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From Diamond Rain to Rogue Planets: Unpacking Cosmic Curiosities · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Professor Fred Watson: Hi there.
• 0:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Thanks for joining us again. This is Space
• 0:02
  Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host.
• 0:04
  It's always good to have your company. Hope
• 0:06
  you're well. This is a Q and A episode
• 0:09
  and in this particular show we're going to be
• 0:11
  answering audience questions. Uh, one about
• 0:14
  planetary atmospheres, another
• 0:17
  about, uh, FAA approval for things
• 0:20
  like reflect orbital, which we talked about
• 0:23
  not so long ago. And funnily enough, at
• 0:26
  the very same time as someone asks that
• 0:27
  question, a storey pops up in the news. So
• 0:30
  we'll have a quick look at, uh, also planets
• 0:32
  forming without a star. Is that possible? And
• 0:35
  if we've got time, we'll chuck another one
• 0:37
  into the mix. Uh, and we'll answer
• 0:40
  them all on this episode of space
• 0:43
  nuts.
• 0:44
  Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
• 0:46
  10, 9. Ignition
• 0:49
  sequence time.
• 0:50
  Jonti Horner: Space nuts.
• 0:51
  Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
• 0:54
  5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
• 0:56
  Jonti Horner: Space nuts.
• 0:57
  Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts report it feels good.
• 1:00
  Andrew Dunkley: And joining us once again while Fred Watson
• 1:02
  is gallivanting in places that, uh,
• 1:05
  he ought to be, because that's what he does,
• 1:07
  is Professor Jonty Horner. Professor, uh, of
• 1:10
  astrophysics at the University of Southern
• 1:13
  Queensland. Jonty, hello.
• 1:15
  Jonti Horner: Good afternoon. How are you going?
• 1:17
  Andrew Dunkley: I am well. Good to see you again.
• 1:19
  Jonti Horner: Oh, it's good to be back. I'm enjoying the
• 1:22
  warmth of my fire here and thinking the
• 1:23
  warmth of the fire is a little bit too much
• 1:25
  warmth actually. But, um, it's a hard life.
• 1:27
  Andrew Dunkley: I wish I had that problem.
• 1:29
  It is absolutely freezing in my studio
• 1:32
  video here. Um, we are, um, not quite at the
• 1:34
  end of winter, although we're getting there.
• 1:36
  But that doesn't mean the cold will go away
• 1:38
  because that's not how it works. The heat
• 1:41
  stays a bit longer than summer and the cold
• 1:44
  stays too much time past
• 1:46
  winter, in my opinion. I'm a summer person.
• 1:49
  But, um, yeah, I think it's the, it's the
• 1:52
  campfire analogy that describes best how the
• 1:55
  seasons work.
• 1:56
  Jonti Horner: The heat all down to thermal inertia. And
• 1:58
  growing up in the uk, we're very familiar
• 2:00
  with that. Um, yes, the ocean is a blanket
• 2:02
  that keeps you warm, but it takes. Takes time
• 2:04
  to warm up and cool down.
• 2:05
  Andrew Dunkley: Exactly.
• 2:05
  Jonti Horner: So, yeah, hottest time of the year is always
• 2:08
  a few weeks after midsummer. And the coolest
• 2:10
  time of the year is usually a few weeks after
• 2:11
  midwinter.
• 2:12
  Andrew Dunkley: Indeed. Which we're into.
• 2:15
  Um, well, now we're beyond that now. Should
• 2:17
  be starting to warm up. Should be. I, ah,
• 2:19
  know the hay fever's already hitting me. I
• 2:22
  mean, it seems to get early year in, year
• 2:24
  out. That's really frustrating. I'VE got my
• 2:28
  anti hay fever device right in front of me
• 2:30
  now.
• 2:30
  Jonti Horner: Um, it's been so dry recently as well that
• 2:32
  we've got a. We've got all the wattles coming
• 2:34
  out, which for the listeners in the northern
• 2:36
  hemisphere, wattles are awesome and they're
• 2:37
  beautiful. Yes. Um, but also we have all the
• 2:40
  dust because it's been the dry season and
• 2:43
  so, yeah, I've got. One of my students
• 2:45
  has had horrific problems with hair fever and
• 2:48
  visits to Ents and stuff like that. So, yeah,
• 2:51
  everybody's suffering. Get well soon.
• 2:53
  Andrew Dunkley: It can be debilitating.
• 2:54
  Jonti Horner: Yes.
• 2:55
  Andrew Dunkley: Shall we deal with some questions?
• 2:58
  Let's go to our first one. Greetings from
• 3:01
  Perth. Been an avid listener for years. My
• 3:03
  dog loves the. As I listen while
• 3:06
  walking him. Uh, he has a question. No, he
• 3:09
  doesn't. Um, I have a
• 3:12
  question regarding planetary atmospheres. I
• 3:15
  note that some planets rain diamonds and
• 3:17
  others rain sapphires. How do we know this
• 3:20
  spectral analysis tells us about atoms,
• 3:22
  molecules and compounds? Uh, it can
• 3:25
  tell us, uh, anything about, uh. It cannot
• 3:28
  tell us anything about crystallography. Uh,
• 3:31
  um, you need to prove the lattice with X
• 3:34
  rays for that. Uh, is it possible that
• 3:37
  we're dealing with crystal forms of carbon
• 3:40
  and a
• 3:43
  12.
• 3:43
  Jonti Horner: Aluminium oxide.
• 3:45
  Andrew Dunkley: Aluminium oxide, right. Um, respectively
• 3:48
  that have not been documented? After all, we
• 3:51
  are discovering new crystal forms all the
• 3:53
  time. That comes from Nick in Perth. That's a
• 3:56
  really good question. Yes, but we have heard
• 3:58
  of, um, such planets that rain diamonds and
• 4:01
  who knows what else. Um, salt, like
• 4:04
  planets, uh, and so
• 4:07
  on. Um, and this is your. This is your area,
• 4:10
  isn't it?
• 4:10
  Jonti Horner: Yeah, there's a lot of allegedly in this. I
• 4:13
  think there's a lot of
• 4:16
  beauty and, um, storytelling between what a
• 4:19
  paper says and what a press release says. I
• 4:21
  think that's maybe a polite way of putting
• 4:23
  it.
• 4:24
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I know exactly where you're coming
• 4:25
  from. We refer to it as the popular press.
• 4:28
  Uh, clickbait. Getting the headline whatever
• 4:30
  you like.
• 4:31
  Jonti Horner: Well, it's one of the reasons I've actually
• 4:33
  really enjoyed in the past writing for the
• 4:34
  conversation, because as a scientist there, I
• 4:36
  get to tell my storey. And the editor signs
• 4:38
  off on it and helps you write it, rather than
• 4:41
  it being passed through a lens of multiple
• 4:44
  stages where the storey gets a little bit
• 4:45
  changed every time, which happens sometimes
• 4:48
  with press releases. You know, your
• 4:50
  university media office will often write a
• 4:52
  press release without consulting the
• 4:54
  scientists involved, um, because people are
• 4:56
  busy and they're doing them a favour. You
• 4:57
  know, there's nothing sinister about it. And
• 4:59
  then journalists will base their storeys on
• 5:01
  the press release, not the paper, but put
• 5:03
  their own spin on it, and so on and so forth.
• 5:06
  Now, none of that is to say that there's
• 5:08
  anything dishonest going on here, but I think
• 5:10
  what happens is that certainly storeys
• 5:13
  about planets around other stars that ren.
• 5:15
  Sapphires and diamonds, uh, are
• 5:19
  straying into the possible rather than the
• 5:21
  factual, if that makes sense. What we can
• 5:23
  learn about planets around other stars at the
• 5:25
  minute is for the largest planets
• 5:28
  we can start to learn something about their
• 5:30
  atmosphere, their composition of the
• 5:31
  atmosphere, the temperatures of the
• 5:33
  atmosphere, things like that. So one of the
• 5:35
  planets that has been flagged up as
• 5:39
  raining various Precious Stones is
• 5:41
  WASP121B. And I've got an article open here
• 5:44
  in front of me where a sentence says, a place
• 5:47
  where winds blow at 11,000 miles per hour,
• 5:50
  it rains liquid metal rubies and
• 5:52
  sapphires. This description worthy science
• 5:55
  fiction novel actually corresponds to the
• 5:56
  reality of an exoplanet called WASP121B.
• 6:00
  That's your storey. When you actually look
• 6:03
  into what we've learned about WASP121B, we
• 6:06
  don't know that there are rubies and diamonds
• 6:08
  in the atmosphere. What the study
• 6:11
  that birthed these storeys told us was that
• 6:14
  the atmosphere is really, really hot,
• 6:15
  particularly on the sunward side of the
• 6:17
  planet. You're getting to temperature of 2500
• 6:20
  to 3000 degrees centigrade. That's four
• 6:23
  and a half thousand to what, five and a half
• 6:25
  thousand Fahrenheit, Roughly ridiculously
• 6:27
  hot. We can see
• 6:30
  absorption bands in the atmosphere that tell
• 6:32
  you that there's water molecules, that there
• 6:34
  are titanium oxides, vanadium oxides,
• 6:36
  iron chrom, vanadium,
• 6:39
  titanium oxide, vanadium oxide that have been
• 6:42
  detected in some studies and not in others.
• 6:45
  More recent studies have shown things like
• 6:47
  magnesium, calcium, nickel, all this kind of
• 6:50
  stuff. You then have studies
• 6:53
  of these kind of planets that can tell you
• 6:54
  the differences in the weather between the
• 6:56
  day side and the night side and
• 7:00
  what's going on there. So I'm going to hop
• 7:01
  onto a different planet here because I've
• 7:03
  actually found a paper that talks about iron
• 7:06
  rain specifically.
• 7:07
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, we heard about that one.
• 7:08
  Jonti Horner: I think this one sounds, sounds a bit more
• 7:11
  like the press releases about iron rain
• 7:14
  fit in well with what the science says
• 7:16
  because what this paper found, which was
• 7:18
  published, um, the article is
• 7:21
  called Nightside Condensation of Iron in an
• 7:23
  Ultra Hot Giant Exoplanet. This is another
• 7:26
  one of the really, really super hot
• 7:29
  planets. In this case another Wasp planet,
• 7:31
  Wasp 76 b. What
• 7:33
  they've found is that they can get the
• 7:36
  spectrum with information about the
• 7:38
  daytime atmosphere on m that planet and the
• 7:40
  nighttime atmosphere on that planet. The
• 7:43
  nighttime's colder than the daytime, but they
• 7:46
  find very strong winds blowing from the hot
• 7:48
  side to the cold side. You find incredible
• 7:50
  weather going on there. But what they've also
• 7:52
  done is resolved the signal of iron
• 7:55
  in the atmosphere there as iron
• 7:58
  vapour. Um,
• 8:01
  but they found that that signal is not
• 8:03
  visible on the night side and it is visible
• 8:05
  on the day side. It's visible in the day side
• 8:08
  all the way to the twilight side and then
• 8:10
  disappears, what they say. And again, I'll
• 8:12
  read this out so you can hear exactly where
• 8:14
  they're coming from. Um, we're going to talk
• 8:17
  here about the blue shifting and the red
• 8:18
  shifting of the signal. That's relative to
• 8:21
  the zero speed. So if it's blue shifted,
• 8:23
  that's material coming towards you. If
• 8:26
  it's redshifted, it's material going away
• 8:27
  from you and the speed is relative to the
• 8:30
  average speed of the planet. So the planet
• 8:31
  itself set at zero. That's just a context.
• 8:34
  And in the end of their abstract, they say
• 8:37
  the absorption signal attributed to neutral
• 8:39
  ion is Blue shifted by 11 kilometres per
• 8:42
  second on the trailing limb. This can be
• 8:45
  explained by a combination of planetary
• 8:46
  rotation and wind blowing from the hot day
• 8:49
  side. In contrast, no signal arises
• 8:52
  from the night side close to the morning
• 8:54
  terminator, showing that atomic iron is not
• 8:56
  absorbing starlight there. In other words,
• 8:59
  iron must condense during its journey across
• 9:01
  the night side. So you're seeing iron vapour,
• 9:04
  uh, uh, in the evening
• 9:07
  when the wind is blowing from the hot side to
• 9:09
  the cold side. But you're not seeing iron
• 9:11
  vapour carried by the winds that go from the
• 9:13
  cold side to the warm side in the morning. So
• 9:15
  the iron has to have disappeared between
• 9:17
  sunset and sunrise, which means it
• 9:20
  must have condensed and fallen out of the
• 9:22
  atmosphere there. So that's where they're
• 9:25
  getting this idea of either iron rain or
• 9:27
  iron hail, essentially.
• 9:30
  Jonti Horner: Yeah.
• 9:30
  Jonti Horner: And that makes sense. You've got iron in the
• 9:31
  day side, uh, atmosphere because it's super
• 9:33
  hot, but it precipitates out in the evening
• 9:36
  and it's gone by much morning. So that's
• 9:38
  where the idea of iron rain comes from
• 9:40
  with diamonds. We also have the
• 9:43
  discussion of diamond rain within the solar
• 9:45
  system on Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
• 9:48
  This, I think, was first postulated, probably
• 9:51
  to explain the unusual amount of heat coming
• 9:53
  out from Neptune's interior, suggesting there
• 9:56
  have to be some physical process going on
• 9:59
  that is releasing latent heat and
• 10:01
  warming the planet up. And so the idea was
• 10:04
  that you've got this essentially carbon in
• 10:07
  the lower atmosphere getting under so such
• 10:08
  high pressure that it solidifies and drops
• 10:10
  and in that process you're releasing heat
• 10:13
  that warms the atmosphere. But there's a lot
• 10:15
  of discussion about the idea that very
• 10:18
  deep in Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, you've
• 10:21
  got a domain where you have very high
• 10:24
  density gases like methane and ethane.
• 10:27
  And, um, you also, a little bit deeper than
• 10:29
  that, the pressure is so high that any carbon
• 10:32
  would be squashed to become diamonds.
• 10:35
  There's a study that notes that Saturn gets
• 10:37
  lots of lightning. So suggesting that what
• 10:40
  possibly is going to happen is you have
• 10:42
  lightning strikes that break up methane and
• 10:44
  ethane, creating molecular carbon or
• 10:47
  atomic carbon, that then under the high
• 10:49
  pressure forms into molecular carbon and
• 10:52
  is squashed and forms little micro diamonds
• 10:55
  and then they rain out and precipitate out
• 10:57
  and they're gone. That's the idea there. Now
• 11:00
  we're not talking here about forming hundred
• 11:02
  thousand carat diamonds, you're talking about
• 11:04
  little nano diamonds, little mini diamonds,
• 11:07
  but that's where that idea comes from. Now
• 11:09
  this is all happening sufficiently deep
• 11:12
  in these planets that we can't see it. So
• 11:14
  it's all down to modelling based on our
• 11:16
  understanding and, um, based on the
• 11:19
  observations of the outer atmosphere from
• 11:21
  Earth based observatories and orbital
• 11:23
  observatories from the Cassini spacecraft
• 11:26
  going around Saturn and the data returned by
• 11:28
  Voyager.
• 11:29
  So it's one of those things where scientists
• 11:31
  are taking the information we know and trying
• 11:32
  to explain it and extrapolating to figure out
• 11:34
  what's going, going on in the interior of
• 11:36
  these planets. So to come back to the
• 11:38
  question, you are, I think, in many ways dead
• 11:40
  right. I think talking about raining
• 11:42
  sapphires and raining rubies and things like
• 11:44
  this is probably hyperbolic based
• 11:47
  on the information we have, but it's a way of
• 11:50
  illustrating just how extreme these planets
• 11:52
  are, uh, just how totally unlike
• 11:55
  anything in the solar system the conditions
• 11:57
  are. And at least in the case of the raining
• 12:00
  iron thing, that seems to be well supported
• 12:02
  by the paper that talked about it. Yeah, the
• 12:04
  raining diamond thing is quite widely
• 12:06
  discussed in solar system for Saturn, Uranus
• 12:08
  and Neptune. And, um, I think it's at that
• 12:11
  blurry edge where science and science fiction
• 12:13
  meet at the moment. So hopefully that's me
• 12:15
  being fair to the journalists involved and
• 12:17
  the scientists involved, but also trying not
• 12:20
  to muddy the waters any further.
• 12:22
  Andrew Dunkley: Never let the truth get in the way of a good
• 12:24
  storey.
• 12:25
  Jonti Horner: Absolutely.
• 12:27
  Andrew Dunkley: More or less. Um, yeah,
• 12:30
  it's a Great question though. And uh, yeah,
• 12:33
  I think we clearly demonstrated we can't see
• 12:35
  this. But, uh, certain assumptions can be
• 12:37
  made and when you give that information to a
• 12:40
  journalist they'll go, oh, I like that bit.
• 12:43
  There's the headline. Bam.
• 12:45
  I think Nick was on the money there. Thanks
• 12:48
  for the question, Nick.
• 12:49
  Uh, this is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley
• 12:51
  and Professor Jonty Horner.
• 12:55
  Professor Fred Watson: Three, two, one.
• 12:58
  Jonti Horner: Space Nuts.
• 13:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Now let's uh, go to an audio question which
• 13:03
  uh, comes from Sandy in Melbourne.
• 13:06
  Jonti Horner: Um, my question this time is just
• 13:09
  around satellites, um, and in particular the
• 13:11
  recent FCC approval of Reflect
• 13:14
  Orbitals test satellite. I believe.
• 13:17
  Um, the Reflect Orbital proposal, as
• 13:20
  I guess hopefully everyone knows it's. It's a
• 13:22
  fairly, um. Uh,
• 13:25
  one of concern, I suppose. Um, I'm just
• 13:28
  curious about the approval process, um, and
• 13:30
  in particular why the FCC is able to
• 13:33
  approve something that. That can potentially
• 13:35
  impact the entire globe. Um, I'm not,
• 13:38
  I don't mean this question in any negative
• 13:40
  light. I'm just curious about the approval
• 13:41
  process and why there isn't maybe more
• 13:45
  uh, international cooperation on approval of,
• 13:47
  you know, these sorts of proposals
• 13:51
  that. That has the potential to impact the
• 13:53
  entire globe and not just, um, the.
• 13:55
  The United States. Um, amazing. Thank you
• 13:58
  for an awesome show. Um, looking forward to
• 14:01
  hearing the answer.
• 14:03
  Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Sandy. Lovely to hear your voice.
• 14:05
  Uh, hope all is well down in Melbourne, which
• 14:07
  is generally a colder place than where I am,
• 14:09
  but not by much. It depends on the time of
• 14:12
  year. But, uh, yeah, uh, this is a
• 14:15
  controversial topic and one
• 14:17
  that um, probably won't disappear in the
• 14:20
  near future with so many plans to put so many
• 14:23
  satellites in space, creating so much
• 14:26
  disturbance for, um, astronomers.
• 14:29
  Um, but, um, Reflect Orbital, now
• 14:32
  that was a case of somebody wanting to
• 14:35
  create, uh, more light on
• 14:38
  Earth through reflecting sunlight.
• 14:41
  And it got deeply
• 14:43
  controversial, um, because
• 14:46
  of certain approvals or applications that
• 14:49
  were made to the faa.
• 14:51
  But before we get to Sandy's question,
• 14:54
  there is a storey in the news at
• 14:57
  the moment about the uh,
• 15:00
  FAA approving, um,
• 15:03
  or trying to circumvent
• 15:06
  certain environmental laws for
• 15:09
  commercial launches and spacecraft
• 15:11
  reentries. What's that one about?
• 15:13
  Jonti Horner: There's all sorts of kind of car
• 15:16
  crash news around this. And you know, thank
• 15:18
  you, Sandy, for the question. It's very
• 15:19
  topical. Um, and it is
• 15:22
  all really reflecting the fact that the
• 15:25
  space industry is
• 15:27
  developing and evolving at a speed that is
• 15:30
  far greater than our ability to legislate
• 15:32
  about it worldwide. And in fact, the only
• 15:34
  real treaty.
• 15:34
  Andrew Dunkley: Well, the Internet did that too.
• 15:35
  Jonti Horner: Oh, absolutely. Um, the
• 15:38
  treaties that are in place that are very
• 15:40
  limited governing global use of
• 15:43
  space date back to the 1960s when you were
• 15:46
  looking at a few launchers PA from government
• 15:48
  agencies and nothing else. And they are
• 15:51
  wholly not set up for the current era of
• 15:54
  commercial space. You've then got the
• 15:57
  thing that, uh, people are trying to launch
• 15:58
  from more and more countries. Companies are,
• 16:00
  uh, designed to
• 16:04
  do what's right for the company to try and
• 16:05
  make money. Now, people will often say,
• 16:08
  well, why doesn't government X of
• 16:11
  country Y be stricter on the rules about
• 16:14
  launchers and start cracking down on this?
• 16:17
  But the problem is, if you go to a company
• 16:19
  that's wanting to put things in space that
• 16:22
  will service one country or will service all
• 16:24
  around the globe, whatever, and say to them,
• 16:26
  you know what we want to regulate about your
• 16:28
  launches, they can just say, well, thank you
• 16:30
  very much, we'll take our business elsewhere
• 16:31
  and launch from another country. So
• 16:34
  there's a perverse incentive, I think, there
• 16:36
  for countries to not get in the way too much.
• 16:40
  What then happens is that there
• 16:43
  is some kind of level of regulation in
• 16:46
  that the country from which something is
• 16:48
  launched is normally responsible for if it
• 16:50
  falls back to Earth. The
• 16:52
  vast overwhelming majority of launchers come
• 16:55
  from the us, um, and from US companies.
• 16:58
  And companies that want to launch in the US
• 17:01
  have to get permissions from US agencies.
• 17:04
  And it seems that there are two agencies
• 17:07
  involved with this. You've got the Federal
• 17:09
  Aviation Administration, who are the people
• 17:12
  who legislate around the launches themselves,
• 17:15
  where you can launch from, how many launches
• 17:17
  there can be. And then you've got the fcc,
• 17:19
  which is a federation, the
• 17:22
  federal communications body, effectively,
• 17:25
  and what they are legislating for is the use
• 17:28
  of radio frequencies for communication.
• 17:32
  Right. So the recent permission for
• 17:33
  reflectorbital was actually FCC permission
• 17:37
  to give them the permission for the satellite
• 17:40
  to use certain frequency bands to communicate
• 17:42
  with the Earth.
• 17:43
  Andrew Dunkley: Right.
• 17:43
  Jonti Horner: So you are permitted to launch your satellite
• 17:45
  and use these things to communicate. The
• 17:48
  new storey that you alluded to there is there
• 17:51
  is a proposal from the Federal Aviation
• 17:54
  Administration, who are the people that
• 17:56
  govern the launch in the us that is following
• 18:00
  the recent policy announcements from the
• 18:02
  Trump administration more, ah, widely, to try
• 18:04
  and get environmental regulations around
• 18:06
  launches repealed, to allow them to
• 18:09
  fast track launches, to remove
• 18:12
  blocks to the commercial activities and all
• 18:14
  the rest of it by getting rid of
• 18:17
  regulation around endangered species or
• 18:20
  native title or things like this. It's quite
• 18:23
  concerning when you read about it. The FAA
• 18:25
  proposal, this is me reading a quote,
• 18:27
  proposes to waive requirements of laws of the
• 18:30
  US for a licence or permit after
• 18:33
  consultation with the head of the appropriate
• 18:35
  agency when the requirement is not
• 18:37
  necessary to protect the public health,
• 18:39
  safety of property and uh, national security
• 18:42
  and foreign interests of the United States.
• 18:46
  Nothing in there about the interests or
• 18:47
  health and safety of people anywhere other
• 18:49
  than the United States. Of course these
• 18:50
  launches pass over other inhabited countries
• 18:53
  as they're getting to altitude. Uh, there's
• 18:55
  nothing in there about environmental
• 18:56
  protections they want to get rid of And
• 18:59
  I quote 13 federal laws to stop them
• 19:02
  applying to certain commercial space licences
• 19:04
  and permits, um, with examples including the
• 19:07
  National Environmental Policy act, the
• 19:09
  Endangered Species act, the Clean Water act,
• 19:11
  the Clean Air act and the National Historical
• 19:13
  Preservation Act. So this is
• 19:16
  a little bit concerning. People are getting
• 19:19
  a little bit worried um,
• 19:22
  about things like attempts to build
• 19:25
  launch environments in habitats for
• 19:28
  endangered species, all sorts of stuff like
• 19:30
  this. So that's going on. But the FAA are the
• 19:32
  people who approve the launches, the FCC
• 19:36
  who are the ones that have just approved
• 19:37
  Reflectorbital approve the communications
• 19:40
  side of it. And they have been
• 19:43
  very, very clear in their thinking that they
• 19:45
  don't have any right to pass any
• 19:48
  opinion on the activities. They're just
• 19:50
  approving the communication channels.
• 19:53
  So again quoting about the
• 19:55
  Earundel 1 satellite reflect orbital
• 19:57
  satellite, um, loads of comments, loads of
• 20:00
  international concern. People raised it with
• 20:03
  the FCC to say come on really mirrors in
• 20:06
  space. This is really dangerous, please don't
• 20:08
  approve this. And the FCC has
• 20:11
  said we find that concerns about Earendel's
• 20:13
  impacts on optical astronomy fall outside our
• 20:15
  review and authorization of the space station
• 20:18
  and are not a basis for denial or additional
• 20:21
  conditions on the operations. Um, and
• 20:24
  they went on further to say we find that the
• 20:25
  operation of a solar reflector attached to a
• 20:28
  satellite is too attenuated from the
• 20:30
  commission's action of approving use of
• 20:31
  spectrum and thus beyond our authority. So
• 20:34
  they're just passing the book. Yeah. The
• 20:37
  thing is though, uh, you can see exactly the
• 20:39
  same buck pass being done by the FAA
• 20:42
  when it comes to launches thing the FAA can
• 20:44
  say we have no ability to rule on what the
• 20:46
  satellite's going to do when it's up there.
• 20:48
  Our rule is solely to regulate um, on whether
• 20:50
  the launch can happen in a safe way. So it
• 20:53
  really does feed into this Wild west
• 20:55
  narrative that the commercial
• 20:58
  use has really outstripped regulation.
• 21:01
  It's arguable whether people are actually
• 21:02
  rushing to keep up or not or whether there
• 21:04
  are uh, less efforts being made to keep up
• 21:07
  than you would like. But certainly we're a
• 21:09
  long, long way from having any kind of
• 21:12
  oversight globally on the use of space
• 21:15
  or any way of managing it globally. There's a
• 21:17
  lot of discussions. I've got a PhD student
• 21:20
  studying with us at UNESQ remotely who talks
• 21:22
  a lot about satellites and the use of the
• 21:25
  night sky from the cultural lens and the
• 21:27
  impact on traditional owners of the land for
• 21:29
  whom the night sky is incredibly culturally
• 21:31
  significant, who don't have a voice.
• 21:34
  You know, we've spoken about that before as
• 21:36
  well with the IDE sending dead people to the
• 21:38
  moon, which is considered very sacrilegious
• 21:40
  to a number of native groups around the
• 21:42
  planet. But who cares? The company can do
• 21:45
  what they want. Seems to be the impression.
• 21:47
  And um, the company involved were very
• 21:48
  caustic in their comments that uh,
• 21:51
  effectively we don't care, we're not going to
• 21:52
  listen. They should grow up.
• 21:54
  And it's fairly horrific in a lot of ways,
• 21:57
  this stuff going on. But it is fast
• 22:00
  developing industry with no regulation
• 22:03
  developed around it.
• 22:04
  Andrew Dunkley: And that's because of the speed of technology
• 22:07
  enabling these things long before the
• 22:10
  legislation makers can do anything about
• 22:13
  it. And we see that a lot. I remember when
• 22:15
  email first started popping up, you could get
• 22:18
  away with practically murder on email
• 22:21
  because it wasn't a legal document.
• 22:24
  That law has been changed. But there was a
• 22:27
  time where it was such a grey area that email
• 22:30
  didn't count, uh, in terms of
• 22:33
  defamation or slander or any of
• 22:35
  those, uh, legal areas
• 22:38
  that could uh, get you into trouble. Um,
• 22:41
  that's now changed obviously and email
• 22:43
  can be used against you in a court of law,
• 22:45
  etc. Etc. Now we've got this situation
• 22:48
  where the um, private enterprise
• 22:51
  is getting so involved in space and wanting
• 22:54
  to do all these extraordinary and some form
• 22:56
  what, in some cases ludicrous things
• 23:00
  and the law hasn't caught up to it yet.
• 23:03
  And then you've got bodies that are saying,
• 23:05
  well look, you know, we only deal with this
• 23:07
  little bit here. We, you know, we got no say
• 23:10
  over the rest of it. So that's okay. We, we
• 23:12
  can let them do that. Someone else will have
• 23:14
  to decide what happens to the rest of it.
• 23:17
  Jonti Horner: Even though those bodies are uh, ignoring
• 23:20
  their own rules. Some of the times, you know,
• 23:21
  there have been things permitted to use bands
• 23:23
  of the spectrum that have been meant to be
• 23:25
  kept safe and pristine for radio ash
• 23:28
  running. Sure, Fred Watson has had views on
• 23:29
  that in the past. Should say. Incidentally,
• 23:32
  we've had a hello in the public chat from
• 23:35
  Moose again. So, hi, Moose again or Moose
• 23:37
  again. Um, so I saw the
• 23:40
  chat thing flash up. It's like, what's going
• 23:41
  on? We have somebody listening.
• 23:43
  Andrew Dunkley: So hello I can actually see the numbers. Yes,
• 23:45
  we do have quite a few people listening at
• 23:47
  the moment.
• 23:47
  Jonti Horner: Fabulous.
• 23:48
  Andrew Dunkley: That's nice.
• 23:49
  Jonti Horner: I appreciate you keeping us company today,
• 23:51
  but, yeah, it's a very bizarre situation and
• 23:53
  it's hard to see how it'll change at the
• 23:56
  minute. Especially given that the biggest
• 23:59
  players don't seem to be awfully
• 24:01
  interested in global rules and regulations.
• 24:04
  Maybe that's a way of putting it. And
• 24:07
  equally with the rate it's gone, you can
• 24:09
  imagine why they didn't legislate about this
• 24:11
  in the 1960s. Because can you imagine if
• 24:15
  the global bodies in 1967,
• 24:17
  1969 when the space Treaty was done, um,
• 24:20
  had put in rules about the commercial use of
• 24:23
  mega constellations? Nobody would have even
• 24:25
  thought about it. It and anybody trying to be
• 24:27
  that forward thinking would have been shut
• 24:29
  down. It's never going to happen.
• 24:31
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. And yet it's happening as we speak.
• 24:34
  Um, yeah, we're talking about two kettles of
• 24:36
  fish, um, but they kind of
• 24:39
  interrelate, uh, in regard to what's
• 24:42
  going on in low Earth orbit
• 24:45
  and, uh, what the future will hold, I do not
• 24:47
  know. But when you've got federal government
• 24:49
  organisations that are kind of wanting
• 24:52
  to manoeuvre
• 24:55
  around certain legislation and certain
• 24:59
  acts of parliament, depending on which
• 25:01
  country you're in, um, that's a bit of
• 25:03
  a worry. Yes, thanks for
• 25:06
  the question, Sandy. Um, it's a
• 25:09
  pretty deep and meaningful one and, uh, very
• 25:12
  controversial and certainly not going to go
• 25:14
  away in the near future. Um,
• 25:17
  but hopefully common sense will prevail.
• 25:20
  Good question. This is Space Nuts, a Q and A
• 25:23
  edition with Andrew Dunkley and Jonty Horner.
• 25:28
  Professor Fred Watson: Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here. This
• 25:30
  is Houston. Say again, please.
• 25:32
  Andrew Dunkley: Houston, we've had a problem.
• 25:33
  Professor Fred Watson: We've had a main B plus. Roger, main B
• 25:35
  interval. Okay, standby 13. We're looking at
• 25:37
  it.
• 25:38
  Andrew Dunkley: Spacebuds, our final question
• 25:40
  is a very quick and easy one.
• 25:43
  Uh, except I can't find it. Here it is. Uh,
• 25:46
  this comes from Rennie, who's a regular
• 25:49
  contributor at Sunny West Hills in Californ
• 25:51
  here. Can planets form without
• 25:54
  a sun? Uh, let's say because dark
• 25:57
  matter would be the gravity. Rennie is
• 26:00
  asking. Uh, well, planets are your thing. Uh,
• 26:03
  can planets form without a sun? Now, we know
• 26:06
  there are rogue planets, but we're going to
• 26:08
  assume that they were once part of a system
• 26:11
  that probably had a star at its centre
• 26:14
  and it got booted out for not paying the rent
• 26:16
  or something. But, um, yeah, that's not what
• 26:19
  we're talking about. About we're talking
• 26:20
  about planets forming without a star or a
• 26:23
  sun, whatever you want to call it.
• 26:24
  Jonti Horner: Yeah. And there's all sorts of different
• 26:26
  angles to this. Now, dark matter
• 26:30
  is not really well understood.
• 26:33
  I'm not a cosmologist, but there's a number
• 26:35
  of different things that have been proposed
• 26:36
  to be dark matter. And I mean fundamentally
• 26:38
  at the simplest level, anything that has
• 26:41
  mass that cannot be seen can be
• 26:44
  considered dark matter. So I guess some
• 26:46
  degree you could consider black holes dark
• 26:48
  matter. When they're not feeding on
• 26:50
  something. We can see the evidence that the
• 26:52
  mass is there, but we can't see the material
• 26:54
  itself. There was a storey
• 26:57
  a few weeks ago and I'm remembering this off
• 26:59
  the top of my head. Don't have it up in front
• 27:01
  of me. Where people have done research
• 27:03
  looking at uh, the incredible
• 27:05
  accumulations of material you can get in the
• 27:08
  interior of very massive galaxies. Material m
• 27:11
  that's been corralled by supermassive black
• 27:13
  holes. Suggesting that you can get
• 27:16
  at certain distances from supermassive black
• 27:18
  holes, enough density of material that you
• 27:21
  could get spontaneous planet formation
• 27:22
  happening, forming trillions
• 27:25
  quadrillions of planet sized objects
• 27:28
  in the kind of inner reaches of a galaxy.
• 27:31
  Not forming stars, forming loads of planets.
• 27:33
  So that's one way this could happen. You also
• 27:36
  have ideas of things like planetary
• 27:38
  formation around objects like white dwarfs
• 27:41
  and normal sized black holes and um, neutron
• 27:44
  stars. We found planets around pulsars in the
• 27:47
  past and planets around pulsars pose a real
• 27:50
  problem because you'd expect them to that a
• 27:52
  pulsar being the result of a supernova
• 27:55
  explosion. The supernova would have destroyed
• 27:58
  any planets that were in orbit around the
• 28:00
  star or they'd have escaped. Bit of both.
• 28:03
  So how can you have planets around a pulsar?
• 28:06
  And uh, one of the suggestions is you get a
• 28:07
  second generation of planet formation
• 28:10
  where some of the material from the death of
• 28:12
  the star falls back to form a disc around the
• 28:15
  star, the stellar corpse.
• 28:18
  And you get a generation of planet formation
• 28:21
  that forms objects like the size of the moon
• 28:22
  and a bit bigger, a bit smaller. So you can
• 28:25
  get that. You also have
• 28:28
  the possibility of forming objects the size
• 28:30
  and mass of planets in star forming regions
• 28:33
  as almost like mega failed stars. And this
• 28:36
  goes back to something we discussed on the
• 28:38
  previous episode about when is a star not a
• 28:40
  star. You get objects that are not massive
• 28:43
  enough to be a star get called brown dwarfs.
• 28:45
  That's why you've got something more than 13
• 28:47
  times the mass of Jupiter, less than 80 times
• 28:49
  mass of Jupiter. And we know you can form
• 28:52
  brown Dwarfs in star forming regions where
• 28:55
  you form something that just doesn't get
• 28:57
  massive enough to begin fusion. If
• 29:00
  you're forming things that size, you will
• 29:01
  also form things that are smaller than that.
• 29:03
  And so you will form free floating things of
• 29:06
  planetary mass in star forming
• 29:08
  regions. So in that way you could get
• 29:11
  planets forming without suns in that way.
• 29:15
  In terms of dark matter
• 29:18
  being the origin of the gravity, this is
• 29:20
  where you could get a really awesome
• 29:23
  collaborative project going between
• 29:24
  cosmologists and um, exoplanet people,
• 29:28
  when neither of us has all of the knowledge
• 29:29
  to absolutely definitively answer that. So
• 29:32
  I'm going to give the caveat that what I say
• 29:35
  from now on is based more on judgement than
• 29:38
  knowledge. In a way, my
• 29:40
  memory is that uh, most
• 29:43
  discussions of dark matter these
• 29:46
  days seem to talk about it being very
• 29:48
  distributed, very finely spread.
• 29:51
  So it's not like you get isolated clumps,
• 29:54
  you don't get a planet sized clump of dark
• 29:56
  matter, dark matter planet, you have a lot of
• 29:59
  material spread very wide. And that means you
• 30:01
  wouldn't have like a nucleation site around
• 30:04
  which material could gather to form a planet.
• 30:06
  In that paradigm of the dark matter all being
• 30:09
  very thinly smeared out and very spread out
• 30:11
  out. If you had though, in a star
• 30:14
  forming region, a clump of dark matter that
• 30:17
  was a mass of the sun that could form a disc
• 30:20
  around it where planets could form. So if you
• 30:22
  could get that clump of matter the size of
• 30:24
  the sun, the mass of the sun, then things
• 30:27
  would happen around it just the same as if it
• 30:29
  was any kind of visible matter,
• 30:32
  baryonic matter, because
• 30:35
  all that you're looking at there is gravity
• 30:37
  doing what gravity does. The thing is,
• 30:40
  my understanding, and my understanding here
• 30:42
  could very well be flawed, is that most
• 30:45
  cosmologists these days talk about the dark
• 30:47
  matter being very spread out, which would
• 30:49
  kind of preclude that kind of setup
• 30:51
  happening. If, however, you go back to
• 30:54
  the days where people talked about the
• 30:57
  potential origin of dark matter being what
• 30:59
  were known as machos, massive compact
• 31:01
  halo objects, uh, that version of dark
• 31:04
  matter was the idea that you had massive
• 31:07
  objects that you could not see, whether
• 31:09
  that's brown dwarfs, whether
• 31:12
  it's black holes, whether it's things like
• 31:14
  that, things that are large localised
• 31:16
  agglomerations of matter that
• 31:19
  are not visible for whatever reason. Those
• 31:22
  kind of things could be seeds, they exert
• 31:25
  gravity. You can imagine if one of those was
• 31:27
  in a star forming region, it could get a disc
• 31:30
  of material around it. Now it would also
• 31:31
  accrete itself, baryonic matter,
• 31:34
  which Means you could potentially get star
• 31:37
  that are formed with a core of dark matter in
• 31:39
  that type scenario. But we are getting beyond
• 31:43
  my area of expertise there. So we are kind of
• 31:45
  verging on the speculative and the science
• 31:47
  fiction rather than the science facts. I do
• 31:49
  want to caution that. Take what I've just
• 31:51
  said with a pinch of salt.
• 31:54
  Andrew Dunkley: No, fair enough. But, um, the
• 31:57
  bottom line is the answer to Rennie's
• 32:00
  question is probably yes,
• 32:03
  Jonti Horner: yes, for a given version of what dark matter
• 32:05
  is. You know, like I said, we have found
• 32:08
  the pulsar planets. Um,
• 32:11
  like I say, you can look up the paper from a
• 32:13
  few weeks ago or the news articles from a few
• 32:15
  weeks ago that were talking about planetary
• 32:17
  formation near supermassive black holes.
• 32:21
  You could very much argue that supermassive
• 32:23
  black holes, when they don't have active
• 32:25
  material falling into them, are invisible but
• 32:27
  for their gravity. So therefore are dark
• 32:29
  matter by definition because they're matter
• 32:31
  that is dark. Um, so, yeah, there
• 32:34
  are ways to answer the question in the
• 32:35
  affirmative, but I think if you
• 32:38
  went down to the kind of very thinly smeared
• 32:40
  dark matter, then that side of things,
• 32:43
  probably not.
• 32:44
  Andrew Dunkley: Okay, now, fair point. Uh, and as you say, we
• 32:47
  don't know a lot about dark matter. And it's.
• 32:49
  Yeah, we're at the very dawn of that, um, you
• 32:52
  know, trying to figure it out. Uh, someone
• 32:55
  will crack it sooner or later. But, uh, at
• 32:57
  this stage, it's all a bit of a head
• 32:59
  scratcher. And let's not get into dark energy
• 33:02
  because that's, you know, that
• 33:04
  if dark matter is a head scratcher, dark
• 33:07
  energy is, um, boring out your brain with a
• 33:10
  pneumatic drill type of scenario.
• 33:13
  Jonti Horner: Oh, it is. I mean, we're very fortunate that
• 33:15
  we do have here in Australia some of the
• 33:16
  world's foremost experts in these kind of
• 33:18
  things. It's just I'm not one of them. I
• 33:21
  would encourage, you know, having a special
• 33:23
  at some point with the incredible Tamara
• 33:25
  Davis. Professor Tamara Davis from the
• 33:27
  University of Queensland. Cause she can speak
• 33:29
  about dark energy and dark matter in a way
• 33:31
  that makes you think, you understand. There
• 33:34
  is no greater praise of a science
• 33:35
  communicator than that.
• 33:37
  Andrew Dunkley: That would be fascinating. Yeah, that's a
• 33:40
  great idea.
• 33:41
  Uh, Rennie, thanks for your question in
• 33:42
  regards to your grandchildren. Rennie
• 33:44
  messaged us not so long ago to say that, uh,
• 33:47
  one of his grandchildren, um, uh, through.
• 33:50
  Through Space nuts, has now been inspired to
• 33:53
  include astronomy into part of his college
• 33:56
  studies. So, um, we were really thrilled to
• 33:58
  hear that. So thanks for the question,
• 34:00
  Rennie. And, uh, I think that's just about
• 34:03
  it. Yes, I think, uh, call
• 34:06
  it quits here. But we will remind you that,
• 34:08
  uh, you can send in your questions via, ah,
• 34:11
  our website, spacenutspodcast.com
• 34:13
  spacenuts IO either of
• 34:16
  those platforms work? And, uh, click on
• 34:19
  the Ask me anything um button at the top.
• 34:22
  It's labelled ama and you can send us text
• 34:24
  and audio questions there. Don't forget to
• 34:27
  tell us who you are and where you're from.
• 34:30
  And have a look around on our website while
• 34:31
  you're there. And I'll remind you too,
• 34:33
  wherever you listen to us or watch us, please
• 34:35
  leave reviews. Um, apparently they
• 34:38
  help. I don't know how they help. I don't
• 34:40
  think they feed the hungry, but they might. I
• 34:43
  don't know. Uh, and um, Jonty,
• 34:46
  thanks so much. Uh, we will, uh,
• 34:49
  look forward to the pleasure of your company
• 34:51
  again in the next episode.
• 34:52
  Jonti Horner: Yeah, looking forward to it. Thank you for
• 34:54
  having me, Professor Jonty
• 34:56
  Andrew Dunkley: Horner, um, Professor of Astrophysics at the
• 34:58
  University of Southern Queensland. And, uh,
• 35:01
  thanks to Huw in the studio. Um,
• 35:04
  Huw couldn't be with us today, surprisingly.
• 35:06
  Uh, apparently he, uh, applied to the FCC to
• 35:09
  get approval to log into the show today and
• 35:11
  they said no. And from me, Andrew Dunkley,
• 35:14
  thanks for your company. We'll see you on the
• 35:16
  next episode of Space Nuts. Bye. Bye.
• 35:20
  You've been listening to the Space Nuts
• 35:22
  Jonti Horner: podcast, available at
• 35:25
  Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
• 35:27
  iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast
• 35:30
  player. You can also stream on demand at
• 35:32
  bytes. Com.
• 35:33
  Andrew Dunkley: This has been another quality podcast
• 35:35
  production from Bytes.
• 35:37
  Professor Fred Watson: Com.