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Black Holes, Dark Matter Mysteries & Cosmic Questions from the Netherlands · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Hello again. Thanks for joining us. This is
• 0:03
  Space Nuts, where we talk astronomy and space
• 0:05
  science. And it's good to have your company
• 0:08
  on this Q and A edition.
• 0:10
  And what are we talking about today? Oh, uh,
• 0:12
  something completely different, new and
• 0:15
  unchallenged in the annals of Space
• 0:17
  Nuts and the wider world of astronomy.
• 0:20
  Uh, somebody's got a black hole question,
• 0:24
  and the next question is a dark matter
• 0:27
  question. These, they, they just dovetail
• 0:29
  beautifully, those two. And then we, uh,
• 0:31
  we've got a bit of a Dutch treat for you. Uh,
• 0:33
  Robert from the Netherlands is asking about
• 0:35
  the Fermi paradox, and Angela from the
• 0:38
  Netherlands has a, um, an idea to
• 0:41
  send bugs into space on purpose.
• 0:44
  We'll talk about all of that on this edition
• 0:46
  of space nuts. 15 seconds.
• 0:49
  Voice Over Guy: Guidance is internal. 10,
• 0:51
  9. Ignition sequence time.
• 0:54
  Space nuts. 5, 4, 3. 2. 1,
• 0:57
  2, 3, 4, 5. Very good one.
• 1:00
  Space nuts. Astronauts report it feels
• 1:03
  good.
• 1:04
  Andrew Dunkley: And joining us again to solve all of those
• 1:06
  little riddles is Professor Fred Watson
• 1:08
  Watson, astronomer at large, still wearing
• 1:10
  the same shirt as he was last. Hello,
• 1:12
  Fred Watson.
• 1:13
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I only. I only change my shirts
• 1:16
  once a week, apparently.
• 1:18
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well, I do that on holidays because,
• 1:21
  uh.
• 1:24
  Although, although on our, on our cruise we,
• 1:26
  um, we did all our own washing because.
• 1:29
  Well, they charge you to do washing on a, on
• 1:31
  a cruise ship if you, if you want them to do
• 1:33
  it. But, uh, they had laundries on this ship,
• 1:35
  so we did our own, which turned out to be a
• 1:38
  very good thing. So, um, it sort
• 1:41
  of, uh, were.
• 1:42
  Professor Fred Watson: Well on. You're on board for 13 weeks,
• 1:44
  weren't you? 13 weeks is a little bit long to
• 1:46
  keep the same shirt.
• 1:47
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Basically it's pretty tough wearing the
• 1:50
  same pair of undies for 13 weeks and
• 1:53
  expecting people to actually sit down and
• 1:55
  have dinner with you. It's,
• 1:58
  it's not. Not, uh, not advised. Not
• 2:01
  advised.
• 2:02
  Professor Fred Watson: No, this helps. We've tried it, actually.
• 2:07
  Andrew Dunkley: No, I haven't. No, I haven't.
• 2:10
  Professor Fred Watson: Your wife wouldn't let you do that?
• 2:11
  Andrew Dunkley: No, uh, no. Uh, definitely not.
• 2:13
  Um, now, uh, we've got a bunch of questions
• 2:16
  to get through, and we.
• 2:17
  Professor Fred Watson: Might as well get the ball rolling.
• 2:19
  Andrew Dunkley: With Dave, who has a question
• 2:22
  related to black holes.
• 2:24
  Speaker C: Hey, Professor Fred Watson Watson, Andrew
• 2:27
  and. Or Heidi, whoever this may be.
• 2:30
  Um, got a question about black holes, like
• 2:32
  all my other questions. I've been watching a
• 2:35
  lot of documentaries and something
• 2:39
  that still questions me is
• 2:42
  black holes, do they move or are they
• 2:44
  stationary? And if they do move,
• 2:48
  do they move through space and time
• 2:51
  or space time, like the fabric of space?
• 2:55
  And if so, are they eating the Fabric of
• 2:57
  space? Or is it just going around the black
• 2:59
  hole and then back into place? How come we
• 3:02
  don't see trails behind the black holes where
• 3:05
  they've just eaten away fabric of space?
• 3:08
  Um, not quite sure how that works
• 3:10
  or anything like that.
• 3:14
  Professor Fred Watson: And if.
• 3:15
  Speaker C: If they all do rotate, which we think they
• 3:17
  do, do they
• 3:20
  rotationally pull on the fabric of
• 3:23
  space?
• 3:24
  Professor Fred Watson: Thank you.
• 3:26
  Andrew Dunkley: Okay, great, uh, question. Thank you, Dave.
• 3:29
  And, uh, we'll get a great answer. Now,
• 3:32
  although it's an interesting question. We,
• 3:34
  um, from my perspective, and I think we
• 3:37
  have touched on this before,
• 3:40
  everything moves in space. Nothing is
• 3:42
  standing still, is it?
• 3:45
  Professor Fred Watson: No, you're right, Andrew. That's exactly the.
• 3:47
  That's exactly the answer I was about to
• 3:48
  give.
• 3:49
  Andrew Dunkley: Oh, okay. Thanks, Dave.
• 3:50
  Next question comes from.
• 3:53
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, let's just, um, cover
• 3:55
  Dave's last part of that question first,
• 3:58
  which is trials. Do they.
• 4:01
  It was where if black holes are rotating, do
• 4:03
  they. The space time kind of. Do
• 4:06
  they drag it round? And indeed they do. It's
• 4:09
  a process called frame dragging. Um, the
• 4:11
  Earth does it actually. So any rotating
• 4:13
  object, dragon, drags the framework of space
• 4:16
  time around with it. And I think the same
• 4:18
  happens with black holes. I think we covered
• 4:21
  a story, um, probably
• 4:23
  a couple of years ago, maybe, Andrew, which
• 4:26
  was about a demonstration that black
• 4:29
  holes, rotating black holes do,
• 4:32
  um, exhibit frame dragging, that
• 4:35
  space time does sort of get dragged around
• 4:37
  with them. Uh, so
• 4:40
  having said that, um,
• 4:43
  then the idea of black holes
• 4:46
  moving through space is not, I guess, that
• 4:48
  difficult. Uh, and indeed they do exactly as
• 4:51
  you've said, Andrew. Everything moves, uh,
• 4:53
  and it's twofold. One is that they're being
• 4:56
  carried along by space itself, what we call
• 4:58
  the Hubble flow, which is due to the
• 5:00
  expansion of the universe. And I think Dave
• 5:02
  touched on that by talking about, you know,
• 5:05
  the fabric of space time. Yes, the fabric of
• 5:07
  space time itself is moving and takes stuff
• 5:10
  along with it. Um, but,
• 5:13
  uh, uh, galaxies we
• 5:15
  know, have what we call peculiar velocities.
• 5:19
  Uh, they actually move around, um,
• 5:21
  within the moving fabric of space.
• 5:25
  Excuse me. The analogue that we often give
• 5:28
  is, uh, to liken the expansion of the
• 5:30
  universe to a river flowing. And the galaxies
• 5:33
  being like people zooming around the river
• 5:35
  on, um, boats, they're being carried along by
• 5:37
  the river flow, but they still move around
• 5:38
  with their own peculiar motion. And
• 5:41
  galaxies do that too. Not perhaps zipping
• 5:44
  around quite like boats do. Uh, but, uh,
• 5:47
  they're drawn to one another by their own
• 5:49
  gravity. Uh, so they do move through space.
• 5:51
  And yes, um, a black hole
• 5:54
  will move through the space time that it's
• 5:56
  in, but it won't leave a trail behind it.
• 5:59
  Um, the space time bends around it
• 6:02
  just as Dave suggested. There. Uh, as
• 6:05
  it goes through it's distorting the space
• 6:07
  time. But you, uh, know, the space time sort
• 6:10
  of recovers as it's gone past. So it's not
• 6:13
  like there'll be a wake that we could look
• 6:15
  for trailing behind supermassive, uh, black
• 6:17
  holes. Interesting idea though.
• 6:19
  Andrew Dunkley: Yes. Yeah, it'd be. It'd be so easy to find
• 6:22
  them if they left trails.
• 6:23
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right, it would.
• 6:26
  Andrew Dunkley: That's how you chase snails, you know, if
• 6:29
  you're a snail hunter.
• 6:31
  Professor Fred Watson: Well, I'm sure you do. Yeah. We get, um,
• 6:34
  on damp days, uh, we occasionally get invaded
• 6:36
  by slugs in our, in our laundry and bay
• 6:39
  leaf trams as well, which are based.
• 6:45
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
• 6:45
  Professor Fred Watson: Where were we the other day?
• 6:46
  Andrew Dunkley: Um, and walked outside because it had been
• 6:48
  raining and there were slugs the size of
• 6:51
  sausage dogs, uh, that
• 6:54
  were, they were enormous. Was in the United
• 6:56
  States somewhere up in, uh, up around
• 6:59
  Buffalo, I think, somewhere.
• 7:01
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Um, big boogers.
• 7:03
  Andrew Dunkley: Oh, no. Was it Niagara Falls? There's Niagara
• 7:05
  Falls. They were like this, like, you
• 7:08
  know, you could wrap them around your head if
• 7:10
  you were so inclined, get a.
• 7:11
  Professor Fred Watson: Decent meal out of one of them.
• 7:13
  Andrew Dunkley: Oh yeah.
• 7:14
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
• 7:14
  Andrew Dunkley: Yum. M. Um, although that reminds me,
• 7:17
  while we were overseas, I think it was when
• 7:19
  we were in Spain. Listen to me. Name
• 7:21
  dropping. Um, the, um, um.
• 7:25
  One of the staff on the ship was doing a
• 7:27
  presentation about our next stop and she
• 7:29
  said, while you're there, go and get some of
• 7:30
  this stuff. And it was, it was like a skin
• 7:32
  cream and that had snail slime in it.
• 7:37
  My wife bought some and is still using it.
• 7:41
  Uh, she thinks it's fabulous. So there you
• 7:43
  are. There's something to that. Go and rub
• 7:45
  snails on your face. Uh,
• 7:48
  and by the way, that, uh, that store, that
• 7:51
  story you referred to from a couple of years
• 7:53
  ago, uh, was, uh, about frame
• 7:56
  dragging, uh, of supermassive black holes.
• 7:58
  Was uh. May 2024. There you are.
• 8:02
  Professor Fred Watson: Okay. Hm. There you go. The memory's not
• 8:04
  quite gone yet, but it will eventually.
• 8:08
  Andrew Dunkley: I do recall us talking about it. Uh,
• 8:11
  thanks, David, for your question.
• 8:14
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  Our next question comes from Jared in
• 10:25
  Melbourne. Hi, Fred Watson, Heidi, Huw, Dave.
• 10:28
  Just kidding, Andrew. Thank you. They haven't
• 10:30
  gotten the Dave thing, have they? They
• 10:31
  haven't let that one go three months away.
• 10:34
  That one would die its natural death. But no,
• 10:37
  it's just popped itself up again. Um,
• 10:40
  we talk about galaxies having halos of
• 10:43
  dark matter gravitationally bound to them,
• 10:45
  thus affecting their rotational rate
• 10:48
  as compared to the predicted rotation
• 10:50
  rates. Uh, centre edge.
• 10:54
  Yeah. Okay. Uh,
• 10:57
  so then, while wondering if the sun
• 10:59
  has a portion of dark matter gravitationally
• 11:02
  bound to it, I read that people think it's
• 11:05
  m. Not much of a halo at all for something
• 11:08
  like the sun. As dark matter particles are
• 11:11
  moving too fast to be captured by the sun.
• 11:13
  I'm very interested to know why people, uh,
• 11:16
  might expect dark matter to be moving too
• 11:19
  fast to be captured by the sun when we have
• 11:21
  so few insights about what it is at all.
• 11:24
  How do they conclude it's whizzing around
• 11:26
  faster than escape velocity.
• 11:30
  Uh, keen to get your thoughts. Keep up the
• 11:31
  great work. Jared from Melbourne.
• 11:37
  Professor Fred Watson: And a great question which doesn't um,
• 11:40
  really have an answer. Uh, okay.
• 11:42
  Um, and that's because we know so little
• 11:45
  about dark matter. M
• 11:48
  It's certainly
• 11:51
  the thinking a few years ago
• 11:54
  was that dark matter
• 11:56
  halos have a minimum size or blobs of
• 11:59
  dark matter have a minimum size. And as
• 12:02
  Gerard suggests, that would be related to
• 12:04
  the, the velocity of the dark matter
• 12:06
  particles. Um, you know what that minimum
• 12:09
  size would be, uh, if the, the
• 12:12
  faster the particles are moving, the bigger
• 12:13
  the blob of dark matter. I seem to
• 12:16
  remember a number being touted around which
• 12:19
  was about 100 parsecs and a parsec is,
• 12:22
  was it 3.23 light years? I can never
• 12:25
  get the exact number. It's about three light
• 12:27
  years. So roughly 300 light years.
• 12:30
  However, I think there have been more recent
• 12:32
  observations that suggest that it might be
• 12:35
  clumpier than that it might clump together on
• 12:37
  smaller scales. Um, however, having
• 12:40
  said that, I think it is probably
• 12:43
  unlikely though that the sun itself
• 12:45
  would have uh, its own lump of dark
• 12:48
  matter. I think the, you know, the sun's
• 12:51
  neighbourhood and the spiral arms
• 12:54
  that were embedded in might,
• 12:57
  might have higher density chunks, uh,
• 13:00
  of dark matter than perhaps the outer halo
• 13:03
  of the galaxy. Uh, but
• 13:06
  if it's, you know, if those early
• 13:08
  measurements are anything like realistic,
• 13:09
  then it would be on a scale of hundreds of
• 13:12
  light years rather than um, hundreds of
• 13:15
  millions of kilometres, which is what you'd
• 13:16
  need for it to be within bound to the
• 13:19
  solar system. So uh, we don't really know the
• 13:22
  answer to your question, Gerard, but um,
• 13:25
  people do think about it. It's one of the big
• 13:28
  issues and uh, one of the challenges is how
• 13:31
  do you plot, how do you map the biggest
• 13:34
  or smallest chunk of dark matter? Um, when
• 13:38
  the best way to see it is
• 13:42
  um, to look at the
• 13:44
  distortion effect of say a cluster of
• 13:47
  galaxies in the foreground and look at how
• 13:49
  that distorts the images of Galax is in the
• 13:51
  background because the distortion is due to
• 13:53
  all the mass in the cluster, not just the
• 13:56
  mass you can see that allows you to map the
• 13:58
  dark matter in a cluster. Um, but
• 14:01
  it doesn't really, unless you've got some
• 14:04
  very special circumstances, it doesn't
• 14:07
  really make it easy to say just how
• 14:10
  big or small the biggest lump of dark matter
• 14:12
  the characteristic lump size of
• 14:15
  dark matter might be. So we're still working
• 14:18
  on it, uh, and maybe we'll get back to you
• 14:20
  when we know the answer.
• 14:22
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well you never know a parsec
• 14:25
  is equal to 3.26 light years.
• 14:28
  Professor Fred Watson: I think I said 3.23 didn't I? And that's
• 14:30
  wrong. Well it's close. 3.3. It's close.
• 14:33
  Yeah. I can never remember the last number in
• 14:35
  that. 3.26 should really, it's easy to
• 14:38
  remember because three times two is six. So
• 14:40
  that should tell you, shouldn't it.
• 14:42
  Andrew Dunkley: On there, you know.
• 14:43
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, well all I've got to do.
• 14:45
  Andrew Dunkley: Is remember that test you next week.
• 14:50
  Professor Fred Watson: Thanks. That's Dave. Thanks
• 14:52
  Dave. I always appreciate your tests.
• 14:57
  Andrew Dunkley: Okay, uh, thanks Jared for your question.
• 15:00
  This is Space Nuts Andrew Dunkley here with
• 15:02
  Professor Fred Watson Watson.
• 15:04
  Space Nuts. Uh, now uh, welcome
• 15:07
  to the Dutch part of our show where
• 15:10
  uh, all the questions come from the
• 15:11
  Netherlands and the first one is from Robert.
• 15:15
  Professor Fred Watson: Hey Professor.
• 15:16
  Andrew Dunkley: No it's not. This one is.
• 15:18
  Professor Fred Watson: Hello Fred Watson, Andrew and Heidi. This is
• 15:20
  Robert from the Netherlands. I have a
• 15:23
  question about the resolution to the Fermi
• 15:26
  paradox. What could be the most credible
• 15:28
  answer to this conundrum? Is it because the
• 15:32
  rare earth theory that their civilizations of
• 15:34
  aliens are very very rare? Are they very
• 15:37
  hostile and there's a destroy everything
• 15:38
  around us? Are they simply too far away and
• 15:41
  they stop expanding after a couple of planets
• 15:44
  or are we alone in the universe? I would love
• 15:47
  to hear the professor's opinion. Thank you so
• 15:50
  much.
• 15:52
  Andrew Dunkley: Thank you Robert. Um,
• 15:54
  it brings up that age old question which I'm
• 15:57
  sure you were going to ask question,
• 16:00
  where is everybody?
• 16:02
  Professor Fred Watson: Well that's right, that was the um, that's
• 16:04
  the basis of the Fermi paradox. Yeah, passed
• 16:07
  in 1950. And the logic, uh, Enrico
• 16:09
  Fermi's logic was if you
• 16:12
  have space faring
• 16:15
  civilizations um, which uh,
• 16:18
  evolved you know, maybe a few billion years
• 16:21
  ago, um, then there should be evidence for
• 16:24
  them everywhere. And
• 16:27
  we don't see it, uh, we don't see any
• 16:30
  evidence. Uh, that evidence might be in the
• 16:32
  form of artefacts. If
• 16:35
  they've sent things into orbit around, you
• 16:37
  know, the solar systems and there's at least
• 16:39
  one person on our planet who thinks that's
• 16:41
  happened already. Avi Loeb with some of
• 16:44
  these um, extraterrestrial asteroids and
• 16:47
  comet comets, probably all three of them
• 16:49
  anyway. Ah so but we don't have
• 16:52
  any real evidence that that's the case. And I
• 16:55
  think I would lump together Robert's first
• 16:58
  and last options there
• 17:00
  where he spoke about the Earth being in
• 17:03
  incredibly or Earth like conditions being
• 17:06
  incredibly rare so that
• 17:08
  intelligent life might be incredibly rare or
• 17:11
  his Last option. That it's unique, that we
• 17:14
  are unique in the universe. Um, those two
• 17:17
  are not that different from one another.
• 17:20
  Um, because either way, you know, if, if
• 17:22
  you've only got one civilization,
• 17:25
  communicable civilization per galaxy,
• 17:29
  um, um, and then you might as well forget it.
• 17:31
  You're alone in the universe, basically.
• 17:35
  Which, um, I think is. I uh, think
• 17:38
  that is disturbing because it
• 17:41
  means, you know, if we wipe ourselves out
• 17:43
  or if we become extinct through whatever
• 17:46
  process, uh, we are,
• 17:49
  we are how the universe thinks about itself.
• 17:51
  That's, I think that's a quote from Brian
• 17:53
  Cox. Life is what lets the universe
• 17:56
  understand itself. Um, and
• 17:59
  um, if we, if we're
• 18:01
  gone and uh. Well, and we're the only species
• 18:04
  in the universe that can understand it,
• 18:06
  what's the rest of it for? Well,
• 18:08
  a bit of a, bit of a pain.
• 18:11
  Andrew Dunkley: Well, yeah, but it brings about,
• 18:14
  um, you know, you can get into areas of
• 18:17
  theology then. And um,
• 18:20
  then that's one
• 18:23
  um, idea that uh, is well documented and
• 18:26
  well supported. Uh, creationism.
• 18:29
  Uh, we could just be
• 18:32
  one freak accident that.
• 18:35
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's fair.
• 18:37
  Andrew Dunkley: And the universe existing in
• 18:40
  itself is the greatest mystery. How is their
• 18:42
  existence? I think I've asked that question
• 18:44
  before and no one's ever told me the answer.
• 18:46
  Professor Fred Watson: It's a philosophical question. It is, yeah.
• 18:50
  Um, I mean it's uh, you know, there's um,
• 18:53
  there's a quantum physics answer to that as
• 18:55
  well.
• 18:56
  If, if um, if we
• 18:59
  weren't there to perceive the universe, would
• 19:01
  the universe still exist? Because, um,
• 19:04
  in quantum mechanics it looks as though the
• 19:07
  observer plays a significant role in the
• 19:10
  nature of reality. And that's why scientists
• 19:13
  are constantly looking for a theory that
• 19:14
  underpins both quantum physics, quantum
• 19:16
  mechanics and relativity. Uh,
• 19:21
  the grand unifying theory, which we haven't
• 19:23
  got yet, uh, that might tell us whether the
• 19:26
  observer is necessary, uh, in
• 19:29
  terms of the well being of the universe. This
• 19:32
  raises extraordinary questions. Uh, but I
• 19:35
  think it's certainly my thinking, and this
• 19:37
  comes from talking to astrobiologists who
• 19:39
  think, you know, that step from um, from
• 19:42
  single celled organisms to multi celled
• 19:45
  organisms could be a really rare
• 19:47
  step. Uh, then perhaps we are very rare.
• 19:50
  Perhaps we are a freak of nature.
• 19:53
  Um, it's uh. I would lean
• 19:56
  towards that rather than the idea that life
• 19:58
  is everywhere, uh, and think that the
• 20:00
  answer to the Fermi paradox. Where is
• 20:02
  everybody? Well, they're just not there, most
• 20:04
  of them. Yeah, yeah, they're not there.
• 20:06
  Andrew Dunkley: Well, there may not be peoples, but there may
• 20:09
  be bacterial life of some kind
• 20:11
  or.
• 20:12
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. But. And that might turn
• 20:15
  out to be quite common, but it needn't
• 20:17
  necessarily evolve into anything more
• 20:19
  substantial.
• 20:20
  Andrew Dunkley: No, no, definitely not. And if you're looking
• 20:23
  for aliens, as you said, if they've been
• 20:25
  around long enough, we should see the
• 20:26
  evidence, uh, whether it be a, um,
• 20:29
  passing spacecraft or a, uh,
• 20:32
  megastructure of some kind that we
• 20:34
  might see around a planet or a star or
• 20:37
  a, um, uh,
• 20:40
  conspicuous gas in their atmosphere. That
• 20:43
  couldn't be natural, things like that. But we
• 20:46
  haven't found any of that.
• 20:47
  Professor Fred Watson: Airport radar. Uh, airport
• 20:50
  radar, yes. Square kilometre array able to
• 20:53
  detect airport radar at 50 light years. So
• 20:56
  once it comes on stream, we might
• 20:59
  know we're alone within 50 light years.
• 21:01
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well, that is it exactly.
• 21:04
  Uh, so, Robert. No, um, yes,
• 21:07
  we're still alone at this point in time. And,
• 21:09
  um. Yes, and we're feeling it. We really are.
• 21:14
  Um, but I, I sort
• 21:17
  of err on the side of caution when it comes
• 21:19
  to revealing our presence.
• 21:20
  Professor Fred Watson: I'm.
• 21:21
  Andrew Dunkley: I'm a little bit with, um,
• 21:23
  Stephen. Stephen Hawking. Uh, yeah, you
• 21:26
  don't want to make too big a noise just in
• 21:29
  case they go, oh, that's a lovely place.
• 21:31
  We'll have that. So the British and the
• 21:33
  Portuguese did so. And the Dutch.
• 21:36
  And the Dutch. Our last two people are Dutch,
• 21:39
  my wife's Dutch, so I can get away with
• 21:41
  things like that.
• 21:43
  Professor Fred Watson: The, um, yeah, the.
• 21:45
  Andrew Dunkley: And, uh, the French. I mean, the French did
• 21:47
  it too.
• 21:48
  Professor Fred Watson: We, we, um, we're already, you
• 21:51
  know, we've already given it away because
• 21:53
  we've got airport radar. Uh.
• 21:57
  Andrew Dunkley: Yes, we have. Yes, we have. Thanks, Robert.
• 22:00
  Great to hear from you.
• 22:02
  Time to take a break from the show to tell
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• 23:48
  Now back to the show.
• 23:50
  Speaker C: Three, two, one.
• 23:53
  Andrew Dunkley: Spacenut Nuts. And our, uh, final question
• 23:56
  comes from the Netherlands. And
• 23:59
  uh, it's a text question from Angela. I
• 24:01
  learned from earlier episodes that any item
• 24:03
  sent to space must be sterile, free of
• 24:06
  bugs. This is to prevent contamination of the
• 24:09
  celestial bodies. However, could we consider
• 24:12
  the opposite? Send bugs, seeds, bacteria,
• 24:15
  etc, out into space on purpose. This
• 24:18
  will give life a small chance to evolve
• 24:21
  somewhere else and escape the
• 24:23
  potential one and only planet in our Milky
• 24:26
  Way that contains life. Kind regards,
• 24:28
  Angela from Amsterdam. She's sort of going
• 24:31
  on from what, um, Robert was talking
• 24:34
  about. Um, you know, we've got evidence of
• 24:37
  life on one planet, but she's saying, well,
• 24:39
  why don't we go seeding the other planets?
• 24:42
  Let's, you know, let's not keep uh, space,
• 24:45
  uh, craft clean. Let's just line people up.
• 24:47
  You can all hawk on the spacecraft and
• 24:51
  off it goes and we see
• 24:54
  the universe. Um, look, it worked
• 24:57
  in South America. The Spanish took all their
• 25:00
  nasties over there and nearly wiped the
• 25:02
  people out. So.
• 25:03
  Professor Fred Watson: Okay, yes, that's right, yeah.
• 25:07
  Uh, so, uh, I mean
• 25:10
  to some extent this has already happened, uh,
• 25:13
  because, uh, the, I think it was the
• 25:16
  Beersheba spacecraft, which was a
• 25:19
  private Israeli venture,
• 25:22
  which crashed on the moon, carried
• 25:25
  fruit flies, it carried tardigrades,
• 25:27
  carried a few other things. Um, they
• 25:30
  presumably perished in the accident. But
• 25:34
  the question I would have for Angela, I mean.
• 25:37
  Yes, okay, you fill a spacecraft full of
• 25:39
  earthly creatures. It's a bit like Noah's Ark
• 25:41
  really. Yeah, two by two, um,
• 25:45
  you seal it so that
• 25:48
  it's not gonna
• 25:51
  destroy another planet,
• 25:54
  uh, or seed another planet if it crashes. So
• 25:57
  you make it crash proof. But then you've got
• 25:59
  to sustain these organisms to keep them
• 26:02
  alive. And that's A, uh, tricky
• 26:05
  mission, you know, how do you. If
• 26:08
  you're talking about, um, lengths of time
• 26:11
  measured perhaps in millions or
• 26:13
  billions of years, which is how long it might
• 26:16
  take to land on another world,
• 26:18
  in another solar system. Uh, how do
• 26:21
  you keep things alive for that long?
• 26:23
  Andrew Dunkley: I've got the answer.
• 26:25
  Professor Fred Watson: You're good.
• 26:25
  Andrew Dunkley: I've got the answer. When I was growing up,
• 26:28
  they were selling sea monkeys
• 26:31
  at toys stores. Yeah.
• 26:33
  Professor Fred Watson: Yep.
• 26:33
  Andrew Dunkley: You bought. You bought the packet.
• 26:35
  Professor Fred Watson: Yep. You filled.
• 26:36
  Andrew Dunkley: You filled a, um, jar full of water, you
• 26:39
  tipped the packet in, and then all these
• 26:41
  things came to life. Uh,
• 26:43
  or sea monkeys.
• 26:45
  Professor Fred Watson: What were they?
• 26:46
  Andrew Dunkley: Don't know. Krill
• 26:49
  probably, something like that. There was some
• 26:52
  kind of little crustacean. Hang on, I'm going
• 26:54
  to look it up. I honestly can't remember what
• 26:56
  they mean.
• 26:56
  Professor Fred Watson: Tardigrades are a bit like that because
• 26:58
  tardigrades can dehydrate themselves
• 27:01
  completely. That's how they. They've survived
• 27:03
  on the outside of the space station.
• 27:06
  Um, but once you.
• 27:08
  Andrew Dunkley: Brian, I was right. They're shrimp. Brine
• 27:10
  shrimp. We're seeing monkeys. Yeah. Uh, they
• 27:13
  were developed in the United States in 1957,
• 27:17
  uh, by Harold Von Braunhutt,
• 27:19
  uh, and sold as eggs intended to be added to
• 27:22
  water. Um, and you used to buy them and
• 27:25
  take them home, put them in the water, and
• 27:27
  they'd hatch and you'd have sea monkeys.
• 27:29
  There you are.
• 27:32
  There's the solution.
• 27:34
  Professor Fred Watson: Now, how long did they last once you put them
• 27:36
  in water?
• 27:37
  Andrew Dunkley: Five minutes, usually. They did not.
• 27:41
  Professor Fred Watson: They didn't last long. Yeah. So it does.
• 27:45
  Okay. Yes. So it doesn't really give
• 27:47
  you much time to start a new population of
• 27:50
  species from planet Earth. Probably not if
• 27:53
  you find water on another world. Yeah. I
• 27:55
  mean, it's, uh. And of course, there's an
• 27:57
  ethical side to this as well. Um, my answer
• 28:00
  to. Well, it's the answer to, um,
• 28:03
  why we. Why we sterilise spacecraft going to
• 28:06
  Mars. Because we don't want to contaminate
• 28:08
  Mars with earthly microbes. If there are
• 28:11
  microbes there of Martian origin already,
• 28:14
  you don't want to intermix them.
• 28:17
  Andrew Dunkley: M. So, Angela, he had to do that. He just had
• 28:19
  to do the, um, the ethical thing.
• 28:23
  You and I are on a different page, but. Yeah,
• 28:26
  well, coming from Angela.
• 28:28
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 28:30
  Andrew Dunkley: But, you know, if. If the Thermi paradox,
• 28:32
  Fermi paradox is what it is, then why are we
• 28:35
  worried? Anyway?
• 28:36
  Professor Fred Watson: It doesn't matter. That's right. Just doesn't
• 28:38
  matter. Yes. Can send anything
• 28:41
  anywhere. Well, that might be the way it ends
• 28:43
  up. If we never find any existence, any
• 28:45
  evidence of life somewhere else. But I think
• 28:47
  we're.
• 28:48
  This is a study that's still in its infancy.
• 28:50
  Astrobiology has only been around for 30
• 28:52
  years or something, so we've still got a long
• 28:55
  way to go.
• 28:56
  Andrew Dunkley: We have, yes.
• 28:57
  Professor Fred Watson: Um.
• 28:58
  Andrew Dunkley: Uh, yes, at this stage, we're playing
• 29:01
  it safe. I think the day will
• 29:04
  come, Angela, where we'll. We'll load up an
• 29:06
  ARC spacecraft and we will send them
• 29:09
  hither and thither and
• 29:12
  try to populate another planet.
• 29:15
  Who knows? Could happen. Uh, thanks, Angela.
• 29:18
  Great question, though. Really enjoyed
• 29:20
  mincing that one up.
• 29:22
  Uh, and, uh, that brings us to the end of the
• 29:25
  show, Fred Watson. Thank you.
• 29:27
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, thank you, Andrew. Thanks for your
• 29:29
  tolerance and patience and.
• 29:31
  Andrew Dunkley: I, um, think it's the other way around,
• 29:32
  Fred Watson.
• 29:33
  Professor Fred Watson: But anyway, thanks for not dropping
• 29:36
  out on me.
• 29:37
  Andrew Dunkley: Uh, yes, we've had a golden run today.
• 29:40
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, it's been good after the.
• 29:42
  Andrew Dunkley: The massive full start, but, yes, we're all
• 29:44
  good. Thanks, Fred Watson. We'll catch you
• 29:46
  next time.
• 29:48
  Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great. Thanks, Andrew.
• 29:49
  Andrew Dunkley: Professor Fred Watson Watson, Astronomer
• 29:51
  Large, with us every week, uh, twice on
• 29:54
  Space Nuts. And thanks to Huw in the studio,
• 29:56
  who couldn't be with us today because he's
• 29:57
  just putting his Dutch nationality
• 29:59
  application in. He's sick of being a Kiwi. He
• 30:02
  wants to be Dutch because, you know, they're
• 30:05
  so cool. Well, I married one, so they must
• 30:08
  be. And from me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for
• 30:10
  your company. Catch you on the next episode
• 30:12
  of Space Nuts. Bye. Bye.
• 30:14
  Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
• 30:16
  Podcast. Available
• 30:19
  at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
• 30:22
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• 30:24
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  demand at bitesz.com Has been another
• 30:29
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