Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Stellar Questions: Gravitational Waves, Time Travel & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Transcript

Stellar Questions: Gravitational Waves, Time Travel & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another fun and exciting Q and A
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: episode of Space Nuts Perfecting.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Channel ten nine Ignition sik.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Wench Space Nuts Yo three two one Space Nuts.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: As I reported, good, I'm.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Your host for this episode, Heidi Compo and joining us
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: is Professor Fred Watson. Watson, I don't know why I've
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: done that twice now, mispronounced your name Astronomer at Large, Fred,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: how are you well?
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: Thank you don't don't really care how the name's pronounced.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: It's Fred's pretty straightforward.
• 0:43
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: When I go to Scandinavia, I've probably said this before, Heidi,
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: there are freds. I see Fred everywhere because it's the
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Scandinavian word meaning peace, and so fred Gutten is a
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: peace street, and I've got lots of photographs standing underneath
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: peace streets because they're called Fred.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: That's lovely. I love that. I guess my name is
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a German name is short for Adehyde and it means noble.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: Here you go, So mind's German as well. It's from Freed,
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: same same word. Yeah.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Well, our first question from today is from Peter wondering
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: if I don't think I know the history of that one.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: I think it's'rean, it's very old. It goes back to
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: biblical times.
• 1:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the rock, Peter is the rock Petra.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: That's what it means, is the rock.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I love that. Let's see if let's see if we
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: can figure out the etymology of all the names today.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: I think we've we've probably run out now.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: All right, So yeah, our first question is from Peter,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and he says high Space Nuts. Queen's great nineteen seventy
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: five album A Night at the Opera has a song
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: called thirty nine, written by astrophysicist Brian May. Of course,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: in the song, the a band interpret band of intrepid
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: volunteers leave Earth in a spaceship to find another planet
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: for human habitation. They leave in the year thirty nine,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: we don't know what century, and their trip takes one year.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: They must have had a good warp drive because when
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: they return it is the year thirty nine in the
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: next century, so they have been away for one hundred
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: years in Earth time. The protagonist of the song laments
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: his remaining life, with his wife and children dead and
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: just his great granddaughter remaining now a very old lady.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: My question is these my questions are these approximately? How
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: far out into the galaxy might they have gone in
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: that time and what would their average speed have been?
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: At first I thought that they only traveled for a year,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and the near star is more than year four light
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: years away, so it is a wasted trip. But then
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: they were away from the Earth for one hundred years.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe they checked out many stars with planetary systems. Now
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I'm just confused, that's our question from Peter.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: Well, so it turns out that it's reasonably easy to
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: do the calculation that Peter's interested in, because what he's
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: talking about is something we call time dilation. It comes
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: from in this case, it comes from Aindistein's special theory
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: of relativity that covers the effects of things that are
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: moving close to the speed of light. And so you've
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: got to be moving close to the speed of light
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: to experience this. So what we've got here is a
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: fraction of one hundred. It's been a year on Earth.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: Sorry it's been a year for the travelers, but it's
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: been one hundred years on Earth. So that means that
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: the time dilation effect is one hundred. It's one hundred times. Now,
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: there's a formula for time dilation which is reasonably simple.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: I'll just quote it's in silent in relativity one hundred
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: years ago. The time dilation is and it's a fraction.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: It's one over the square root of one minus V
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: squared over C squared via is the velocity that you're
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: traveling at, and see is the velocity of light. So
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: it's a relatively straightforward formula. And so yesterday what I
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: did was I put the numbers into it to work
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: out what speed they would have to travel for that
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: ratio of one hundred years on Earth to one year
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: on the spacecraft. And it turns out to me, here's
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: my calculation.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: The probably yeah, spread back before everyone outsourced their brains
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: to chat GPT. That is a handwritten math everybody.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: And the bottom line you probably can't see it. They
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: would have to travel at ninety nine point five percent
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: of the speed of light. So ninety nine point nine
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: nine five percent of the speed of light. If you
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: travel for a year, then on Earth you've got one
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: hundred years elapsed. Now that probably means that they they
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: went out for fifty light years and then came back again,
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: so they could have visited many stellar systems in that time,
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: although they wouldn't have seen much of it going past
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: them at nineteen nine point nine ninety five percent of
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: the speed of light. So yeah, that's the answer. Check
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: it out. You can look up time dilation on the
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: web and you'll find all the formulae there. And that's easy.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: You know, it's a relatively easy question to answer. So Peter,
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: thank you for getting my brain working on these questions again,
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: because I appreciate that, and I've always so it was
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: a good thing to have at the back of your mind,
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: the relativistic time dilation travel near the speed of light,
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: just in case you ever find your off doing that.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Fred I am tickled at the amount of times you
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: said easy and time dilation equation in that answer. I
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: think you use the word this is easy or the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: phrase this is easy at least two or maybe three times.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So that's just I don't know if I need to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: work on my bath skills or if you're just that brilliant.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: But that was that's adorable, it's not.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: It's a lot easier than some of the ones I
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: used to stumble over back when I was This must
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: not go beyond these four walls, Heidi. But there's a
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: mass exam at university that I failed five times. It
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: took me six attempts to pass it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. So there's hope for the rest of us.
• 6:43
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, Gosha still shudder at that. It was the wrong
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: kind of mathematics. You had to do it. It was
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: pure mathematics, and my brain just didn't work that way.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mine does not either.
• 7:00
  Speaker 6: What space nuts.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Well, our next question is from Trent, and this is
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: an audio question that we're going to queue up and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: we're going to play for you right now.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Hello, Heidi, and for sir Watson. My name is Trent.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: I'm from North Georgia, USA, and I had a question
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: in reference to Ben's question from Northwestern University in episode
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: five point thirty. I was wondering how an observatory could
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: view something that's already happened, for example, and his question
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: he asked about an observatory turning to look at a
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: source of gravitational wave, and I was thinking, so, gravitational
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: waves move it to speed of light, and the light
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: from that source is also moving at the speeded light.
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: After the gravitational waveservatory has already observed.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: The phenomenon, how can a radio observatory or a light
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: observatory observe the same phenomena since.
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: The other waves would have already passed us. So hope
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: this question piqued your interest. I would love to hear
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: the answer and you'll have a wonderful time. I love
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: your show, never miss an episode. Y'all are fantastic.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Bye bye, that was sweet. Thank you so much, Trent.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: That that was wonderful.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: So Trens questions is a great one and his points
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: is absolutely well made. You know that if you've got
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: a phenomenon that causes gravitational waves and also beams out lies,
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: then the two travel at the same speed. So how
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: can a detection in gravitational waves then be used to
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: you know, somebody phones up in observatory and says, oh,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: we've seen these gravitational waves. Can you point your telescope
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: in this direction? What you're going to see the I
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: guess Trend's hypothesis is that it will be nothing. But
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: it's not quite that straightforward because often the counterpart of
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: an event seen in one way, for example by gravitational waves,
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: the counterpart in the visible light spectrum for example, or
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: the radio spectrum. Whilst the radiation travels at the same speed,
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: there are sometimes delays because you've got different mechanisms that
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: give rise to that signal with what you might call
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: the follow up radiation, I'm thinking mostly Perhaps the best
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: example of this is in what we call gamma ray bursts,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: which were discovered back in the seventies by spacecraft which
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: were put into orbit to look for people breaking atmosphere
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: nuclear test bands. The idea was to detect gamma rays
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: from illicit nuclear test bands that might be going on
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: on the Earth's surface in the atmosphere because they were banned,
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: but people wanted to police that until these spacecraft were
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: developed and put into orbit and they didn't find any
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: illicit nuclear tests. What they found was these phenomena in
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: deep space we call gamma ray bursts, which are caused
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: we think by cataclysmic events in principally in distant galaxies. Now,
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: what you really want to find as well as the
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: gamma rays is whether there's another you know, another frequency
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: or something that's carrying information. And so it was what
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: we call the opt counterparts of those bursts that people
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: were looking for, and by that I mean the visible
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: light flash. And to do that you would want to
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: first of all detect the gamma ray burst and then
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: alert visible light telescopes to the direction that that had
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: come from so that they could home in on the
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: target as quickly as possible after the event to try
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: and work out what these things were, because if you've
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: got information from gamma rays and information from visible light,
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: then you've got a chance of working it out. And
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: indeed that's the case because the visible light flash is
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: it's usually caused by whatever caused the gamma rays interacting
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: with the environment that's around it, and that means rarefied
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: gas usually, and it's the effect of that rarefied gas,
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: perhaps by a shockwave moving through it, that gives you
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: the visible light flash, and that's going to be after
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: the original gamma ray burst.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Self.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Gammay bus last a few seconds. They're sort of second long,
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: a bit different from the millisecond fast radio bus that
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: we also see. So all these phenomena have different counterparts,
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: different components to them, and you're not trying to see
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: back in time when you're following up the you know,
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: the target of opportunity observations, which is what we're talking
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: about previously. You're actually just looking at a different aspect
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: of whatever that cataclysmic event has been I don't know
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: whether that's a satisfactory explanation, but that's what's happening. So
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: you chase it up as quickly as you can to
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: try and learn as much as you can.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Trent. Our next question is from Chris,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and Chris says, thank you for the podcast, folks. Good stuff. Indeed,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: on Earth, living organisms can sense a small part of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the EM spectrum from infrared through visible light up to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the ultraviolet, but as far as we know, no organism
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: can detect lower or higher frequencies such as radio or
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: X rays on Earth. This could be because such senses
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: don't convey usefulness, but elsewhere it could. So is there
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: any limiting factor in biology, chemistry, or physics that prevents
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: organisms detecting this different this, different parts of the spectra
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: spectrum and therefore possibly communicating with each other like this?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Could extraterrestrial life use radio to communicate with each other?
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Isn't that a great question, Heidi, because yeah, it's thinking
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: outside the box, and I like that very much. You
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: might have a comment on that, actually, because science fiction
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: looks at these things quite a lot.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm such a science fiction nerd. Well, I'm
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: just thinking of our episode a few weeks ago about
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: the whale bubbles.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's right. The whale bubbles might well be
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: a way of communicating, although of course you're using visible
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: light there, and I think that's a little bit different
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: from the sort of thing that that Chris is thinking of.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: So it's not quite true that we're not sensitive to
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: some of these other electromagnetic radiations, because, for example, X
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: rays can damage tissue, and so in a sense, what
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: you've got there is a detector. It's albeit it's the
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: wrong kind of you don't You know, you don't really
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: want your tissue to be damaged, but you know that
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: is an organism being able to detect a high frequency
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: radiation such as X rays, gamma rays too. So that's
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: all what we call ionizing radiation. It's damaging radiation, and biology,
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: biological organisms can detect that, but it's usually in a
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: very destruct way. There have been many experiments done and
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: tests done to see whether the radiation emitted by mobile
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: phones has a damaging effect on people's well being, and
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: the evidence that I've read is that no, the radiation
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: levels are too low to have any kind of effect
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: but I think higher, you know, higher intensities, and I'm
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: thinking now of microwaves. Your microwave oven is cooking by
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: means of radiation that causes things to get hot, and
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: if you flood your brain with that, it's going to
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: get hot. And in fact, and it was Andrew Dunkley
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: who told me this because I didn't know the way
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: your microwave does four or five beeps at the end
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: of every every cooking session when it reaches the prescribed time.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Is not just for music, is to give your give
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: you a few seconds for the microwaves inside it to
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: settle down before you open the door. Oh, radiate yourself
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: with microwaves.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: So I always thought I was terribly clever because I
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: always would try and time it. So I opened the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: door right before the beeps go off. So I've just
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: been cooking myself with radiation.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So I think the bottom line here is
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: that it is possible to imagine that there could be
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: ways in which, you know, extraterrestrial species might be able
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: to communicate by using these different electromagnetic frequencies in a
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: way that we haven't thought of. And that's I suppose
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: one of the other things that leads us to that
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: movie that both you and I have raved about Arrival. Yeah,
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: that you know you're looking for. You've got to think
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: outside the box as to what you might how you
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: might communicate with extraterrestrial organisms and whales too. I think
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: blowing bubble rings is a great way of thinking outside
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: the books or outside the ring.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, just communication is so interesting in general. I
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: don't know the exact percentage. I want to say it's
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: somewhere in the eighties, but we'll just say for discussions sake,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: that eighty percent of our communication is nonverbal. I have
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a patient that I work with who had a TBI
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: and he can't talk, but he says so much. I
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: work as a graduate assistant research coordinator at university, and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I'm always telling all the new students who are coming
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: in and working with him. I'm like, he says a lot.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: You just have to learn to listen better because he
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: communicates with you like you wouldn't believe. We can have
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: full conversations with just the movements of his eyebrows and
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: his expressions and gestures, and it's really amazing. So I
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: like this about communication, and who knows, maybe there's some
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: rock creatures out there that their shells are thick enough
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the radio radio frequencies would be good. What was that
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: movie about the military kids that go to space? I gosh,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of an older one. I can't
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: think of the title right now. Or they're fighting the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: bugs in space?
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: Okay, okay, I so seldom watched science fiction movies that
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: I'm no use to you whatsoever.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: It was kind of a funny one, Space Nuts. Well,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I guess that brings us to our last question from Martin,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: And this one is also an audio question, so I'm
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: going to go ahead and cue up that last audio
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: question from Martin.
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: Now, Hello space Nuts, Martin Berman borvine here, writer extraordinary
• 19:00
  Speaker 7: in many genres, with a.
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: Question that I know I've tried to ask before and
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: somehow it hasn't ever quite gotten through. And it's inspired
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: again by your discussion of Titan in the latest episode
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: that I'm listening to. Is there any reason to rule
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: out the existence of moons with roughly the mass of
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: the Earth orbiting gas giants, and we know some of
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: those are quite a bit larger than Jupiter in other
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: solar systems, And if you could have an Earth mass moon,
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: is there again, and in principle, any reason to think
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: you could not have an earth like environment where life
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: could evolve. I can't wait for the answer. And thanks
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: for doing such a great job, including Heidi Compo, who
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: is marvelous when she comes in instead of Andrew. Though
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: nobody can replace our Andrew Martin Berman Gorvine over and
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: out out out.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Oh Martin, that was so sweet. We appreciate that so much.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: It is true nobody can replace Andrew. And I know
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I probably have been really not doing my job of
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the dad jokes, but I think I got my own
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: brand of the sci fi. By the way, that movie
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: was called Starship Troopers. I had to just look it
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: up because it was right. You know. It's a kind
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of a commentary on communism. But yeah, great question, Martin.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: That's let Fred take it away.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: As they always are. And yeah, thanks Martin. Thanks for
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: sticking in there with a question that we might have
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: overlooked at some time in the past. Ize I don't
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: know how we manage that, because it's a good question.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: And so I was thinking about this too, and I
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: don't think there is any reason why you shouldn't have
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: been able to have an earth sized moon or satellite
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: of a large gas giant because and in some ways
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: you'd think it will be natural to do that. We
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: see what we call super Jupiter's planets around other stars,
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: extraplanets which are bigger than Jupiter, not that much bigger,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: because if you go up to thirteen times the massive Jupiter,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: it's not a planet anymore, becomes a brown dwarf star
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: because you've got reactions that can take place, low level
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: nuclear reactions that can take place and mean that it
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: radiates in the infrared. Jupiter itself radiates in the infrared too.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: It's got these low level reactions, but it's not big
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: enough to be a brown dwarf star. But if you had,
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: you know, something, with twice the massive Jupiter, there's no
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: reason why as far as I can see. And I'm
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: not a planetary scientist per se, but I do hang
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: out with them, so I know the sort of things
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: that they think about. I don't think there's any reason
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: why you shouldn't actually manage to generate a large rocky planet, sorry,
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: a large rocky moon which was planet sized from the
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: same part of the swirling disc of gas and dust
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: from which planets have formed. Some of my colleagues might
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: correct me on that, but I don't think there is
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: a limit. And in that regard, I don't think there's
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: a limit as to whether such a planet or such
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: a moon might actually be habitable. The only thing is
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: that most of these hot most of these large jupiters
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: that we find in other solar systems, are very close
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: to their parents star. And so if you imagine, you know,
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: you've got a planet that goes around its parents star
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: in just a few days, the Moon would have to
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: go around its parent planet quicker than that, or else
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: all sorts of dynamic interactions would take place and it
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: would probably lose its moon. But then, so then you've
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: got this phenomenon where you've got something very hot whose
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: temperature is changing very rapidly as it orbits its parent planet.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: So I suspect that it might not be the kind
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: of ideal world for life to evolve because of these
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: perhaps rapid changes of temperature. Now, Martin, being a writer
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: in many genres, is usually looking for story for ideas
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: for science fiction stories, and this might be one that
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe in a year or two is time
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: we might read about species on the planet on the moon.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: The size of the Earth going around the hot Jupiter
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: somewhere deep in the Solar System with a new, new
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: and completely different kind of life form that uses radio
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: for communications. So that would would solve all our issues,
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: wouldn't it.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Well, the best writers, I think, the best science fiction
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: writers use fringe science. And I'm going to butcher his
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: last name, I always do, Michael Creighton. Oh yes, yeah,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Jurassic Perk. I always wanted to die, so I said
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: it right, Okay, Thank goodness, usually say Christian people like
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: it's Cretan.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I mean he did an amazing job of writing books
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that were just right on the fringe of possible, and
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: that's always so fun to think of.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Well, as Martin does as well, I think, Yeah, I'm
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: going to have.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: To look up some of Martin's books. It sounds like
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: they're right up my alley, and probably a lot of
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: our other listeners too.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. But a great question, Martin, and thank you,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: and I hope I've given you the right answer. I'll
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: check next time I talk to some of my planetary
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: specialists whether I've overstepped the mark.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Well, Fred, this has been so much fun. I always
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: have a great time with these Q and A episodes.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: It's so fun to hear how just so smart people
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: are asking great questions.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: Indeed they are, and they're challenging too sometimes.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, keep them coming, guys. These questions are really really fun.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: It's good when you get a mix of questions that
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: aren't just black hole questions.
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: That's right, yes, all right.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Well, this concludes today's episode, and we hope to see
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: you guys back here next time for another regular episode,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and then Q and A episodes and on and on
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: for eternity. How about that, Fred.
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: Or as long as we can do.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: It for Ah. That works too, Thank you so much, everybody.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Hi, Fred, Hi, Heidi, Hello Hugh. In the studio, Andrew
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: reporting from the Crown Princess Cruise ship. We are currently
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: rounding the Cape of Good Hope, which was also once
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: known as the Cape of Storms, and that's actually what
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: it's been like. The last time I spoke to you,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: we'd been to Mauritius. Unfortunately we could not get to
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Cape Town on the other side of Africa in time
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: because of the storms, so we just hung around Durban
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: for a while, going backwards and forwards, and then finally
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: they arranged for us to go ashore in Durban, so
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: we did that and Judy and I did a tour
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: out to the place where Nelson Mandela was captured in
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: nineteen sixty two and arrested, and they've got this fantastic
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: sculpture there of Nelson Mandela's head face. It's fifty metal
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: poles that have been put in the ground and they
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: just look like a bunch of poles sticking up out
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: of nowhere. But when you stand on a specific spot
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: you can see his face. It is quite remarkable. And
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: the museum they're telling the life and times of the apartheid,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: anti apartheid movement, starting with Mahat mcgandhi and then the
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: formation of the ANC African National Congress and ultimately the
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: leadership of Nelson Mandela and him becoming president and wiping
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: out apartheid. Fantastic place to visit if you ever get
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: a chance. Really remarkable. I was also struck by how
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: the landscape around Durban is so much like home, grasslands
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: and eucalyp trees, and it just looks so much like
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Australia with taller mountains compared to where I live in Dubbo.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: But we're just working our way around the Horn of Africa,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: due into Cape Town tomorrow morning. We spend a couple
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: of days there and we're going on a safari, so
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: we're looking forward to that. It hasn't been too bad
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: on board. The captain's taking his time so we don't
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: get caught up in heavy swells. But right now it's
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: looking very angry outside and all the decks have been closed,
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: so we're inside staying nice and cool, nice and warm.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: It's pretty cold out there and it looks like it'll
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: be raining when we get to Cape Town. But because
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: we're two days behind schedule as a consequence of the weather,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: we'll be missing out on a few ports, so we
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: won't be going to any of the stops that we'd
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: previously planned, such as the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: we're also going to miss out on Gibraltar, very sadly,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: but we're picking up ten of Reef, so we got Durban,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: we got ten of Reef, We miss those other three
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: and then yeah, we'll move on from there, hopefully get
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: to Barcelona on time because there's a big change of
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: passengers there so they can't be late for that. Otherwise
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: people will be pitching tents. It's about it. I think
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: we're having a great time, feeling relaxed, and hope all
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: is well with everybody on the Space Nuts team and
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: the audience around the wider world. If you're anywhere where
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: I'm stopping, maybe you can wave if you're close by.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: But I'll talk to you again next week.
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: Bye.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: For now, You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast.
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and all your favorite
• 29:44
  Speaker 7: podcast player.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.