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Cosmic Questions: Black Holes, Space-Time & Interstellar Adventures · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another fun episode, a Q
0:02
and A episode of space nuts.
0:05
Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
0:08
10, 9. Ignition
0:11
sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3.
0:14
2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
0:17
3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
0:20
report. It feels good.
0:22
Heidi Campo: I'm your host, Heidi Campo, filling in for
0:24
Andrew Dunkley. And joining us is Professor
0:27
Fred Watson, astronomer at large.
0:30
How are you doing, Fred? That was quite the
0:31
smart, uh, little adjustment of your glasses.
0:34
It made you look even more smart.
0:37
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, thank. Thank
0:40
you, Heidi. You can come again. Um,
0:43
Luke, um, it's great to see you again and,
0:46
uh, all going well here and lots, um,
0:49
of exciting space stuff always to talk about,
0:52
especially with the questions that we get
0:54
from our listeners, which are always
0:55
intriguing and often very
0:58
insightful.
1:00
Heidi Campo: Yeah.
1:00
And so we do have. We have four questions
1:02
today. Um, you know, two.
1:05
Two audio questions, two
1:07
written questions. Um, but we do want to say
1:10
if you did not hear our announcement on the
1:12
last episode, uh, we'll make that an episode
1:15
and make that announcement again. We just
1:16
want to say thank you to our listeners. We
1:19
were declared, I guess you could say, the
1:22
seventh, uh, top 20, top
1:25
seven, uh, astronomy podcasts,
1:28
wherever you listen to your podcast. So thank
1:30
you so much. Fred, do you have anything you
1:33
want to add to that?
1:34
Professor Fred Watson: Only, um, uh, only that
1:37
it's amazing how many people do
1:40
listen to our podcasts. Um, I was in a
1:43
medical waiting room on Monday, and a
1:46
gentleman, I think his name was Stephen, came
1:48
up and said, really enjoy the podcast.
1:51
So, uh, it's quite nice.
1:53
Heidi Campo: You're, like, at poverty.
1:55
Professor Fred Watson: Well, you must be, too. I bet you find
1:57
people, uh, and if you don't now, you will.
2:00
You will do. Eventually, people who come up
2:02
to you and say, yeah, I know your face, or, I
2:05
know your. I know your voice.
2:07
Heidi Campo: Well, I think I have to leave my house for
2:09
that to happen. I. I'm. I'm too
2:12
busy. I'm at the lab or I'm at home, so
2:15
you don't see me in public unless you see me
2:17
at the grocery store.
2:20
Professor Fred Watson: There you go. That could be where it happens.
2:22
You never know. So anyway, yeah,
2:25
it's. Look, it's great to have that,
2:27
um, seventh ranking in, uh, the
2:30
world's top 50 astronomy
2:33
podcasts. I'm thrilled to hear it.
2:36
Heidi Campo: Well, I guess that makes our, uh, regular,
2:39
um, people who write in their questions
2:41
famous too, then, because we do have some
2:43
regulars, a few of them today.
2:46
Um, our first question today is from Mark
2:49
Painter, and Mark has another
2:52
black hole question. And then he has this
2:54
funny emoji, uh, next to it that he, he
2:57
made with text. It's not like a regular
2:59
emoji. He did that with like special
3:01
characters. Very clever. All right, so we
3:04
have another, we have another black hole
3:06
question from Mark. And Mark asks, as a
3:08
singularity is formed with infinite mass,
3:11
there must be a process of reduction,
3:13
starting with electron degenerate matter,
3:16
then collapsing to a neutron star. Then there
3:19
is a quark, quark matter in
3:22
massive neutron stars, where quarks are no
3:24
longer confined to protons and
3:26
neutrons. So my question is this. Can there
3:29
be more stages of matter reduction to go
3:32
through before a singularity or a Planck star
3:35
is formed? That is, can
3:38
quarks be composed of smaller units of
3:41
matter and then these units break down
3:43
to, to their constitutes
3:46
and so on? Could there be many forms of
3:49
matter we are yet to theorize
3:52
and at some time possibly
3:54
discover? Could it be elephants all
3:57
the way down?
4:01
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, uh, oh, turtles all the way down. I
4:04
think that was the other way of looking at
4:06
the universe. Um, so it's a great
4:09
question. Um, you know, if you think of. So
4:12
we envisage the process of a black
4:14
hole forming after a supernova explosion.
4:17
You've got the uh, star which
4:20
has run out of hydrogen fuel. Uh,
4:23
this is one way of black hole formation.
4:25
There's others. Uh, but anyway, it uh, runs
4:28
out of hydrogen fuel, so there's no longer
4:30
the outward radiation pressure to support the
4:33
mass of the star, and it collapses. Uh, and
4:35
if there's enough material there, the
4:38
collapse doesn't just stop with
4:41
uh, as, as Mark points out, electron
4:44
degenerate matter. That's what we call a
4:46
white dwarf star. Uh, or it doesn't
4:49
stop with that, and it doesn't stop with
4:51
neutron degenerate matter, which is what we
4:53
call a neutron star. It just collapses down
4:56
basically to uh, to, to a
4:59
singularity, to this point of infinite
5:01
density. Um, and it's not
5:04
infinite mass, as Mark said, it's
5:06
infinite density. But, um, that's not the
5:09
point. The point is, um, you know, is there,
5:12
uh, as you get to that
5:14
singularity, are there
5:17
other constituents of matter
5:20
that the collapse goes through? And
5:23
my understanding of this is that the answer
5:26
is no. Uh, we understand
5:29
the very well from particle physics
5:32
what the, the most fundamental
5:35
particles of matter are. Uh,
5:39
uh, and it's what we call the standard model.
5:41
There are 16 of them, plus something called
5:43
the Higgs boson, which gives all, all the
5:45
others their mass. Um,
5:48
um, and ah, that these as far
5:51
as we know, are ah, indivisible.
5:53
They are not able to fall
5:56
into, into Pieces. They are,
6:00
they are the ultimate, you know, the
6:02
ultimate building blocks of matter.
6:05
Um, there are six quarks, the up, down,
6:08
charm, strange top and bottom quarks.
6:12
Uh, that's the, you know, the,
6:14
the, the, the quark component. So quarks
6:17
themselves are, ah, have, have different
6:19
varieties. Um, there are six
6:22
leptons. The electron muon, tau,
6:25
electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau
6:28
neutrino. And then the four fundamental
6:30
forces of nature. What are called the gauge
6:32
bosons, the gluon which
6:35
uh, operates the strong atomic force,
6:38
the photon, which we know is all about
6:40
electromagnetic radiation, and the Z and W
6:43
bosons, which uh, uh, dictate the weak
6:45
nuclear force. So those are what, what
6:49
everything is made of. And
6:51
uh, the idea of separating them
6:54
into smaller particles I think is
6:57
uh, something that uh, the particle
7:00
physicists rule out. They're telling us that
7:02
that's the way it goes. And so yes, as
7:05
the collapse takes place, um, these are
7:07
probably the last things to you know, not
7:10
to come into existence but to disappear, uh,
7:13
down the singularity, if I can put it that
7:15
way. But it's a great question, uh, Mark, and
7:18
got me thinking about particle physics once
7:20
again.
7:21
Heidi Campo: Excellent.
7:23
Well it looks like our next question is from
7:26
one of those uh, famous regular
7:28
listeners and it is a audio question,
7:31
so we are going to play that for you now. You
7:33
guys can all listen to Buddy from Oregon's
7:36
question and Fred and I are going to listen
7:38
to that right now. I'm just letting Fred get
7:40
that queued up. All right everyone, we're
7:42
going to play Buddy's question for you now.
7:44
Buddy: This is Buddy from Ontario, Oregon again.
7:47
Hey, I was listening to your latest episode
7:50
and uh, where you m announced that
7:53
there's a third object from outside our solar
7:55
system passing through a comet I guess. And I
7:58
know you said there was no point before in
8:01
uh, trying to catch these objects because
8:03
if you get that fast, you can sense something
8:06
or that object in any direction. What if you
8:08
were to just land like a spin launch on,
8:11
on one of those objects with a few
8:13
satellites. That way anytime it happen to get
8:16
close enough to, to uh, something
8:18
interesting, we could launch it with a spin
8:20
launch and possibly maybe use that spin
8:22
launch to counteract the speed that you're
8:24
going at so that you could just kind of
8:26
gently place a object in,
8:29
in orbit around something. Seems like we
8:32
should have eyes in any, every direction we
8:34
can send one. But ah, anyways, what do you
8:36
guys think? Thanks guys. Love this podcast.
8:39
Professor Fred Watson: Um, intriguing stuff from Buddy as always.
8:44
Um, so just uh, Filling
8:47
in a few gaps in that SpinLaunch is indeed a
8:50
technique for launching
8:53
space vehicles. Uh, it's
8:56
a company, I think they're called SpinLaunch,
8:59
uh, and they've built this gigantic device
9:02
that spins things up to a high level of
9:05
rotation and that lets them go. Um,
9:08
my understanding, although they've got um, I
9:11
know there's an announcement recently they've
9:13
got a large contract uh, for
9:16
some possible uh, space vehicles. I don't
9:19
think they've yet achieved um, a sufficient
9:23
velocity as ah, you release it from the spin
9:26
to get into orbit. That needs to go up to
9:28
8km per second and I think they're much
9:31
less than that. So um, M from Earth.
9:34
Ah, that's not really a viable way
9:37
of doing what Buddy's talking about, which is
9:39
chasing after an interstellar object.
9:42
Um, if you had one of these machines
9:45
on board a spacecraft already, that
9:48
might be a viable way of doing it because you
9:50
only need to give it a smaller impulse. But
9:53
you can still do that chemically. You can
9:55
actually, you've got much more control over
9:57
uh, what you're doing with chemical rockets.
9:59
And the problem is, uh, as Buddy
10:02
highlights the objects
10:05
like these various,
10:07
um, the three interstellar, um,
10:10
objects that have passed through the solar
10:12
system, Oumuamua, uh,
10:15
Borisov, Comet Borisov, and the Current 1,
10:17
uh, 3i Atlas, which is showing all the signs
10:20
of being a comet. Um,
10:23
that one's passing through the solar system
10:25
at the moment. The problem is they're moving
10:26
so fast. Um, uh, Atlas is
10:29
moving at 60 ah, kilometers per second.
10:32
It's a huge speed,
10:36
bigger um, than anything that we've ever
10:38
launched into space before, so we'd never
10:41
chase it. Um, and
10:44
this is the problem from our vantage point on
10:46
uh, Earth. The idea is that one of these
10:48
things comes in, you mount a space mission to
10:51
go and rendezvous with it and check it out,
10:53
which would be wonderful. But exactly as
10:55
Buzzy says, you need eyes in all directions
10:58
and more especially you need spacecra that
11:00
are probably already out there, uh, just
11:03
waiting to be deployed in particular
11:06
directions. Now there's an interesting
11:08
footnote though to this story because, um,
11:11
within the last week we've had a
11:13
proposal from our good
11:16
friend Avi Loeb of the Harvard
11:19
Smithsonian, uh, Center for Astrophysics.
11:22
He has made the suggestion that
11:25
uh, because uh, the ATLAS
11:28
comet, uh, currently going through the solar
11:31
system from some other solar system, it's
11:34
probably older than our solar system because
11:36
that passes relatively close to Jupiter. And
11:39
I think it's either next year or the year
11:41
after I Think it's probably next year,
11:43
um, you could deploy
11:46
a uh, spacecraft already in orbit around
11:49
Jupiter. Uh, and he's thinking of the Juno
11:51
spacecraft which is uh, already uh,
11:54
orbiting Jupiter and telling us a lot about
11:56
that planet. Um, you could change its
11:59
orbit. It's in a very, uh, already in a
12:01
highly elliptical or elongated
12:04
orbit. Uh, uh, Loeb and his
12:07
colleagues suggest that you could change that
12:08
orbit, uh, make it
12:11
elongated enough that you actually
12:15
get uh, a closer look at uh, Comet
12:17
3I Atlas as it passes by Jupiter.
12:20
And that will be fabulous because it would be
12:23
a way of getting up close and personal
12:26
uh, with an interstellar object that might
12:28
tell us a lot more about them, uh, about it
12:31
than we, we know already. So um,
12:34
so I think this is an exciting area that
12:37
Buddy's highlighted. Uh, the idea of
12:39
rendezvousing with uh, extraterrestrial
12:42
or extrasolar, um,
12:44
uh, extra
12:46
extrasolar asteroids or comets,
12:50
rendezvousing them with them, uh, with
12:52
whatever we have at our disposal. And if
12:54
we've got Juno at our disposal already
12:57
hanging around in the vicinity of Jupiter,
13:00
maybe it will be a good thing to do to bring
13:02
the mission to an end by rendezvousing with
13:05
Comet 3i Atlas. So I like that
13:08
question.
13:08
Heidi Campo: A lot of tongue twisters in this field.
13:12
Professor Fred Watson: It's true.
13:15
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15:02
Generic: Roger in your labs right here.
15:03
Professor Fred Watson: Also space nuts.
15:05
Heidi Campo: Our next question starts, uh, off with a
15:07
tongue twister. This is Lawrence from London
15:10
says hi agents Lawrence from London. Lawrence
15:13
from London here. I will jump straight to the
15:16
point. Has there ever been any sort of
15:18
proposal of space time being a super
15:21
fluid? And if so, how did that play out?
15:24
One of my biggest grievances are those space
15:27
time diagrams that show a single plane with
15:30
the planet on top causing curvature
15:32
on said plane. For me it feels like
15:35
it skews the four dimensional reality that
15:38
truly exists as there is not just a single
15:41
plane for everything to rest on. If we could
15:44
find ways to visualize this more accurately,
15:46
I feel like we would appeal to the
15:49
fluid more often to describe the behavior
15:52
of space time as it would allow for these
15:55
extra dimensions rather than the typical two
15:57
dimensional spacetime diagrams. As for
16:00
time, perhaps it could be understood
16:03
to be the flow rate of the superfluid.
16:06
As for the elasticity and the structural
16:08
integrity we see of space time, maybe
16:11
quantized vortices. As for
16:14
gravity, I have no idea. It is a good thing
16:17
that I can ask this question to an
16:19
astrophysicist. Many thanks gents. Looking
16:22
forward to hearing your response.
16:25
I'm interested too. That was quite an
16:27
interesting, um, visual.
16:31
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. And his point's well
16:34
made. Um, thanks. Thanks Lawrence for this.
16:36
Your point's well made that we have no way of
16:39
depicting space time being distorted by
16:42
matter, which is what happens other than,
16:45
you know, this picture that we all are
16:47
familiar with of a planet sitting on a
16:49
trampoline, uh, with the
16:52
trampoline map being distorted by the, by the
16:54
gravity of the planet. That's because we have
16:56
to reduce it to two dimensions. It's because,
16:58
because it's the only way we can really
17:00
envisage it. But
17:02
um, the notion underlying
17:06
uh, Lawrence's question is
17:09
that, uh, he's sort of in a
17:11
sense ahead of the game. And that is because,
17:14
well, uh, he talks about superfluids. A
17:17
superfluid is a fluid with zero
17:19
viscosity and that is what
17:22
spacetime is. Uh, it is already
17:25
effectively a superfluid. Uh, our
17:28
Understanding of space time comes from
17:31
general relativity, Einstein's general theory
17:34
of relativity. And he was,
17:37
he understood the idea that
17:40
matter would distort
17:43
space, uh,
17:46
because he was basically trying to understand
17:48
gravity. Uh, and he
17:53
basically what he did was propose that
17:55
gravity, so that gravity was the way he was
17:58
approaching this. Gravity is the same as
18:01
acceleration. Um, so if
18:04
you were in a spacecraft, uh, with
18:06
no windows, uh, and
18:09
somebody lit the fuse and put the
18:12
rocket underneath the spacecraft and sent it
18:14
accelerating on its way from within that
18:17
spacecraft, you would not know whether you're
18:19
feeling the effect of the acceleration or the
18:22
pull of gravity. They are indistinguishable.
18:24
It's something that technically is
18:27
known by the equivalence principle, which
18:30
holds up incredibly strongly.
18:33
So what you're saying is gravity and
18:35
acceleration are effectively the same thing.
18:37
That allowed Einstein to build a
18:40
geometrical model of how gravity works.
18:42
And that's what led to our
18:45
understanding of space time. Something that
18:47
is distorted by the presence of matter.
18:50
Uh, it's got a uh,
18:52
gobbledygook description, the
18:55
mathematical uh, description
18:58
or the mathematical structure if you
19:01
like, that we see a
19:03
space time, um, it is based
19:06
on geometry developed by
19:09
a uh, German mathematician who's can't
19:12
remember his first name. His second name was
19:13
Riemann. Riemann in the
19:16
1850s proposed the idea
19:19
of spaces that could be
19:21
distorted by things within them.
19:25
And that turns out that that's exactly what
19:27
space time is. Uh, in the
19:30
relativistic view it's something a
19:33
mathematical construct that we call a
19:35
Riemannian manifold. And it is a
19:38
superfluid. It basically behaves just like a
19:40
superfluid. Uh, and uh, you
19:43
know, the quantized vortices that Lawrence
19:46
mentions, that puts a different slant
19:49
on it because you're suddenly into
19:51
um, uh, um, quantum ah,
19:55
theory, uh, rather than
19:58
relativity theory. So we'll just leave that
20:00
to one side. But as far as relativity is
20:03
concerned, space is a superfluid. And the way
20:06
gravity emerges. Lawrence says, as for
20:08
gravity, I have no idea. It's a good thing I
20:10
can ask this question to an astrophysicist.
20:12
Well, I'm glad you did. Uh, because grav,
20:14
gravity is the acceleration. It's the
20:16
distortion of space causing
20:19
us to feel an acceleration which we see as
20:22
gravity. I hope that answers Lawrence's
20:25
question.
20:27
Heidi Campo: That was fantastic.
20:31
Generic: Three, two, one.
20:34
Heidi Campo: Space nuts.
20:35
Our very last question of this episode
20:38
is from Dan,
20:41
um, on the Gold coast. And this is also an
20:44
audio question. So I'm going to give Fred
20:46
just a second to cue that up and we are going
20:49
to play that for you now.
20:50
Martin Berman Gorvine: Hey, guys. Dan here from the Gold Coast.
20:53
Quick, um, question. Thought it might be a
20:54
bit different for you. Got a friend who a
20:57
couple of years ago we were discussing space
21:00
exploration, that kind of stuff, and his view
21:02
was that he'd understand why the human race
21:05
puts, uh, time into exploring space
21:08
when we still don't quite understand Earth.
21:11
And I couldn't, you know, I couldn't put into
21:13
words myself why it's so important, which I
21:16
understand it is. I was hoping you could put
21:19
into your own words why is it so important
21:22
that we also put time into, uh,
21:25
exploring space? Thanks for that. Um,
21:27
also, Heidi, with your sci fi brain,
21:30
I'm wondering, have you read Project Hail
21:32
Mary? Do you love it like I do? And are you
21:35
excited for the movie? All right, cheers.
21:38
Bye.
21:39
Heidi Campo: Oh my goodness. I'm so excited that you
21:42
brought up Project Hail Mary. Um, that is
21:45
next on my list. Um, it
21:47
is next on my list. I have read other books
21:49
from that author and I'm very excited to
21:52
read it, but I have not yet. Um, and I
21:55
feel a little bit like a hypocrite because
21:58
I pride myself on often reading the
22:01
books before the movies. But now I feel like
22:03
a hipster because I'm reading it before the
22:05
movie comes out.
22:09
Professor Fred Watson: That's good. No, that's. You're ahead of the
22:11
game, Heidi. That's the great thing. Um, when
22:14
you've read it, I'd love to hear what it's
22:16
about.
22:18
Heidi Campo: Facebook.
22:20
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Yep, sounds great.
22:24
Very quickly, uh, why do we
22:27
explore space? Why explore the universe, uh,
22:30
when there's so much on Earth that's left to
22:33
understand? Uh, and I guess we. One way
22:36
of. There's many, many, many reasons why. And
22:39
it's principally governments that support the
22:41
exploration of space, certainly by
22:44
astronomers, and um, to some extent the
22:47
exploration of space by space probes as well.
22:49
Although there's a, certainly, uh, a
22:52
commercial sector moving into that, uh,
22:54
trying to send spacecraft to the moon and
22:56
things of that sort. But why do we do it? Um,
22:58
well, we wouldn't be able to understand Earth
23:00
fully if we didn't know about space.
23:03
Um, so, uh, the two are
23:06
really part and parcel of the same thing.
23:08
It's trying to understand our environment on
23:11
the biggest possible scale.
23:13
Uh, and you know, uh, if you
23:16
didn't, um, understand how planets form,
23:20
then it wouldn't really tell you, um, how the
23:23
Earth has formed. Uh, and that's an important
23:25
part of the Earth's history. So that's.
23:29
And of course the other thing is that we as a
23:31
species are curious we want to know about
23:34
our environment in space, we want to know
23:35
about the origin of space, we want to know
23:37
about where everything came from. It's
23:39
fundamental science that may not have an
23:42
immediate commercial benefit, but it
23:45
tells us about ourselves, uh,
23:48
and um,
23:51
satisfies our uh, curiosity,
23:54
our yearning to understand uh,
23:57
the scale of space and
24:00
how it all works. That's the, I
24:03
guess the fundamental reason for doing it.
24:05
But there are many other reasons.
24:08
One uh, reason why governments invest in
24:11
space and astronomy is to
24:13
inspire upcoming generations
24:16
because we know that there's nothing like
24:19
black holes or killer asteroids or whatever
24:22
for getting kids switched on to science.
24:25
And it's a great way. Even if they don't
24:27
become astronomers or space scientists, they
24:30
at least understand the scientific methods.
24:32
They understand the evidence based method
24:34
that is fundamental to all signs. Um, and
24:37
so that's another reason we've got of course
24:40
spin offs, we've got all kinds of uh,
24:43
things. There are three different things
24:46
inside this mobile phone that I'm holding up
24:48
for those of you who don't have, don't have
24:51
YouTube Music version of this podcast. Uh,
24:54
three things of that that came from astronomy
24:57
and understanding physics. Uh, you know
25:00
the GPS system relies on general
25:02
relativity which was test by
25:04
astronomical observations. The camera in it
25:07
was essentially um,
25:10
uh, evolved from cameras that were
25:13
developed from uh,
25:15
astronomical cameras that we were bringing
25:18
to fruition in the 1980s. These
25:21
silicon devices that let us see very faint
25:24
light levels and WI fi, the WI fi, uh,
25:27
that um, lets us use our phones actually
25:29
started off in the head of an astrophysicist
25:32
working in radio astronomy. How do you send
25:35
signals backwards and forwards in your
25:37
laboratories? And he was an Australian. Well
25:39
he still is. His name is John o' Sullivan and
25:41
I've had a number of
25:44
pleasant chats with him over the years. Uh,
25:47
very well known astrophysicist. So um,
25:49
lots of reasons why we do space, uh,
25:52
not just because we are curious
25:55
about it, but that's the main
25:58
underlying reason.
26:01
Heidi Campo: Fred, what got you interested in space?
26:04
Why did you choose this as a career?
26:06
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, look, in
26:09
a sense, um, I'm a product of exactly what
26:12
I've just been talking about. Um,
26:15
ah, although things were a little bit
26:17
different when I was a youngster because I
26:20
was at school in the late 1950s, early 1960s
26:23
at the dawn of the space age. Uh, so
26:26
it was in our faces all the time. Uh,
26:28
and plus the fact that there had
26:31
recently been a world war and a lot of people
26:34
thought there was going to be another one
26:35
which will be fought on the grounds of
26:37
Science. So science was
26:39
absolutely hammered into us. Um, the school
26:42
I was at had four streams.
26:45
Uh, three of them were science streams, one
26:47
was an art stream. And that is not the case
26:50
now. Um, so, um, in a sense
26:53
I was a product of my time. But
26:56
I was inspired, um, by,
26:59
uh, in fact, an astronomer who. I was only
27:02
thinking about him this morning. Sadly now no
27:04
longer with us, a gentleman by the name of
27:06
Patrick Moore, who, uh, was
27:10
the most famous astronomer in Britain for
27:13
40, maybe even 50 years. He
27:16
had a TV program which, uh, started in
27:18
1957. It's still running. He's not in
27:21
Britain. Does it anymore. Uh, the sky at
27:23
night. So the sky at night was one of the
27:26
things that inspired me and got me interested
27:28
in space. And I never really grew up. I
27:31
just, um, carried on being interested and
27:33
have been all my life. So.
27:35
Heidi Campo: So I love that. That's a really fun story.
27:40
Professor Fred Watson: Yes. You know, I, I just
27:43
feel very fortunate to have had
27:45
a job throughout my life that I probably
27:48
would have done even if they hadn't paid me
27:51
for it because it was my passion.
27:54
Not sure how I would have lived had that been
27:56
the case. But anyway.
27:57
Heidi Campo: That's wonderful.
27:58
Professor Fred Watson: It's been great.
27:59
Heidi Campo: Well, on, um, that positive note, um, keep,
28:02
keep dreaming, everyone. Keep looking at the
28:04
stars and keep sending us your questions.
28:07
Especially if you're one of our female
28:09
listeners. I have been here all summer and we
28:11
have not gotten one question from the ladies.
28:13
So if you're a female listener and you
28:16
have been wondering if your question's good
28:19
enough. It's good enough. Just send it in.
28:21
We, um, love our fellas, but if there are, I
28:24
mean, we've got to have female listeners.
28:26
This can't be 100% guys who are interested in
28:28
space. Uh, so send in your questions. We
28:31
want to hear from you. Fred, do you have any
28:34
closing remarks?
28:35
Professor Fred Watson: No, just to, to say, uh, absolutely, I agree
28:38
with that. We do know we've, we've got some
28:40
female listeners. We've occasionally had
28:42
questions in the past. We have, uh,
28:45
one, uh, person who is a pilot.
28:48
She flies across the Atlantic and looks at
28:50
the stars and sends us notes, uh, about what
28:53
she see.
28:53
Heidi Campo: That's such a beautiful picture.
28:56
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, isn't it great? And so, uh, yeah, I
28:59
agree we should shout out to our female space
29:02
nuts listeners. Get your questions in. We'd
29:04
love to hear from you all.
29:06
Heidi Campo: Ah, righty then. Well, you heard it from the
29:08
man himself. Um, and you probably only
29:11
maybe, maybe only a few more weeks with me.
29:13
So send in your questions. Um, if you have
29:15
any sci fi related questions about favorite
29:18
sci fi books and whatnot. Because Andrew is
29:21
going to be back soon. We're not quite sure
29:23
when, but we've got a few more weeks left of
29:26
me, and then, um, Andrew will be back as your
29:28
host. But till then, you're stuck with me and
29:31
I thank you all for listening. Till next
29:33
time. See you later.
29:36
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29:38
podcast, available
29:41
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29:46
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