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Dust Devils, Cosmic Conundrums & the Quest to Clean Space Junk · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another exciting episode of Space Nuts, the
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  Speaker 1: podcast that is absolutely out of this world. I am
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  Speaker 1: your host today, Heidi Compo, filling in for the regular
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  Speaker 1: Andrew Dunkley. And here we have with us Professor Fred Watson,
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  Speaker 1: astronomer at Large.
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  Speaker 2: Fifteen shack and guide the Channel ten nine ignition.
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  Speaker 1: Space Nuts SHY four three two one, space Nurse at
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  Speaker 1: the NAT recorded fels good. Hi Fred, how are you
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  Speaker 1: doing today?
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  Speaker 2: I'm well, thanks handy and lovely to see you again.
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  Speaker 2: And we have a beautiful sunny morning here in Sydney
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  Speaker 2: where I'm recording at the moment, you're at the other
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  Speaker 2: end of the world, at the other end.
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  Speaker 1: Of the day, Space Center Houston.
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  Speaker 2: It's evening.
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  Speaker 1: It's been quite windy here, but the weather's been nice.
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  Speaker 1: It's been warm, but not too warm. And this is
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  Speaker 1: going to be this is going to be an I
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  Speaker 1: think springtime in Houston is always just really fantastic. And
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  Speaker 1: speaking of this month, I wanted to share with you
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  Speaker 1: and our other listeners an exciting event that is happening
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  Speaker 1: here in Space Center Houston. Well, yeah, sorry, it will
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: be at Space Center Houston, but it's happening in Houston
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  Speaker 1: in general. Is the Spaceflight Human Optimization and Performance Summit,
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  Speaker 1: so that will be happening at the end of the month,
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  Speaker 1: and they are going to have all kinds of fantastic
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  Speaker 1: speakers from NASA and other private organizations. They're giving educational
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  Speaker 1: talks on the effects of spaceflight on the human body.
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  Speaker 1: And it is such a fantastic opportunity to network, to
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  Speaker 1: hear from people who are really at the cutting edge
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  Speaker 1: of science, and to just kind of collaborate with some
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  Speaker 1: really brilliant people. It's fun to sometimes be in those
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  Speaker 1: places where you are pretty confident that you're not the
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  Speaker 1: smartest person in the room.
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  Speaker 2: I've spent my whole life feeling that, honestly, Well.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like that sometimes when I'm looking at your
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  Speaker 1: books and whatnot. So we've got some pretty fun articles
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  Speaker 1: we're looking at today. We've got some things about stuff
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  Speaker 1: going on on Mars. There's articles about space junk and
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  Speaker 1: galaxy models. And I wanted to start this off by
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  Speaker 1: asking you, Fred, have you ever been to Arizona.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, quite often, because for a long time the
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  Speaker 2: center of the world's astronomy instrument development. What's the word
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  Speaker 2: for it, frost, That's a good word. The center of
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  Speaker 2: the world's Astronomy Instrument Development THRUST was in Tucson, and
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  Speaker 2: of course the Kitpeak National Observatory is not very far
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  Speaker 2: from Tucson, so I spent many many weeks there on
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  Speaker 2: and off. And the other thing that Tucson's famous for
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  Speaker 2: in that sense of the two of course are absolutely interlieved,
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  Speaker 2: is that's where the basically the dark Sky movement started,
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  Speaker 2: the idea that we can do something about light pollution,
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  Speaker 2: because it was at that time the impact was mostly
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  Speaker 2: on astronomers. But we now know that it's not just
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  Speaker 2: astronomers who were impacted by bad light and light pollution,
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  Speaker 2: it's the whole natural world and indeed ourselves. So that
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  Speaker 2: has moved on since the early nineteen eighties when it
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  Speaker 2: all got going in Tucson, Arizona. And yes, while I
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  Speaker 2: was in TUCSONA I explored most of the rest of
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  Speaker 2: Arizona's squat excellent.
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  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's good. We're kind of building on what
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  Speaker 1: we talked about last week with the pollution. But I
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  Speaker 1: was going to say, if you've been to Arizona, well,
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  Speaker 1: I guess in Sydney, Australia too. You've definitely seen some
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  Speaker 1: dust storms.
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  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, that's right, and absolutely I know where
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  Speaker 2: this is going.
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  Speaker 1: Do you get haboobs in Australia at all? You know?
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  Speaker 2: Is that the name for what we call dust devils?
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  Speaker 1: Oh, so the haboobs are the really really big ones.
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  Speaker 1: I was living in Arizona. If you guys want to
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  Speaker 1: google the twenty ten haboob in Arizona haboob. It's very
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  Speaker 1: phonetic huboob. I believe or ha that it is a
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  Speaker 1: Middle Eastern word because these normally happen in the Middle
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  Speaker 1: East and with things like you've seen the movie Hill
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  Speaker 1: Dalgo with the horse horses running things like that. So
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  Speaker 1: if you see the twenty ten haboo Arizona pictures you'll
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  Speaker 1: see what I'm talking about. Quite crazy, but yeah, dust
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  Speaker 1: is something that you're going to be familiar with in
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  Speaker 1: places like Australia and Arizona, but people may not be
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  Speaker 1: as familiar with some of the dust storms on Mars,
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  Speaker 1: which you're so smart. That's exactly where we were going
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  Speaker 1: is they did see some dust devil activity on Mars,
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  Speaker 1: and I think that's kind of cool and exciting. Can
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  Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about going out of that?
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  Speaker 2: And it's for the this is a a topic I
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  Speaker 2: really love, and it's because you've put your finger on it.
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  Speaker 2: This is something we're familiar with here, not in Sydney certainly,
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  Speaker 2: but in the western plains of New South Wales, and
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  Speaker 2: I lived in that region for twenty five years. It
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  Speaker 2: was very common to see these pillars of dust. Is
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  Speaker 2: that what you mean by a haboob? Is it very much?
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  Speaker 1: You know?
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  Speaker 2: How does it relate to a tornado?
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  Speaker 1: Bubes are much more extreme. It's an extreme dust storm
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  Speaker 1: that's more like a wall of sand or by area.
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  Speaker 1: So if you think of interstellar with the wave of water,
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  Speaker 1: it's like that, but with sand.
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  Speaker 2: We get that in Australia too, whether you know, the
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  Speaker 2: top soil will blow off in one region and you
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  Speaker 2: will literally get a wall of dust, brown dust, which
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  Speaker 2: sometimes gives rise to the most spect tacular photographs. And
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  Speaker 2: if the dust, you know, penetrates far enough, it does
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  Speaker 2: actually reach the coast. There have been occasions of that
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  Speaker 2: sort of dust storm in Sydney. The the whole color
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  Speaker 2: of the landscape changes, not just because it's covered in dust,
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  Speaker 2: but because the atmosphere filters out you know, all the
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  Speaker 2: all the the blue light and you get this reddish
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  Speaker 2: ethereal glow, which is in many ways etherea is probably
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  Speaker 2: the wrong word. It's it's actually almost apocalyptic. It feels,
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  Speaker 2: you know, that that you've got this wall of dust
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  Speaker 2: and the colors afterwards, the cover of the peculiar colors.
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  Speaker 2: But what I was going to talk about today though,
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  Speaker 2: what are usually known as dust devils, which are quite
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  Speaker 2: small areas of dust, and it's where you get a
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  Speaker 2: little whirlwind that picks up a column of dust and
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  Speaker 2: moves along the landscape. So you see these moving columns
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  Speaker 2: of basically dust. Sometimes there's bits of debris being circulated around.
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  Speaker 2: It's not a tornado, but it's you know, the sort
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  Speaker 2: of perhaps the poor relative of a tornado. We do
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  Speaker 2: get them in western New South Wales, and I've seen
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  Speaker 2: a lot there, but I was surprised. It goes back
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  Speaker 2: actually this story to probably about two thousand and three
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  Speaker 2: or four, in the early days of the new generation
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  Speaker 2: of Mars rovers. Spirit and Opportunity were the two that
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  Speaker 2: really sort of put Mars rovers on the map. There
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  Speaker 2: were other ones before that, but Spirit and Opportunity gave
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  Speaker 2: us some stunning images of the planet's surface, and among
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  Speaker 2: them were images from Spirit I think taken from the
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  Speaker 2: top of a mountain range which was basically on the
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  Speaker 2: edge of a crater. Actually it might have been Curiosity,
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  Speaker 2: and I should have checked that. No, I think it's
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  Speaker 2: Spirit Crater. I think it was its name if I
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  Speaker 2: remember rightly, lovely images across the crater with a little
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  Speaker 2: movie clips of these dust devils going across it, which
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  Speaker 2: are relatively common on Mars, it turns out, and in
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  Speaker 2: fact they were observed actually by the Viking orbiter back
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six, so the spacecraft happened to be
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  Speaker 2: looking down at a region where one of these was happening.
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  Speaker 2: They're different from earthly ones in first of all, in
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  Speaker 2: the sense that because the atmosphere on Mars is so dry,
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  Speaker 2: it's virtually zero humidity, that means that static electricity can
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  Speaker 2: build up, and so you often get flashes of lightning
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  Speaker 2: in the base of Martian dust devils, and yeah, little
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  Speaker 2: sparks of lightning caused by the static electricity build up.
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  Speaker 2: And the other thing is they're much taller than the
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  Speaker 2: ones we find here on Earth. The biggest one I
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  Speaker 2: ever saw in South Wales here in Australia probably had
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  Speaker 2: a height of about five hundred meters half a kilometer,
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  Speaker 2: so what's that sort of you know, about about the
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  Speaker 2: third of a mile basically, and that's you know, that
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  Speaker 2: was pretty significant. On Mars they get up to eight kilometers,
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  Speaker 2: which is like five miles, and I guess that's partly
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  Speaker 2: due to the fact that the dust is very, very fine,
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  Speaker 2: and also the fact that Mars of course only has
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  Speaker 2: a third of the gravity that we have here on
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  Speaker 2: planet Earth and just a quicker side. They're technically known
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  Speaker 2: as dust devils. I think that's the correct term. It's
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  Speaker 2: different from a haboob. A harboob's a wall of dust,
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  Speaker 2: and that's something we also get. But in most of
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  Speaker 2: Australia they have a first nation's name and aboriginal name.
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  Speaker 2: They're called willy willies, and a willy Willie is a
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  Speaker 2: little dust storm that going past on the horizon. One
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  Speaker 2: of the little factoid about the Martian ones in particular
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  Speaker 2: is that with both spirit and opportunity, which relied for
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  Speaker 2: their power on solar panels, unlike curiosity and perseverance, which
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  Speaker 2: have got thermoelectric nuclear generators, the dust panel, sorry, the
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  Speaker 2: solar panels tended to get just covered by dust that is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, present on Mars. Mars is a very very
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  Speaker 2: dusty planet. So as you as you roam around the surface,
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  Speaker 2: you're kicking up dust with the space with the rovers wheels,
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  Speaker 2: and that dust eventually lands on the solar panels. I'm
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  Speaker 2: going to have to clear my throat. Excuse me one minute, Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: there we go. I hope that. Oh, I don't think.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think I muted that.
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  Speaker 1: That's okay, we can edit that out.
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  Speaker 2: That was meant to be muted out, and I'm sorry
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  Speaker 2: I did. Sorry, Hugh, that probably went right in your ears,
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  Speaker 2: as I can see from Heidie's face it went in
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  Speaker 2: hers as well. Just to mention though, that the solar
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  Speaker 2: panels themselves were cleared unlike my throat by dust devils.
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  Speaker 2: They were actually cleared when these things passed over and
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  Speaker 2: swept the dust off the solar panels. So Curiosity in particular,
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  Speaker 2: which was in a sorry opportunity, was in a dusty
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  Speaker 2: place that kept you know, the power kept dropping and
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  Speaker 2: kept reappearing again because of these dust devils.
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  Speaker 1: Quite quite extraordinary, and that's definitely going to be a
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  Speaker 1: concern when we're trying to, you know, get humanity to
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  Speaker 1: set up a colony on this planet. I'm just thinking
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  Speaker 1: of the movie The Martian, as cliche as it is,
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  Speaker 1: that was the big problem that got him stuck there
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  Speaker 1: to begin with, was that big dust storm. So I
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  Speaker 1: guess that was a bit scientifically accurate when they put
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  Speaker 1: that into that movie.
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  Speaker 2: And that's right, the dust storm was we now know
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  Speaker 2: Martian dust is. It's toxic as well, in the sense
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  Speaker 2: that it gets into your lungs. It does quite a
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  Speaker 2: lot of damage. So in my view, not a place
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  Speaker 2: to colonize, but that's my view.
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  Speaker 1: Is the dust similar to the moon regolith, where it's
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  Speaker 1: also kind of sticky?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a bit like that, and probably
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  Speaker 2: for the same sort of reason. Mars has such a
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  Speaker 2: thin atmosphere that the erosion processes. Originally, erosion took place
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  Speaker 2: with wind and water like like it did here on
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  Speaker 2: Earth because of the fact that Mars had a warm
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  Speaker 2: and wet climate. The thinness of the atmosphere means that
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  Speaker 2: you've got a much higher level of bombardment by subatomic
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  Speaker 2: particles from the Sun, and that's what gives you the sharp,
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  Speaker 2: pointy edges of dust particles on the Moon. Now the
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  Speaker 2: Moon's nearer to the Sun than Mars is, but I
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  Speaker 2: think still the mechanism occurs that you've got bombardment, which
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  Speaker 2: which actually further further breaks down the further breaks down
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  Speaker 2: the dust.
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  Speaker 1: Well, if if we do end up going to Mars
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  Speaker 1: and we are successful with our endeavors there, we can
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  Speaker 1: fill Twister three with Glenn Powell doing some twisters on Mars.
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  Speaker 2: Space nuts to.
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  Speaker 1: Get through the atmosphere. It seems like there is just
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  Speaker 1: more and more issues with their atmosphere and all the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: space trunk that's up there. And I even just saw
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  Speaker 1: on I don't know if it was Prime or Netflix,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: whatever streaming service I was on the other night, there's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: a movie. There's a there's a movie out about space junk,
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  Speaker 1: and in this sci fi movie they have people who
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  Speaker 1: work in orbit constantly clearing space debris. But that might
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: not be something that's even a worry because it looks
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  Speaker 1: like there's a new technology that can help us with
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  Speaker 1: some of the space debris and junk. Can our orbit.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean, this is one of the major problems
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  Speaker 2: of our era, the potential for space chunk. It's the
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  Speaker 2: space junk already exists. There's a lot of stuff up
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  Speaker 2: there that is now redundant and quite harmful, given that
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  Speaker 2: the minimal orbital speed that you're going at is about
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  Speaker 2: eight kilometers per second, about five miles per second, So
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: everything is charging around at very high speeds, and as
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: you will well know, even a fleck of paint can
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: take a chip out of the window of a space shuttle.
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  Speaker 2: That very well known phenomenon from a few decades ago.
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  Speaker 2: Actually so at the moment there are just over eleven
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  Speaker 2: thousand active spacecraft in orbit around the Earth. Most of
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  Speaker 2: them are Starlink satellites. But when you look at the
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  Speaker 2: debris that is actually tracked, stuff that is redundant, I
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  Speaker 2: don't have the exact figure out, but it's well over
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  Speaker 2: thirty thousand items bigger than four inches sorry for it, yes,
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  Speaker 2: four inches, one hundred millimeters, ten centimeters. And then when
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  Speaker 2: you look at smaller stuff, you're in the millions. You're
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  Speaker 2: really in the millions of bits of debris, and it's
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  Speaker 2: all damaging. And that the main problem is that as
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: soon as you get a collision between two bits of
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: this stuff, especially if it's sizable in any way, then
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  Speaker 2: you will get more debris being created, and that increases
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  Speaker 2: the risk and that can lead to what's called the
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Kessler syndrome, where everything's crashing into everything else and you
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: suddenly lose access to space. So it's a real problem
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  Speaker 2: and one that needs attention, and indeed is getting attention
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: from the world's technologists. I just saw a tail walk
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  Speaker 2: through the picture there behind.
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  Speaker 1: You, little dog speaking of little problems. Yes, always on
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the parral. But yeah, I mean this is super interesting
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  Speaker 1: because it's like every i mean almost every something going
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  Speaker 1: wrong in space movie starts with this. So it's well
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: mel from the scientists down to the creatives. And so
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  Speaker 1: it looks like this this this what do they call them,
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  Speaker 1: the bold new weapon against space junk. It looks like
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Percy p e r Sei Space Yep, that's right, is
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: a startup that's helping with these issues.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. So that there is a backstory to
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: this in that there's been several experiments carried out by
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: both private companies and things, you know, body bodies like
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the European Space Agency to try and see how you
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: could clean up space, and mostly it involves something like well,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: one of them is sending up a spacecraft that centrally
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: rendevus with a satellite that's now redundant, whether it's a
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: rocket body or you know, a communication satellite, something that
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: switched off and is now dead. But he's a risk
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: because it's up there. And if you can then put
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: it through a grappling iron at it, you know, going
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: back to the technology that was used in the Middle Ages,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: catch hold of it with your hydraulically propelled grappling iron
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is, you then can capture it. And
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: if you have a satellite that now has hold of
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: this Maverick object, you can basically apply braking rockets and
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: make it re enter so that it burns up and
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: is no longer a problem for collisions. But that's a
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: difficult that's quite a tricky problem and it needs, you know,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: spacecraft equipped with quite large amounts of fuel to do that.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: And so this new idea, the one that you've highlighted
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: from perse Iied Space, it's going to be tested actually
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: early next year. It's quite counterintuitive and takes it will
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: to get your head around how it works. It's called
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: an electrodynamic tether. It's a ribbon of aluminium maybe more
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: than that one hundreds of meters i e. Hundreds of
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: yards long and only a few inches or centimeters wide.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: And what happens is that this thing gets a current
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: running up and down it from the plasma in the ionosphere.
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  Speaker 2: And by that we mean charged particles charge sub atomic particles,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: in other words, sub atomic particles that carry an electric charge,
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  Speaker 2: so excuse me. So you get an electric current set
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: up in the tether, but that then interacts with the
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: asthmagnetic field. This is the really cunning bit and puts
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: a drag on the tether. It slows it down, it
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: starts breaking it. So if the tether is attached to
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: in fact, it can be attached to a cube sat.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: They're small enough that you can do that. This is
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: the thing of size of a loaf of bread. But
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: you then have to attach the cube sat to whatever
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: spacecraft you want to whose orbit you want to change.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: You can actually set things up so that you slow
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: down the Maverick spacecraft and essentially make it slow enough
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  Speaker 2: that it will start to re enter the atmosphere and
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: be burned up and again got out of the way.
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  Speaker 2: But this is the really coming bit. If you do
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  Speaker 2: it in a slightly different way, you can also actually
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  Speaker 2: push it into a higher orbit so that you can
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: refurbish a spacecraft one that has run out of its
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: maneuvering fuel, so it can't save itself from being swallowed
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: up by the atmosphere anymore. You can shove it up
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: to a higher orbits with the same electrodynamic tether and
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: give it a new lease of life. It's quite an
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: amazing promise. And this is the best bit. All of
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: this is free. It comes with no fuel expenditure. It's
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: because you're relying on the natural forces that' surround the
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: earth in order to do this. It's a very very
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: clever argument. The question is will it work.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, what you're sounding, what you're saying sounds truly just
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: like magic. And I think about that all the time.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: If you were to tell ancient people about even just
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the Internet or a phone, it would have founded like
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: magic for them. And oh, I'm talking to somebody around
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the world. They would have thought I was a sorceress.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And this to me sounds just amazing. It's so cool
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: what humans have truly come up with. I mean, humanity,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I'm so proud of us. Sometimes sometimes I'm not so.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Sometimes Sometimes I look at what humanity is collectively doing
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and it's just so awe inspiring and I just love
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: being around these people who are doing incredible things or
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: space nuts. But sometimes we mess it up, and sometimes
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: our models and predictions get it wrong, which looks like
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: that was the case with some models that they created
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: with these galaxies. There are models. Either the models got
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: it wrong or the galaxies got it wrong. But our
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: predictions is that they were going to continue growing, but
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: in reality the galaxies stopped growing sooner than the models predicted.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: That's right. A fascinating story once again comes from I
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: guess the post a child of spacecraft at the moment,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: at least for astronomers, the James Webspace Telescope, which has,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: as you know, I think we talked about this a
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: week or so ago, has been concentrating on as well
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: as many other objects in space, but looking very much
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: at very distant galaxies, because that is our probe to
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: the early universe. Whenever we look into space, we're always
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: looking back in time. We are looking back, in this
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: case many many billions of years. We think the universe
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: is thirteen point eight billion years old, so nothing can
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: look back further than that. We do see something at
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: that age, but it's the flash of the Big Bang.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: But those galaxies which came into being we think within
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: the first few hundred million years of the Big Bang.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: The Big Bang generated hydrogen. Hydrogen form stars, stars form galaxies,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: and so we basically have been looking for galaxies in
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: the early history of the universe kind of to try
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: and understand when these first stars occurred and when they
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: switched on. And the basically what's happened is we've uncovered
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: one after another puzzles, really quite serious puzzles for our
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: understanding of how galaxies work. And this new one, it's
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: another conundrum comes about because we see galaxies when the
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: universe was less than a billion years old, but we
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: see galaxies that look as though they should be several
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: billion years old, and that's because they've used up all
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: their hydrogen in forming forming the stars. Staff galaxies do
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: form stars because the hydrogen is the raw material of
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the stars, and certainly our galaxy is actually still forming stars.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: But some we know formed stars used up all their
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: hydrogen and became effectively dead galaxies. Now, we thought those
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: had to be going for billions of years in order
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: to get like that, but several have been found now
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: in the early universe, which looks as though they're much
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: older than they can be because they've you know, they've
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: only existed for a few hundred million few, yes, a
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: few hundred million years. There's some really nice nomenclature with this, Heidi,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: because like you know, astronomers tend to light forming nice acronyms.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: And there is a survey called which is called Red
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Unknowns Bright Infrared Extra Galactic Survey, which abbreviates to RUBIES,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: and I quite like that abbreviation. So one of these
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: galaxies is called Rubies udsqg Z seven. That's you know,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: a nice yeah, just encapsulates everything about it. I guess
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: the Rubies is echoing what these galaxies look like. Galaxies
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: look like. They're redder than the star forming galaxies which
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: tendency who have the tendency to be blue. So another
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: puzzle in the early universe which we have to get
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: our heads around in order to understand really what's going
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: on in that distant era of our past.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Do you think and I almost like, you know, it's
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: almost scary to think this, but do you think that
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: we could discover so much in space with James Web
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and looking deeper and deeper that it challenges everything that
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: we already know about the Solar System and sorry, the universe.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: It's almost like that already. It's the Web telescope has
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: really caused a lot of heads scratching in terms of
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: how you make these observations fit with our models of
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: what the early universe was like. Some people and a
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: few of our question you know, when we've had Q
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: and A sessions in Space Notes, we occasionally get questions
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: from listeners who've heard this sort of thing and say, well,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: there's something wrong here because some of these galaxies must
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: have been formed before the Big Bang, and that can't
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: happen because there was nothing before the Big Bang, not
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: even space probably, And so what we're talking about is
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: not a conundrum that says, yes, we're seeing galaxies that
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: are too old for the universe. The conundrum is galaxies
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: evolved much more quickly than we expected them to. They
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: come into being, and as we've seen here, some of
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: them are almost enter old age when they're only a
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: few one hundred million years old, and that flies in
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: the face of conventional wisdom. It means that our models
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: of galaxy, for which we thought we had sort of
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: fairly well neat and tidied up or neatly and tidied up.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: That didn't make sense either anyway. You know what I'm
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: trying to say. We thought we'd we thought we'd understood them,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: and clearly we don't. There are gaps in our knowledge
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: that the James Webb Telescope is uncovering almost every day,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: and it's a very stimulating time for astronomy and particularly
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: those theoretical astronomers who've got to get their head around
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: why it's like this and how this all works.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Ask me. Every semester of grad school, I finish up
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the semester, I'm like, okay, finals, Well, I feel like
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. Next semester should be a cakewalk.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: And then I walk into next semester and I was like,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: oh this is I feel completely inadequate again. And I
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: don't understand any of this, but I do. Astronomers and
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: cosmologists ever talk about the multiverse theory and how I
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: don't know if there could be you know, galaxies clashing
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and colliding from other universes and the big bang of
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: our universe is timed differently than others. Is that something
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that's been tossed around.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a huge amount of activity in the what
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: you might call the the speculative sphere about the multiverse,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: if I remember rightly, the term was coined by Martin Reece,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: now Lord Reece, who's the astronomer oroyl in Britain, the
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Astronomer Royal, I think, was the first person to point
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: out that the universe that we see around us is
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: very well tuned for things like stars and planets to form,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: for galaxies to form, and for life to form, and
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: that you only have to change the fundamental consonants of
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: the universe a tiny bit either way and none of
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: that happens. And I think that was what led to
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: the idea that maybe our universe is just one of
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: many which have different physical constants, and we happen to
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: be the one that has the physical constants that allow
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: life to happen, which is, you know, it's kind of
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: self fulfilling almost. We're not in one of the other
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: ones because life wouldn't happen there. So that was the
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: start of it. There's been other ideas that speculate about
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: multiple universes, one of them and really neat one. Actually,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: you may know, there's four fundamental forces in nature. There
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: strong and weak nuclear forces, the electromagnetic force, which is
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: light and radio and gravity. But gravity is hundreds of
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: it's actually billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: times fainter, sorry, weaker than the other ones. It's not fainter,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: it's weaker. So gravity is very very weak, even though
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: we feel it quite you know, noticeably if we fall
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: over and get pulled out to Earth with the bang.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: But so gravity is very weak, and some people have
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: speculated that that might be because gravity leaks out into
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: other universes if we've got a multiverse. The problem is,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, the word universe itself means all that we
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: can ever see or detect or measure, and as soon
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: as you start talking about other universes, you've thrown that
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: definition away, and it's hard to see where they would
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: exist unless there are higher dimensions that we do not
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: yet understand, and we might have, you know, a fifth
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: or a sixth or a twentieth dimension which contains other universes,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: and then you have the idea of a multiverse. What's
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: difficult to see is how a galaxy from one of
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: those could stray into our universe, because otherwise it becomes
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: part of the universe and probably would have formed with
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: you know, with our universe and our galaxies. The one
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: thing that people point to as an observational tool is
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: this my co wave background, this background of radiation that
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: we see and understand as being the flash of the
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Big Bang, that we're seeing so far in look back
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: time that we can still see it because that has
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: a pattern imprinted on it, which are hot, slightly warmer,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: and cooler zones of temperature. And some people think they
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: can see patterns in that that they think might have
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: come from a different universe. But that is very very speculative,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: very speculative.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Indeed, that's more of the mathematicians' realm is to go
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: in to find some of these things mathematically before we
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: can even really define it theoretically, and then you know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: maybe a thousand years from now will have the technology
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: to better understand this. But in the meantime, I guess
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the only way that I think this could theoretically make sense,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and this is just fun little brain candy, is you
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: know my pencil leaves behind it's in three D. My
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: three dimensional pencil leaves behind its mark on a piece
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: of paper. That's only because the lead is that crossover
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and so there could be I don't know, crossover bits
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: of matter that can bleed in two different dimensions.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The nice thing about your analogy is that you're
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: quite right. Your pencil is it's not a pencil, but
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: it looks a bit like that. It's a three dimensional object.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: You're right on paper, which is a two dimensional object.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: And so you've got a three dimensional object interacting with
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: a two dimensional object. And that could be a nice
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: model for what the you know, what the multiverse is like.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: And in fact, it's not too far out. We can
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: sort of almost extend it as well, because excuse me,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: we have a piece of paper.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Oh fantastic, now I'm in the demos.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't know whether anybody else can see this.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: If you're listening, I'm sorry about this, but I'm holding
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: up a sheet of paper. We can all envision a
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: piece of it actually turns out to be two pieces
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: of paper. And that's the idea of something called M theory.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: M theory is membrane, and so we think one sheet
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: of paper is a membrane on which our universe is imprinted,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: and another sheet of paper might be a membrane with
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: another universe on it, and the idea is that it's
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: collisions between these membranes that cause big bangs. This is
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: known as the ech pyrotic theory of the universe, to
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: give it a name. What's freaky about that is, if
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: it's true these membranes are only a few millimeters apart, and.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: So things happening all then.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Maybe there are yes. Yes, that's right. So take that
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: one away and think about it. But what a good analogy? Though?
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: You did? You did? You hit on the right.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I watch a lot of sci fi. They drain and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: dumb it down for their their watchers, their viewers. You know,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I've always thought of this ever since I was a
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: little kid with the Men in Black the original movie,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the very end scene where they zoom all the way
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: out of our Earth and our gay and our soul
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: system and galaxy and universe, and it keeps zooming out,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: and it keeps zooming out, and it keeps zooming out,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: and then eventually everything that we could conceptualize in our
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: known universe was just a marble in an alien's hand
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and they were just playing with marvels. And it's just,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the idea that it just continually exponentially if
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: you just could open up the aperture infinitely, there would
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: always be something bigger and bigger and bigger. And I
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: think that mathematically, they've I've just heard this. I have
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: no idea, but I think mathematically, some of the formulas
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to look at some of the smallest known things and
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the biggest things are similar. And I think that falls
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: into quantum theory.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why. Well, yes, that's correct quantum. I mean,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: when you look at the mathematics of relative quantum theory,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: which are the two sort of theories that you know,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: one governs are very small, one governs are very large,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: some of those equations do look similar. They're all horrendous.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Mathematics was not my strong point at university. I'm afraid,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: oh me neither.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: But now, oh but what if? And you know, I
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: don't think these are the questions will ever answer. But
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: what if it was just a big circle? How craazy
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: would that be? Those are the things we may never
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: find out though, but we will continue to explore and
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: answer those questions every week here on Space Nuts. Fred,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: did you have anything else you wanted to add to
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: our conversation today.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Not only that we have a very exciting time at
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: the moment in human space flight. We've just seen the
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: orbital flight, sorry orbital flight of the FRAM two mission,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: the privately operated space mission that took humans into a
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: polar orbit for the first time, one that is both
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: the north and the South pole. Those astronauts returned a
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: few days ago with lots of tales to tell. We
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: might cover that in a future is edition of Space Nuts.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: It's very exciting. Thank you so much, Fred, It was
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: great talking to you today.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Always a pleasure, Hidi, thank you very much for your
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: time to space to the Space Nuts podcast available at
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast player.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.