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Black Hole Dilemmas, Pulsar Planets & Bennu's Chemical Secrets | Q&A · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi there, thanks for joining us again. This is Space Nuts.
0:02
Speaker 1: It's a Q and A edition. My name is Andrew Dunkley.
0:05
Speaker 1: Great to have your company. Questions today about falling into
0:08
Speaker 1: a black hole and how can black holes get super massive?
0:13
Speaker 1: Have they got enough time? It doesn't make sense. We'll
0:15
Speaker 1: see if we can explain that. Planets orbiting pulsars, that's
0:19
Speaker 1: a question that's been raised. And somebody wants an update
0:23
Speaker 1: on the asteroid Benu and what's going on with neutrinos.
0:27
Speaker 1: We'll try and answer all of that on this episode
0:30
Speaker 1: of Space.
0:30
Speaker 2: Nuts fifteen second internal ten nine ignition sequence Star Space
0:38
Speaker 2: Nuts Guy or three two.
0:43
Speaker 1: One Space Nuts. When I reported Bill's good and to
0:48
Speaker 1: furnish us with his vast amount of knowledgy. So the
0:51
Speaker 1: brain the size of a planet he has Professor Fred Watson,
0:54
Speaker 1: Astronomer at Large.
0:56
Speaker 3: Hello Fred, I've forgotten the name of the rulebot whose
1:00
Speaker 3: brain was the size of a plane.
1:02
Speaker 1: Marvin, the paranoid android.
1:04
Speaker 3: That's right, Yes it was Marvey.
1:06
Speaker 1: Yes, Marvel. He would have been really terrible on radio,
1:16
Speaker 1: no color, no inflection, and yeah, everything was just the
1:22
Speaker 1: end of the world for him, or the end of
1:25
Speaker 1: the universe, which is actually what the whole thing was about. Yes, hmmm,
1:32
Speaker 1: let's do some questions.
1:34
Speaker 3: Fred.
1:34
Speaker 1: If you are ready and willing and able, it doesn't
1:38
Speaker 1: matter if you're able. Adequacies enough, let's go to our
1:42
Speaker 1: first question. Long time listener, first time caller. I've been
1:45
Speaker 1: rereading the Three Body Problem trilogy without spoilers. There's a
1:50
Speaker 1: moment where an image of someone who fell into a
1:53
Speaker 1: small man made black hole is still visible. That got
1:57
Speaker 1: me thinking about time dilation at the event rising. Given
2:01
Speaker 1: that extreme gravitational time dilation occurs there, how are black
2:06
Speaker 1: holes able to accrete enough matter to grow to super
2:09
Speaker 1: massive scales within cosmological time scales. Thanks for all the
2:14
Speaker 1: time and effort you both put into the podcast. Nick
2:18
Speaker 1: from the UK, Milton Keynes, I think is the name
2:22
Speaker 1: of his locality, So yeah, you'd know that area. I
2:27
Speaker 1: imagine you'd know every square foot of the UK, wouldn't.
2:31
Speaker 3: I certainly know that bit quite well because my brother
2:34
Speaker 3: used to live in Newport Pagnell, which is right next
2:36
Speaker 3: door to Milton Keynes. Newport Pagnels a charming sort of
2:41
Speaker 3: old country village. Milton Keynes is a new town and
2:46
Speaker 3: so they're quite different, but they both had their pluses,
2:49
Speaker 3: and I'm sure they both had their minuses. He doesn't
2:51
Speaker 3: live there anymore, but that's another story which we won't
2:54
Speaker 3: go into on space nuts.
2:57
Speaker 1: The question, well, well, he made a reference to Three
3:00
Speaker 1: Body Problem. Someone fell into a man made black hole
3:04
Speaker 1: and there were still visible. I must say Nick that
3:07
Speaker 1: I read the first book and I found it pretty
3:11
Speaker 1: heavy going. So I haven't actually tried to read the rest,
3:14
Speaker 1: but I might get around to it. They're still making
3:16
Speaker 1: the TV series, but there's a bit of a.
3:20
Speaker 3: Like.
3:20
Speaker 1: The first season was out a couple of years ago,
3:23
Speaker 1: as it turns out now, but they initially announced that
3:27
Speaker 1: they weren't going to keep going. Then they said, yes
3:29
Speaker 1: we are. We're going to make two more seasons and
3:32
Speaker 1: align them both with the two more books. Now they're
3:37
Speaker 1: starting to think now we'll make one more season and
3:39
Speaker 1: combine the two books. So we don't quite know where
3:42
Speaker 1: it's at. But great series. If you haven't had a
3:45
Speaker 1: look at it, the Three Body Problem, the first season,
3:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to watch it again because it's so very good.
3:52
Speaker 1: His question, he's thinking about time dilation at the event horizon.
3:57
Speaker 1: Given that extreme gravitational time dilation occurs there, how are
4:01
Speaker 1: black holes able to create enough metad to grow to
4:04
Speaker 1: super massive scales within cosmological timelines. I love that question.
4:09
Speaker 3: It's great, isn't it. And it's a good question too.
4:13
Speaker 3: But the crucial point here, it's all dependent on your
4:18
Speaker 3: on the observer's frame of rest, in other words, where
4:22
Speaker 3: you are and what you're doing. So the person splattered
4:27
Speaker 3: on the event horizon of a black hole for whom
4:31
Speaker 3: time appears to have stopped to an outside observer, that
4:35
Speaker 3: person's already long gone. They've been sucked into the black hole.
4:39
Speaker 3: It's only their time dilated image that we are seeing.
4:43
Speaker 3: The outside observer sees the time dilation, the person going
4:47
Speaker 3: through doesn't. They just basically expect experienced time ticking away
4:51
Speaker 3: in the normal way, and as they get spaghettified, they
4:55
Speaker 3: probably wish they weren't there. So it's it's all about
4:59
Speaker 3: your kind of your vantage point. But we would call
5:03
Speaker 3: it the frame of reference. So, yes, it is possible
5:06
Speaker 3: for black holes to accrete and become super massive black holes.
5:11
Speaker 3: And you and I, I think Andrew spoke recently about
5:16
Speaker 3: the idea that black holes can become super massive much
5:21
Speaker 3: more quickly than we thought. And I can't remember the
5:26
Speaker 3: mechanism by which that happened. We did cover it. It's
5:30
Speaker 3: a story we covered and there was a sort of
5:33
Speaker 3: trick to it that if you do this, then your
5:37
Speaker 3: black hole can gather materials so quickly that you find
5:42
Speaker 3: yourself in the situation that we find when we observe
5:45
Speaker 3: the early universe with the James Web telescope, we find
5:48
Speaker 3: super massive black holes that are much more massive than
5:51
Speaker 3: we thought they should be. We thought the accretion of
5:53
Speaker 3: material onto these black holes would be relatively gentle and
5:58
Speaker 3: a long process, taking most of the age of the universe.
6:00
Speaker 3: But it's not. It all happens within the first few
6:03
Speaker 3: hundred million years.
6:07
Speaker 1: It exceeds the Eddington limit. Apparently this faster growth, these objects,
6:16
Speaker 1: often reaching billions of solemn masses, matured only nine hundred
6:19
Speaker 1: million years after the Big Bang, implying they formed extremely
6:22
Speaker 1: early and grew unexpectedly fast or had massive initials seeds.
6:27
Speaker 1: It says, I'd have to do a lot more reading too,
6:33
Speaker 1: but that they refer to a feeding frenzy, abundant gas
6:37
Speaker 1: fuel feeding frenzy.
6:39
Speaker 3: So feeding frenzy, that was it. It's to do with
6:42
Speaker 3: the properties of the gas cloud in which it's sitting
6:45
Speaker 3: That was right. Aha, you've reminded me. You see, there's
6:48
Speaker 3: a few neurons in there that are still remembiring, So.
6:55
Speaker 1: It's not so unusual. It's not so unusual. It's basically
6:58
Speaker 1: what yes, that's the next question. This is this, Yeah,
7:03
Speaker 1: it's the timescale isn't really the issue. It's it's what
7:06
Speaker 1: they've got to eat.
7:09
Speaker 3: That's right in terms of yes, in terms of how
7:12
Speaker 3: how fast these things can of creet. But you know,
7:14
Speaker 3: the basic premise of Nick's question is answered by the
7:18
Speaker 3: fact that you're talking about two different reference frames. Were
7:21
Speaker 3: you're observing the black hole from the outside, see somebody
7:24
Speaker 3: falling into it. The time seems to go slower and slower,
7:26
Speaker 3: and it's stationary on the event horizon. But for the
7:28
Speaker 3: person themselves, they're just whizzing down through the event horizon
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Speaker 3: and straight into the black hole in very long strings.
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Speaker 1: I okay, So let's just say we observe somebody who's
7:41
Speaker 1: obviously been sucked into a black hole, and we can
7:43
Speaker 1: see their image there. How long would that image last?
7:47
Speaker 1: Would they have to disappear eventually? Wouldn't they?
7:50
Speaker 3: I think so? Well, probably by covered up by whatever
7:52
Speaker 3: else falls into the black hole because there's lots of
7:56
Speaker 3: stuff going going in. Yeah, it's something I've tried to
8:01
Speaker 3: en visage as well, and I'm not really sure of
8:03
Speaker 3: what the you know, what the answer is, but I
8:05
Speaker 3: think it I suppose if you think of it like
8:08
Speaker 3: rain drops on a dry pavement or something, where one
8:12
Speaker 3: rain drop hits and you see it, you know, sort
8:16
Speaker 3: of sitting there, and another one covers it up, and
8:18
Speaker 3: then another one covers it up. Don't know, that's my
8:21
Speaker 3: wat some brain might do it.
8:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a good example that covers it. I understand.
8:27
Speaker 1: If I understand everyone's got it radio, you should. Yeah.
8:34
Speaker 1: I think you are a lot a lot more than
8:36
Speaker 1: I am these days, I must say. Yeah. All right,
8:40
Speaker 1: Thanks Nick, great question, very thought provoking, and thanks for
8:44
Speaker 1: sending it in. And don't make it your last time,
8:48
Speaker 1: seeing it's your first time. Next question comes from Hazel.
8:52
Speaker 1: I have in my studies just come across something completely
8:54
Speaker 1: new to me but sort of makes sense. We've found
8:58
Speaker 1: evidence of what look like planets orbiting pulsars. This would
9:02
Speaker 1: mean somehow these orbiting bodies survive massive stars that went
9:07
Speaker 1: super nova. Also, the sweeping beams of seriously strong electromagnetic
9:11
Speaker 1: radiation would I assume have some fascinating effects on these planets.
9:16
Speaker 1: As always, love the show and keep up the great work.
9:19
Speaker 1: All the best from Cloudy skyde Scotland. Well, it wasn't
9:24
Speaker 1: Cloudy Skide when I was there because the sky was falling.
9:26
Speaker 1: It was raining cats and dogs. But I'm sure that's
9:32
Speaker 1: not uncommon. But yes, thanks for the question, Hazel. All right,
9:37
Speaker 1: Fred over to you.
9:40
Speaker 3: Yes. In fact, the first planet that was discovered beyond
9:45
Speaker 3: the Solar System was exactly what Hazel has just described.
9:49
Speaker 3: It's a planet around a pulsar and it won its
9:52
Speaker 3: discover as the Nobel Prize. This was I think it
9:57
Speaker 3: was nineteen seventy eight when that was discovered. The first
10:00
Speaker 3: planet orbiting a normal star was discovered in nineteen ninety
10:03
Speaker 3: five by Mayor and Cue Laws were the two scientists
10:09
Speaker 3: who discovered that. But the one orbiting a pulsar was
10:15
Speaker 3: it's partly because pulsars are very very accurate clocks, and
10:20
Speaker 3: you can use their accuracy of their clocks to time
10:24
Speaker 3: basically how they're rotating and whether there's anything gravitational going
10:28
Speaker 3: on in their environment, and that's how the planet was discovered.
10:32
Speaker 3: The first planet known to exist beyond the Solar System.
10:34
Speaker 3: Quite a big quite a big discovery. So there are
10:38
Speaker 3: others like that now, others known to be in the
10:40
Speaker 3: same situation. And I think the question Hazel postulates is
10:44
Speaker 3: still an active question. How does a planet survive that
10:48
Speaker 3: kind of scenario? Did it form after the super and
10:53
Speaker 3: Ova explosion forming the debris of what happened, or did
10:57
Speaker 3: it survive the super and Ova explosion? And I'm not
11:00
Speaker 3: sure what the current thinking of my learned colleagues is
11:04
Speaker 3: on that, but I might ask them because I think
11:08
Speaker 3: it's it's a valid question. For a long time, it
11:12
Speaker 3: was a puzzle. How does a star that goes sup
11:16
Speaker 3: and over? How does it still have a planet in
11:18
Speaker 3: its retinue?
11:20
Speaker 1: But we're assuming that it would destroy the planet, but
11:23
Speaker 1: it might mess it up a bit, but the rockets
11:27
Speaker 1: still be there, wouldn't.
11:30
Speaker 3: Well, when you think of the energy that goes into
11:32
Speaker 3: a super and over a super and over, when it said,
11:34
Speaker 3: its peak is brighter usually than the rest of its
11:37
Speaker 3: host galaxy, So there's huge amounts of energy there, and
11:42
Speaker 3: a lot of that's optical energy visible light energy. But
11:46
Speaker 3: there are shock waves that we see. Shockwaves will be
11:49
Speaker 3: disastrous for a planet. So my guess is it's still
11:55
Speaker 3: not well understood how a planet can survive something like that.
11:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, what what effect would those those I don't know
12:03
Speaker 1: what what do you call them that come out of a.
12:07
Speaker 3: Puls neutron star or the or the the the beams
12:14
Speaker 3: of radiation you mean, of course, by the fields.
12:17
Speaker 1: So that in itself would be just yep, yeap horrific.
12:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, you'd think so, because they're very powerful.
12:27
Speaker 3: That's what we see when we see a pulse pulsar.
12:29
Speaker 3: See the flash of flashlight, beams of energy. Yeah, not
12:34
Speaker 3: somewhere you want to be really, No, it's hard to
12:37
Speaker 3: imagine that there might be life on some of these
12:40
Speaker 3: pulsar planets.
12:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, and do we know how how many planets we've
12:46
Speaker 1: discovered that have sort of managed to survive in this environment?
12:49
Speaker 1: Wouldn't mean I'm.
12:50
Speaker 3: Sure we do. I'd have to check it out. I
12:52
Speaker 3: don't know the number offhand, but I'm sure with your
12:56
Speaker 3: adept fingering, you could very quickly tell me how many
13:00
Speaker 3: planets are in orbit around pulsars.
13:04
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm going to do that now. Meanwhile, wax And
13:10
Speaker 1: the answer is the answery isn't big As early as
13:13
Speaker 1: this year, between six and eight planets have been confirmed
13:17
Speaker 1: orbiting pulsars. That suggests the survival rate is pretty pretty low.
13:24
Speaker 3: Yes, it does. On the other hand, right, you know,
13:28
Speaker 3: stars that go super and over and create a pulse
13:33
Speaker 3: are have got very short lives. Their lives times are
13:37
Speaker 3: measured in tens of millions of years rather than tens
13:41
Speaker 3: of billions of years, like our Sun is probably ten
13:44
Speaker 3: billion years total lifetime. So that's you know, for a
13:50
Speaker 3: planet to have time to call less properly and form
13:53
Speaker 3: and do all the things that planets do in their infancy,
13:57
Speaker 3: it's not very long if you've got a looming explode
14:00
Speaker 3: on your doorstep.
14:02
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, thankfully, we don't live in that kind of environment.
14:06
Speaker 3: We know.
14:07
Speaker 1: That's although although that famous old story keeps popping up,
14:12
Speaker 1: and I saw it again the other day about the
14:15
Speaker 1: impending explosion of beetlejuice, and you know, we don't want
14:20
Speaker 1: to be in the way of that.
14:22
Speaker 3: We don't know it's it's about seven hundred light years away,
14:25
Speaker 3: so it's survivable. But yeah, well good, yeah, we don't
14:30
Speaker 3: really want to be on the on the beetle juice
14:32
Speaker 3: side of the Earth when it goes off because of all.
14:36
Speaker 1: Exactly. But you know, if you read the popular press,
14:41
Speaker 1: it's going to happen next week. But it could be
14:45
Speaker 1: you know, tens or maybe one hundred thousand years or
14:49
Speaker 1: something like that, couldn't it.
14:51
Speaker 3: It's certainly people are talking about thousands of years. That's correct.
14:55
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, okay, thank you, Hazel. Hopefully that sorted out
14:59
Speaker 1: your question. Thanks for sending it in, and please send
15:03
Speaker 1: us another one when it pops into your head. This
15:06
Speaker 1: is space nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson.
15:12
Speaker 3: We choose to go to the moon and this decay
15:15
Speaker 3: and do the other thing not because they are easy,
15:18
Speaker 3: but because.
15:19
Speaker 1: They are are nuts. Okay, Fred, we have an audio question.
15:26
Speaker 1: Let's hear from David.
15:28
Speaker 4: Good day. David here from the Sunshine Coast, longtime listener.
15:32
Speaker 4: Fairly short question today. I see that you were looking
15:34
Speaker 4: for phone in questions. Just wondering what we've learned with
15:39
Speaker 4: regard to the material that came back from Benu. I
15:43
Speaker 4: haven't heard a lot in the mainstream media at all.
15:45
Speaker 4: It's been quite some time, and I know they had
15:47
Speaker 4: trouble dealing with the sample when it first came back.
15:51
Speaker 4: Just wondering if you could fill us in. Thanks very much,
15:53
Speaker 4: keep up with a great show a La.
15:56
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, and we'll see you later. To David. Yeah, Benu.
16:01
Speaker 1: It's funny that the question should turn up when it does,
16:03
Speaker 1: because I think Bena has just got back into the news,
16:06
Speaker 1: has it not.
16:07
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. There's a really interesting story which came
16:10
Speaker 3: out this week in the proceedings of the National Academy
16:16
Speaker 3: of Science in the United States. And because this is
16:19
Speaker 3: a press release, it means I can read from it
16:22
Speaker 3: with impunity, and so it introduces an issue very well.
16:26
Speaker 3: Scientists studying samples from the asteroid Benu have uncovered a
16:30
Speaker 3: surprisingly complex chemical landscape at the tiniest scales. A new
16:35
Speaker 3: study shows that at an extremely small scale, organic material
16:40
Speaker 3: and minerals inside the asteroid Benu are organized into three
16:44
Speaker 3: clearly different chemical groupings. These patterns provide important clues about
16:50
Speaker 3: how liquid water once altered the atmosphere. The asteroid Benu
16:55
Speaker 3: is a carbon rich asteroid located relatively close to the Earth.
16:58
Speaker 3: It formed from fragments left ba behind after its original
17:01
Speaker 3: parent body broke apart. Because the samples return from Benu
17:05
Speaker 3: have not been exposed to Earth's atmosphere, or whether they
17:08
Speaker 3: offer a rare, untouched record of how water, minerals and
17:13
Speaker 3: organic compounds interacted in the early Solar System. So it's
17:16
Speaker 3: a great story and it comes from scientists I think
17:22
Speaker 3: in the US. I'm not sure. Actually, that's a good question.
17:26
Speaker 3: Where are these scientists from. We might answer that during
17:30
Speaker 3: the talk, but yes, remembering Benu. Benu is an asteroid
17:34
Speaker 3: visited by the spacecraft or Serius Rex, which had a
17:39
Speaker 3: marvelous mechanism on board called tag SAM, the touch and
17:43
Speaker 3: go sample acquisition mechanism, which basically sank the spacecraft onto
17:48
Speaker 3: the asteroid surface and let it grab some of the soil.
17:53
Speaker 3: Benu is a rubble pile. It's shaped very much like
17:56
Speaker 3: two cones and to end, a typical shape for a
17:58
Speaker 3: rubble pile asteroid. So what they grabbed was quite a
18:01
Speaker 3: lot of material. I think it was fair. Remember, only
18:06
Speaker 3: sixty grams comes into mind. That might not be the number,
18:08
Speaker 3: but it's something like that a significant amount. So asteroid
18:12
Speaker 3: Benu is very much in the headlines a lot of
18:16
Speaker 3: interesting stuff. The paper that reveals these results is called
18:24
Speaker 3: Nanoscale Infrared Spectroscopy reveals complex organic mineral assemblages in asteroid Benu.
18:31
Speaker 3: So that seems to be the crucial aspect of this,
18:34
Speaker 3: not the minerals and organic or carbon containing molecules that
18:39
Speaker 3: are there, but the fact that they're organized in such
18:42
Speaker 3: a way that they have been subjected to water related processes,
18:47
Speaker 3: and that means basically liquid water. It's quite extraordinary. Once again,
18:54
Speaker 3: reading from the press release, these un't even nanoscale structures
18:58
Speaker 3: indicate that water not affect Benu in a single uniform way. Instead,
19:03
Speaker 3: water interacted differently in separate areas, producing a patchwork of
19:07
Speaker 3: chemical environments across the asteroid. It's almost perastic, isn't it.
19:12
Speaker 1: It is? It is from my research. The sample return
19:17
Speaker 1: was one hundred and twenty one point six grams of material.
19:21
Speaker 1: There you go, four point two and a half right,
19:25
Speaker 1: four point you're right. The authors are from the United States,
19:32
Speaker 1: places like the Department of Geosciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
19:40
Speaker 1: et cetera. So yes, definitely a US base based study
19:45
Speaker 1: that has been released on the latest from asteroid Benu.
19:52
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to remember where that sample landed. Was
19:55
Speaker 1: that the one that landed in Australia or was that
19:57
Speaker 1: another one that was that was Japanese mission, wasn't it so?
20:02
Speaker 3: Benu's sample serious Rex is the spacecraft which I think
20:05
Speaker 3: is on its way might be on its way to
20:08
Speaker 3: a pofice. It's been redirected. I can't remember where it's
20:10
Speaker 3: going though. What it did was drop to capsule which
20:13
Speaker 3: has the which has the samples in it, and they
20:18
Speaker 3: landed in Utah. That's where the landing site was. Our
20:22
Speaker 3: samples that came to Australia are from the two Higabusa missions,
20:25
Speaker 3: the two Japanese as missions.
20:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're right, it's headed for a pofice.
20:32
Speaker 3: Good, I thought it.
20:34
Speaker 1: They refer to it as a mission extension to study
20:37
Speaker 1: an area of asteroid and it should arrive in April
20:41
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty nine. So they are extraordinarily long missions,
20:46
Speaker 1: aren't they. When you when you're out there in there
20:49
Speaker 1: in the nether regions of the Solar System, that's right.
20:53
Speaker 3: It's you know, that's just the way space works. You
20:57
Speaker 3: kind of tied tied up with gravity and time, and
21:00
Speaker 3: you can't really do much about either of those two things.
21:02
Speaker 1: Oh you can in a science fiction story. It's amazing
21:06
Speaker 1: what you can do in a science fiction And I
21:10
Speaker 1: keep saying it a lot of science fiction has turned
21:13
Speaker 1: into reality over the years, so you know, you never know.
21:18
Speaker 1: In fact, I can't remember what the problem was, but
21:22
Speaker 1: they did, actually, not so long ago, get science fiction
21:27
Speaker 1: writers together. I don't know what was NASA or someone
21:30
Speaker 1: else to try and solve a problem that they couldn't
21:33
Speaker 1: get their heads around us. So if the science fiction
21:35
Speaker 1: community could come up with an answer for them. I
21:38
Speaker 1: can't remember any more about it than that, and I
21:40
Speaker 1: wish I could, because the story fascinated me. They never
21:44
Speaker 1: called me Fred, obviously. I would think being the best
21:52
Speaker 1: selling author of one or two copies that have been
21:55
Speaker 1: sold over the years, that I would be the go
21:57
Speaker 1: to guy. Not the case. Not the case. Have we
22:03
Speaker 1: finished answering that question.
22:06
Speaker 3: Yes, basically there's a lot going on, you know. I
22:10
Speaker 3: urged David just to check it out on the web.
22:12
Speaker 3: There's quite a lot of stuff on Ben. It's been interesting.
22:17
Speaker 3: I've noticed over the last few weeks things popping out,
22:21
Speaker 3: particularly about the minerals which have been water affected, which
22:24
Speaker 3: in itself tells you something about where it's come from,
22:27
Speaker 3: somewhere where there was liquid water.
22:29
Speaker 1: That is fascinating. Yeah, and yes, that paper was published
22:35
Speaker 1: on Science Daily dot com, David, if you want to
22:39
Speaker 1: check it out, and it was published. The paper was
22:42
Speaker 1: published on the thirty first of March, an auspicious day
22:46
Speaker 1: in history. Fred, I must say, yes, a certain non
22:51
Speaker 1: successful science fiction writer was born on that day, Tuesday.
22:57
Speaker 1: So yes, yesterday was yesterday our time.
23:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so that was your sixty fourth Is that right?
23:04
Speaker 1: Yes, I can. I can officially play that Beatles song now.
23:07
Speaker 3: Good on ye. I was just about to say that. Yeah,
23:12
Speaker 3: it's okay, yeah, good old pull McCartney. You hit the
23:15
Speaker 3: nail on the head.
23:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. I watched his doco the other day. They didn't.
23:19
Speaker 1: I've then released a docco about him. Gosh, it's amazing
23:22
Speaker 1: what I didn't know about him that's come out now.
23:26
Speaker 1: It's yeah, quite incredible. But that's a different story, completely
23:31
Speaker 1: different story. But yeah, sixty four. Can't believe it. Anyway.
23:37
Speaker 1: When I told my grandchildren I was sixty four, they
23:38
Speaker 1: looked at me and said, and you're still alive?
23:41
Speaker 3: N They didn't.
23:44
Speaker 1: I said, well, hang on a minute, you should meet Fred. No,
23:46
Speaker 1: I didn't say that either.
23:49
Speaker 3: I remember sixty four just about.
23:55
Speaker 1: Ah, all right, let's move on, Thank you, David. Yeah,
23:58
Speaker 1: good news about Benue and they've just published that paper
24:02
Speaker 1: on my birthday. Our final question comes from Keith. Hello, gentlemen,
24:07
Speaker 1: Well you've got that wrong straight away. This is Keith
24:10
Speaker 1: from Washington State, USA. This is my first time asking
24:13
Speaker 1: a question. We've had a couple of newbies on the
24:15
Speaker 1: show today. Looking forward to your explanation. From what I understand,
24:19
Speaker 1: new Trino's travel vast distances through space and even from
24:24
Speaker 1: our own son, they pass through our bodies every second
24:29
Speaker 1: and easily through the Earth. But do they travel straight
24:32
Speaker 1: through a black hole? Or are they captured by it?
24:36
Speaker 1: Appreciate you guys, and love the podcast. Look forward to
24:39
Speaker 1: every episode. Thank you, Keith. Hope all is well in
24:42
Speaker 1: Washington State. That's on the northwest corner of the United States.
24:45
Speaker 1: Seattle's in Washington State. I love Seattle, went They're a
24:51
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. Now, terrific place, terrific current
24:56
Speaker 1: Super Bowl champions, Seahawks. I knew you'd be interested in
25:01
Speaker 1: that thread.
25:02
Speaker 3: Keep talking because I'm just googling this.
25:05
Speaker 1: I kind of figured I needed to pad, but I
25:07
Speaker 1: didn't pad long enough. Yes, I'm out of practice. Out
25:12
Speaker 1: of practice. I haven't been on radio for two years now,
25:16
Speaker 1: so I don't need to add lib like I used to.
25:19
Speaker 1: It used to be really funny when something went horribly
25:21
Speaker 1: wrong and you knew you had to fix it while
25:23
Speaker 1: you were talking. And have you ever tried to thread
25:26
Speaker 1: a tape on a real reel recorder while you're talking
25:30
Speaker 1: to an audience and making sense of what you're saying
25:34
Speaker 1: and you don't even know what it's Yeah, gosh, it
25:37
Speaker 1: can be a fun moment. I miss those days so much.
25:42
Speaker 2: Are you?
25:42
Speaker 1: Are you good now?
25:44
Speaker 3: Yes? I just just you put conjured up an entirely
25:49
Speaker 3: different picture in my head of you threading a real
25:52
Speaker 3: to real recorder, which I used to remember. Yeah, So
25:55
Speaker 3: on the one piece of kit that I'd like that
25:57
Speaker 3: I don't have is a real to real machine.
25:59
Speaker 1: Could steal one for you, And I know I know
26:02
Speaker 1: a guy in town who's got one, and if I
26:05
Speaker 1: took it, he wouldn't notice for a few years.
26:07
Speaker 3: Now, tell me more offline, Yes I will.
26:13
Speaker 1: Yes, morning, Richard. But look what we're talking about.
26:20
Speaker 3: Radio.
26:21
Speaker 1: It's changed so much because it's all digital now, so
26:24
Speaker 1: you don't really all those those what do you call
26:30
Speaker 1: them skills that you developed in radio, like like cut
26:34
Speaker 1: splicing tape and drop editing and all of those special talents,
26:40
Speaker 1: they're gone. They're just gone. If you gave someone a
26:43
Speaker 1: real the real tape, and said, can you just edit
26:46
Speaker 1: that piece out for me, here's a razor blade, they go.
26:50
Speaker 3: What remember to make the cut diagonally? Yes, yes, the
26:57
Speaker 3: sound quality.
26:58
Speaker 1: Exactly, Yeah, that's how it works. In fact, they were
27:02
Speaker 1: slicing block. The splicing block slots in it so you
27:06
Speaker 1: could do the diagonal cut. And it was made in
27:09
Speaker 1: a way so that the tape actually just sat in
27:12
Speaker 1: there without folding up or rolling around or slipping. Was
27:17
Speaker 1: brilliantly made piece of kit. As Fred would say, to
27:21
Speaker 1: keep the tape still. Look all this, all this, all
27:25
Speaker 1: these memories. I think enough now, Fred, Yeah.
27:30
Speaker 3: I'm sure. That's a question. The tape splicing block. It's
27:34
Speaker 3: how do you splice neutrinos?
27:36
Speaker 1: That's the question. Why do they spice? Can they splice
27:40
Speaker 1: a black hole? That's that's the question.
27:43
Speaker 3: That's the worst segue I think we've ever made. But
27:46
Speaker 3: that will do. It's just good to see it gets
27:49
Speaker 3: is all we aim for. But neutrinos are indeed affected
27:53
Speaker 3: by gravity, as you'd expect because they're particles, they're subatomic particles,
27:59
Speaker 3: and so Once a neutrino crosses the event horizon, then
28:03
Speaker 3: it's doomed. It will be absorbed by the black hole,
28:06
Speaker 3: just like lights. Basically, they hardly interact with normal matter
28:12
Speaker 3: exactly as Keith mentions, but they do feel the force
28:17
Speaker 3: of gravity or the what's base of gravity, and they
28:22
Speaker 3: just get pulled in in the same way as as
28:26
Speaker 3: any other particle. So the answer is yes, and it's
28:32
Speaker 3: you know, it's a really interesting sub atomic particle. We
28:35
Speaker 3: used to think for a while that maybe neutrino's made
28:38
Speaker 3: up the dark matter of the universe, but it turns
28:41
Speaker 3: out from other studies that they don't have enough mass
28:43
Speaker 3: to do that, so they're not the culprits. But there
28:47
Speaker 3: are a lot of them. I think David mentioned, sorry Keith,
28:52
Speaker 3: I Beggy pad mentioned the nutrient the sun, so the neutrinos.
28:57
Speaker 3: For a long time that was there was a problem there.
29:01
Speaker 3: I think it was that we didn't see enough neutrinos
29:04
Speaker 3: coming from the Sun to agree with theory, and that
29:08
Speaker 3: was called the soul and neutrino problem. I think that
29:10
Speaker 3: was the way around it was. But I believe that
29:12
Speaker 3: has now been basically solved by both observational and theoretical astronomers.
29:19
Speaker 3: I should go down a rabbit hole and chase all that,
29:22
Speaker 3: because my knowledge of neutrinos is really a little bit sad.
29:28
Speaker 3: It does have the one joke that I remember about neutrinos,
29:35
Speaker 3: which is probably not worth relating.
29:38
Speaker 1: Oh no, you've got to say it.
29:40
Speaker 2: Well.
29:40
Speaker 3: It was when there was this idea that the large
29:44
Speaker 3: hadron Collida had generated a neutrino that turned up as
29:48
Speaker 3: a detector in Grand Sasso in Italy sooner than it
29:53
Speaker 3: would have done if it had not been traveling less
29:56
Speaker 3: than the speed of light, and so it became known
29:59
Speaker 3: as the faster than like neutrino. In the end, it
30:02
Speaker 3: was debunked. They found it was due to a loose
30:06
Speaker 3: connection in the detector, which led to the director of
30:09
Speaker 3: Grant Sassa resigning. Actually was ashamed of what his institution
30:14
Speaker 3: had done.
30:15
Speaker 1: I remember that now.
30:17
Speaker 3: But the joke is. The joke is, I'm sorry, we
30:21
Speaker 3: don't allow faster than night light neutrino's into our bar.
30:25
Speaker 3: A faster than light neutrino walked into a bar. That's
30:28
Speaker 3: the joke.
30:31
Speaker 1: I get it. That's pretty good though.
30:35
Speaker 3: I think it's a good one too. I wish it
30:36
Speaker 3: was mine.
30:37
Speaker 1: But it's pretty good. But what I find difficult to
30:41
Speaker 1: get my head around is that these things passed through
30:44
Speaker 1: the planet.
30:45
Speaker 3: I mean, yes they do. Oh yeah, I don't notice
30:47
Speaker 3: the planet at all. Yeah, but there is a detector.
30:51
Speaker 3: There's the ice cube detector down in Antarctica. This is
30:55
Speaker 3: a cube of ice and one killer meter cube of
30:57
Speaker 3: ice which has got it's basically not festooned so much
31:02
Speaker 3: as impregnated with many, many optical detectors that would sense
31:08
Speaker 3: the flash of light. If a neutrino actually did collide
31:13
Speaker 3: and interact with a normal particle, then you'd get a
31:17
Speaker 3: flash of light which it will be detectable in ice cube.
31:21
Speaker 3: And I think they've had detections as well.
31:23
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, fascinating even all right, Keith, I think we
31:29
Speaker 1: covered it. Did we cover it?
31:32
Speaker 3: Well? We answered the question, but I think that was
31:34
Speaker 3: a value added question, Keith.
31:36
Speaker 1: Yes, it was. Got lots of bonus material in there,
31:38
Speaker 1: probably boring is you know whatever, an old sock, But
31:45
Speaker 1: we got there in the end. Thank you, Kate, Thank
31:48
Speaker 1: you everybody who sent questions in. If you do have
31:50
Speaker 1: questions for us, please go to our website and send
31:53
Speaker 1: them in on the ask Me anything tab at the top.
31:56
Speaker 1: Just click the letters and there's an interface there where
32:01
Speaker 1: you can send us text and audio questions. Please remember
32:04
Speaker 1: to tell us who you are and where you're from,
32:07
Speaker 1: and we'll do our very best to answer them all.
32:10
Speaker 1: And again we're just yeah, we're on the cusp of
32:13
Speaker 1: not quite having enough questions. It's got a lot of
32:15
Speaker 1: text questions, but audio questions are few and far between
32:18
Speaker 1: for some reason, but who knows. Get him into us.
32:22
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. We love all these voices,
32:26
Speaker 1: all the different people from around the world. It's fantastic
32:29
Speaker 1: and thank you Fred, as always, it's been a great pleasure.
32:34
Speaker 3: It has, indeed, and good to talk to you this
32:36
Speaker 3: week and hopefully we'll do it again next week.
32:39
Speaker 1: Yes indeed, and I'll get back to you on that
32:41
Speaker 1: free reel to real tape record. Fred Nudge Nudge Wing
32:46
Speaker 1: Wing professor Fred Watson, astronomer at large part of the
32:50
Speaker 1: team here on the space and that's podcast And thanks
32:53
Speaker 1: to h you in the studio who couldn't be with
32:56
Speaker 1: us today. Is a bit slow. He's an old treno
32:59
Speaker 1: and you can't even get through a door. And from
33:04
Speaker 1: me Andrew Duncley, thanks for your company. We'll see see
33:08
Speaker 1: you on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.
33:12
Speaker 1: You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You
33:23
Speaker 1: can also stream on demand at FTEs dot com. This
33:26
Speaker 1: has been another quality podcast production from Sites dot com.