 um, on Mars was the fact that it uh,
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 Mars has a atmospheric pressure less than 1%
00:27:22 --> 00:27:25 of the Earth. So ingenuity. The helicopter
00:27:25 --> 00:27:28 had to, had ah to have big wings. Uh, perhaps
00:27:28 --> 00:27:30 the drone, uh, the Dragonfly drone won't need
00:27:30 --> 00:27:32 quite as much. But really interesting uh,
00:27:32 --> 00:27:35 project though and one that we um,
00:27:35 --> 00:27:37 will continue to watch with interest and
00:27:37 --> 00:27:37 Andrew.
00:27:37 --> 00:27:40 Andrew Dunkley: We will, yeah. And both those missions um,
00:27:40 --> 00:27:43 coming up very very soon. So uh, we're
00:27:43 --> 00:27:46 um, yeah, uh, only a few years away from
00:27:46 --> 00:27:48 getting maybe potential answers to some of
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 those great questions that we've been
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 asking for decades and decades.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:56 Yes, indeed. Uh, you can
00:27:57 --> 00:27:59 um, read that storey on the website
00:28:00 --> 00:28:01 leonarddavid.com.
00:28:02 --> 00:28:04 uh, before we finish up, Fred Watson, I just
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06 wanted to sort of do some shouting out. Um,
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08 we've got a listener that refers to him or
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 her as the web pro in Chile listening to
00:28:11 --> 00:28:14 us or watching us on YouTube live today.
00:28:15 --> 00:28:17 And hello to Emily. This is.
00:28:17 --> 00:28:20 She says watching us is cool. I think it's
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 very cool. She's listening from an offshore
00:28:23 --> 00:28:26 oil rig, uh, oil and gas rig in the
00:28:26 --> 00:28:27 Indian Ocean off the coast of Western
00:28:27 --> 00:28:29 Australia. So, um. Hi, Emily.
00:28:31 --> 00:28:34 We were on a ship crossing that area a bit
00:28:34 --> 00:28:36 over a year ago. So, um, yeah,
00:28:37 --> 00:28:40 it's, um, lovely to have you listening along
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 and everybody who's watching actually on our
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 YouTube channel. We are done. Fred Watson,
00:28:45 --> 00:28:47 thank you, uh, so much.
00:28:47 --> 00:28:49 Professor Fred Watson: It's a pleasure. Always. Good. And, um,
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 thanks, Andrew, for putting up with my
00:28:52 --> 00:28:54 discussions about migrates.
00:28:54 --> 00:28:57 Andrew Dunkley: Oh, no, I'm glad you brought it up because I
00:28:57 --> 00:28:58 actually learned something.
00:28:58 --> 00:29:00 Professor Fred Watson: I'm delighted to tell you it's now cleared
00:29:00 --> 00:29:00 completely.
00:29:00 --> 00:29:02 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it does that. That's. That's exactly
00:29:02 --> 00:29:04 how I remember them. They just sort of go
00:29:04 --> 00:29:04 away as.
00:29:05 --> 00:29:06 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it's weird.
00:29:06 --> 00:29:08 Andrew Dunkley: All right, see you soon, Fred Watson. Thank
00:29:08 --> 00:29:10 you, Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer
00:29:10 --> 00:29:13 at large. Don't forget to visit us, uh,
00:29:13 --> 00:29:14 online at our website,
00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 spacenutspodcast.com or spacenuts
00:29:17 --> 00:29:19 IO. Have a look around while you're there.
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21 Maybe leave some reviews wherever you listen
00:29:21 --> 00:29:24 to us. Reviews are very helpful to get our
00:29:24 --> 00:29:27 numbers up. Um, I don't know what the numbers
00:29:27 --> 00:29:29 are for or what they do, but it's pretty,
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31 pretty important, apparently, according to
00:29:31 --> 00:29:33 Huw. And, uh, thanks to Huw in the studio,
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 who couldn't be with us today because he did
00:29:35 --> 00:29:38 a sample return and they
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 put him in hospital. Uh, and from me, Andrew
00:29:40 --> 00:29:43 Dunkley. Thanks for your company. We'll
00:29:43 --> 00:29:45 see you on the next episode of Space Nuts.
00:29:45 --> 00:29:45 Bye.
00:29:45 --> 00:29:45 Professor Fred Watson: Bye.
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 Andrew Dunkley: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 podcast, available at
00:29:52 --> 00:29:54 Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
00:29:54 --> 00:29:57 iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast
00:29:57 --> 00:29:58 player. You can also stream on
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00 demand@bytes.com.
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 Professor Fred Watson: this has been another quality podcast
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 production from bytes.um com.