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Lunar Landings, Asteroid Adventures & Andromeda Mysteries: #501 · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Andrew Dunkley: Hello again. Thanks for joining us. This is
0:02
Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley. Thanks
0:04
for joining us. Coming up on this episode, we
0:06
are going to be looking at a rather amazing
0:09
achievement involving a. An
0:12
organization who have landed on the moon. And
0:15
you're saying, yeah, it's been done. Not like
0:17
this, it hasn't. On top of that, we've got
0:20
a mission that's going past the moon that
0:23
is in a little bit of trouble as well. We'll
0:25
also focus our attention on the Andromeda
0:27
galaxy. And we've had some questions recently
0:29
about Andromeda. Well, uh, you be interested
0:32
to know that it has been
0:35
suffering from interference and it wasn't us.
0:37
It wasn't. We didn't do it. And Voyager
0:40
1 back in the news again. That's all coming
0:42
up on this episode of space nuts.
0:45
Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
0:48
10, 9. Ignition
0:51
sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
0:54
2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
0:57
3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
1:00
report it feels good.
1:01
Andrew Dunkley: And he's back in the big chair after a month
1:04
away. It's Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer
1:06
at large. Hello, Fred.
1:08
Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. Good to be back. Uh, so
1:11
the politicians always say, good to be with
1:13
you.
1:14
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, they do, don't they?
1:15
Professor Fred Watson: Good to be with you.
1:17
Andrew Dunkley: I'm sure they sit there with, um, with
1:20
consultants and committees. The right way to
1:23
say hello.
1:23
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. And the answer
1:26
is. Good to be with you.
1:27
Andrew Dunkley: Good to be with you.
1:29
Um, now, we talked on the last
1:32
episode or two, um, when you
1:34
popped in on us, um, about your trip
1:37
north. One thing I wondered
1:40
is, while you were there to look at the
1:42
aurora borealis and the like,
1:45
um, on an astronomy tour, did you actually
1:48
get to see, uh, the planetary
1:51
alignment? Or couldn't you view it from that
1:53
far north?
1:55
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, we could, but, uh,
1:59
you're right, it's a good question because
2:01
the ecliptic, which is where all the planets
2:04
lie, uh, just like the equator, the
2:06
celestial equator is very low down at the
2:09
latitudes we were at. The furthest north we
2:10
got was to north cape, which is 71 degrees
2:14
latitude. Um, a lot of the time we're in
2:16
Greenland. Iceland's a little bit further
2:19
south. It's only the top, really. The north
2:21
coast of Iceland, that's within the Arctic
2:22
Circle. But we're also, well, in the Arctic
2:25
Circle in Sweden and Norway. North Cape, of
2:27
course, is in Norway. Uh, so, yes, your view
2:30
of the sky is different. Um,
2:33
what? Always. And I remember being struck by
2:35
this in my very, very first visit
2:38
to the Arctic, which was back in 2012 when we
2:41
led our first expedition up there.
2:43
Uh, and I was struck by the fact that I
2:46
could see stars which
2:49
from our latitude in. And I'm
2:52
still thinking of the northern hemisphere
2:53
from the latitude of the United Kingdom, were
2:56
only visible in the summertime and we were
2:58
there in the middle of winter. So you can
3:00
see, um, at least two stars of something
3:02
called the summer triangle. The summer
3:04
triangle is Vega, Altair, and
3:08
the brightest star in Cygnus, which is,
3:11
um, Deneb. Deneb. Vega
3:14
and Altair. Vega and Deneb were very,
3:17
very visible, uh, in
3:20
midwinter, uh, near the north pole
3:22
because the pole of the sky
3:25
is tilted upwards so you can see things that
3:28
from kind of middle latitudes you'd only see
3:31
in summer. Uh, so what it meant was. Yes,
3:33
your question is well made. Uh, we certainly
3:36
saw Venus, Jupiter and Mars very
3:38
clearly, probably Saturn, although it was
3:41
quite near the horizon then. And I don't
3:43
think we got a glimpse of Mercury. So that
3:45
parade of planets that really, uh, occupied
3:48
the media, uh, for us in the southern
3:50
hemisphere, it was actually best back in
3:52
January.
3:52
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
3:53
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, it's, uh, it's only in the north that
3:55
it's been a hot topic within the last few
3:57
days.
3:58
Andrew Dunkley: The reason I ask is it's been in the news
4:00
again because they said that, uh, well,
4:03
the popular press is saying, oh, you know,
4:05
the big alignment first time. Yeah, last time
4:07
we'll see it in 60 years, blah, blah. Um,
4:10
Jonti has a particular problem with the way
4:13
the media.
4:13
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
4:14
Andrew Dunkley: Spews this kind of information out and,
4:17
you know, don't let the truth get in the way
4:19
of good story type of attitude.
4:20
Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
4:21
Andrew Dunkley: Um, but it was,
4:24
uh, apparently it was the whole set
4:27
at the end of February because Mercury was
4:29
part of the deal then.
4:31
Professor Fred Watson: From the Northern hemisphere.
4:32
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Well, there you go. And um,
4:35
Yeah, I was just wondering if you got a
4:37
chance to spot it.
4:38
Professor Fred Watson: But, uh, no, didn't see Mercury.
4:41
Andrew Dunkley: No, I didn't see any of it much.
4:44
Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
4:44
Andrew Dunkley: I did go out and look, but where I am in
4:46
town, it's. It's a really bad position and
4:49
I'd have to, uh, go out and find a hill and
4:51
as you know, there are not that many of them
4:53
around here.
4:54
Professor Fred Watson: No, no. You're a bit, uh, a bit low on hills
4:56
up there. You need somebody to come and build
4:58
one for you.
4:59
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah. Or just cut all the trees
5:02
down and.
5:03
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, is that too. But that's not a good idea.
5:05
Andrew Dunkley: No, not really.
5:06
Professor Fred Watson: No.
5:06
Andrew Dunkley: Okay.
5:07
All right. Uh, let's get onto Our first
5:09
official story and this one is very
5:12
exciting and again getting a lot of
5:15
press and that's been the successful landing
5:18
of the Blue Ghost Lunar
5:21
lander on the moon. Uh, this
5:23
is a lot different to what we were
5:26
witnessing in the 60s and 70s and a
5:29
few of the more recent missions because they
5:31
were um, publicly
5:34
funded and um, government gazetted and all
5:37
that jazz. This is a completely different
5:39
kettle of.
5:40
Professor Fred Watson: Fish indeed because it
5:43
is a commercial spaceflight, it's a
5:46
commercial company, uh, with the lovely name
5:48
of Firefly Aerospace. Uh, their Blue
5:51
Ghost lander is named after a rare species
5:54
of Firefly, uh, which is found in the
5:57
Appalachian area of the United States.
6:00
I uh, love the name of the mission. It's not
6:02
Apollo or Artemis or anything. It's called
6:05
Ghost Riders in the Sky.
6:07
Andrew Dunkley: I love it.
6:09
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, and we did see, uh, earlier in the week
6:12
before the spacecraft landed successfully,
6:14
which it did on uh, March 2, uh,
6:17
Eastern Standard Time, Sunday
6:20
at the weekend. The weekend just gone. Uh, we
6:23
did see some images during the week from the
6:25
navigation cameras which uh, showed the Earth
6:28
and the moon as uh, the lander flew
6:31
by. But the reason why this lander is going
6:33
to the moon or has gone to the moon is that
6:36
it's part of uh, something you and I have
6:38
Talked about, Andrew. NASA's Commercial Lunar
6:41
Payload Services program,
6:43
CLPS Commercial Commercial Lunar
6:46
Payload, uh, which basically is NASA
6:49
contracting to private companies,
6:51
uh, for payloads to go to the
6:54
lunar surface, uh, either experiments
6:57
or um, you know, I suppose they, they're
7:00
all experiments or at least uh, things that
7:02
test the technology, uh, uh,
7:05
basically to check things out before the
7:08
Artemis mission really gets underway with
7:11
a lunar landing. We hope that
7:14
Artemis will see humans walking on the
7:16
moon. 2027 I
7:19
think is the current date. Uh, but
7:22
that could change because all sorts of things
7:25
are happening, uh, inside NASA, which we
7:27
really didn't expect. Um, anyway, uh,
7:30
the Launch was on the 15th of January, so
7:32
it's taken a little while to get there.
7:34
It uh,
7:37
um, the spacecraft rode into orbit on a
7:39
Falcon 9, a SpaceX Falcon 9, uh,
7:42
and essentially uh, having gone into
7:45
lunar orbit, uh, earlier in February,
7:48
13th of February, it was
7:50
descended or sent, um, a
7:53
command to descend to the lunar
7:56
surface on the 1st of March and successfully
7:59
touched down on the 2nd. So really great
8:02
stuff. Fantastic news that a, uh,
8:04
commercial spaceflight has landed
8:07
successfully on the moon.
8:09
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, it is marvelous and
8:11
um, it's a very short mission though, isn't
8:14
it? They're not going to be doing much for
8:15
long from what I understand.
8:17
Professor Fred Watson: I think that's Right. I think the, the, you
8:19
know, the essential part was just
8:20
demonstrating that they can get there.
8:22
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
8:23
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, which they've now done very
8:25
successfully. Um, it's, uh,
8:28
it's. I think it's, uh,
8:31
as you said, it's a short mission. Uh, I
8:33
think it's one of these things that will only
8:36
last for a lunar day. I need to check that.
8:38
But it's that sort of time.
8:41
Uh, it's easy to find some really nice
8:43
pictures of, uh, what
8:46
the sky would look like for Blue
8:48
Ghost. Uh, there's a very nice picture on
8:51
X of a gentleman by the name of
8:54
Buzz Aldrin watching the landing. Yes.
8:56
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. He sent them a message of
8:58
congratulations.
8:59
Professor Fred Watson: Yes. Yeah. Uh, which is great. And, you
9:02
know, who better to send a
9:04
congratulations to a, um, like
9:07
that than Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk
9:11
on the moon.
9:11
Andrew Dunkley: Absolutely. Yes. And I, uh, think I've
9:14
mentioned before I've had the great pleasure
9:16
of meeting and interviewing him in my radio
9:18
career. So that was one of the big highlights
9:20
for me.
9:21
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, and one of the highlights for me was
9:23
having dinner with him.
9:24
Andrew Dunkley: Oh, uh, that's even better. Yeah.
9:26
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it was really interesting. We'll talk
9:29
about that some of the time. It was a very
9:30
interesting meeting, but it was very
9:32
stimulating. This is probably a decade ago.
9:34
Yeah, yeah.
9:35
Andrew Dunkley: Great.
9:36
Professor Fred Watson: Great company, as you know.
9:37
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
9:38
I, I notice, uh, in one of the stories, I
9:41
think it's in sky and telescope,
9:43
uh.org they they refer to
9:45
the, uh, descent orbit insertion
9:48
as nine minutes of terror.
9:50
Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
9:51
Andrew Dunkley: But we've talked about these terrifying
9:53
landings on other worlds, particularly
9:55
Mars. I wouldn't have thought that it would
9:58
be as big a deal on the moon, given that
10:01
this, you know, no atmosphere of.
10:04
Professor Fred Watson: You're right. Yeah. And you're
10:06
absolutely right because, um, you know, if
10:09
you're landing on Mars, a lot of the, uh,
10:11
trajectory is dictated not just by, uh,
10:14
orbital mechanics, which is how things work
10:16
in space, but dictated by the vagaries of
10:19
the atmosphere. If you've got slightly higher
10:21
pressure than you expected, you've got more
10:23
braking force, and suddenly, uh, your
10:25
spacecraft is heading for a different part of
10:28
the surface at a higher speed than you would
10:30
want or lower speed or whatever. Um, and
10:33
you're right that, um, in the case of the
10:35
Moon, it's all about orbital mechanics, which
10:38
are very, very predictable. But you can
10:40
imagine, you know, you've got to fire those
10:42
thrusters at just the right moment to break
10:44
it so that when it lands on the moon, it
10:46
doesn't land too hard and smash up on the
10:49
rocks or basically bounce off and then
10:51
smash up. You've got to get things just
10:53
right. So nine minutes of terror. I can
10:56
sympathize with that. I think I'd feel like
10:58
that too.
10:59
Andrew Dunkley: Well, when you're talking about breaking from
11:01
3,800 miles an hour to 90 miles an
11:04
hour. Yes, that, that would be,
11:07
that would be terrifying if, um, you know,
11:10
you push the wrong button.
11:13
And I think I had to smile when I read
11:16
the story because they, they said successful,
11:19
uh, landing and upright.
11:22
So I think, I think they were
11:25
sort of saying, well, you know, even if it
11:26
lands on its side, that's a success. But it's
11:28
even better that it's standing.
11:30
Professor Fred Watson: It was last year, wasn't it, that one of the
11:33
spacecraft did land on its side? That's
11:35
right.
11:35
Andrew Dunkley: I think it was the Indian mission.
11:37
Professor Fred Watson: Was it, Was it Indian or Japanese? I can't
11:39
remember. Um, but yeah. So it was landed in
11:42
such a way that the solar panels weren't
11:44
seeing the sun.
11:44
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, that's right.
11:46
Professor Fred Watson: So, yes, it's very important to have it the
11:47
right way up.
11:48
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Anyway, we wish them well. It'll be a
11:50
quick visit and it
11:53
paves the way for Artemis too. We still don't
11:55
know when that's going to happen. Seems to be
11:58
getting pushed back time and time again. But
12:00
they will get there eventually.
12:02
Professor Fred Watson: I'm sure they will.
12:03
Andrew Dunkley: One will hope.
12:06
Generic: Roger, you're allowed to start here also
12:08
space nuts.
12:10
Andrew Dunkley: Now, while we're talking about these kinds
12:12
of, uh, commercial missions, there's another
12:14
one that's in the news. This is a private
12:16
mission, uh, that was heading out past
12:19
the moon to the Odin asteroid, the
12:22
um, private Odin asteroid probe.
12:25
All was looking nominal
12:28
until recently. Things seem to have gone
12:31
awry somewhat.
12:33
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, the uh, the comment
12:36
that perhaps highlights the situation comes
12:38
from, uh, uh, somebody by the name of
12:41
Matthew Gialish, I think it is, who is the co
12:44
founder and CEO of AstroDailyPod Forge, which
12:46
is the, um, the organization that
12:49
is operating the Odin
12:51
spacecraft. Uh, what he said
12:53
on Friday, uh, the 28th of February
12:56
was we don't fully understand the state of
12:59
the vehicle. Uh, it's
13:01
thought still though, to be in a mode that
13:04
means it's not being fried by the light of
13:07
the sun. It's in an attitude
13:10
in regard to the sun
13:13
that will not have
13:16
parts of it being unduly heated, although,
13:19
uh, we believe that it is tumbling.
13:22
Um, and uh, you know, uh, this is
13:25
not a good thing for a spacecraft, um,
13:27
uh, to experience.
13:31
That's one of two alternatives which I think
13:34
are still valid, Andrew. One is that the
13:37
spacecraft is tumbling, uh, which is not
13:39
nice, uh, or the other is that everything's
13:42
fine, but there are issues with the telemetry
13:45
back on Earth, their ground receivers not
13:46
being properly configured or whatever. So
13:49
they're still basically worrying about
13:52
what's. What's going on. We should check that
13:54
story again, perhaps next week.
13:56
Andrew Dunkley: What's the goal of the mission? They're going
13:58
to visit an asteroid. But what do they want
14:00
to do with it?
14:01
Professor Fred Watson: Basically check it out, uh, to
14:04
send imagery, uh, of,
14:07
uh, an asteroid which rejoices in the name of
14:09
2022 OB5. Uh,
14:12
and, um, it's a
14:15
possible first step
14:18
in basically
14:20
recovering resources from a space
14:23
object. In other words, asteroid mining. Wow.
14:26
So if this mission was successful, and
14:29
we're not sure that that's the case at the
14:31
moment, um, this mission is
14:34
basically designed to focus,
14:36
uh, the cameras, uh, on
14:39
that asteroid 2022 OB5,
14:43
in order to get a
14:45
survey of the surface, see what's there, take
14:48
lots of images, use, um, the filters in the
14:51
cameras to get some idea of the surface
14:54
texture and things of that sort, which you
14:55
can do, particularly in the infrared wave
14:58
band. But that's a precursor, uh, to a second
15:01
mission. This mission's called odin. The
15:03
second mission is called Vestri, which will
15:05
aim to land on the asteroid. So that's
15:08
perhaps the more ambitious one that we
15:10
will be looking at down the track. Assuming
15:13
that Odin, uh, pulls it off or Space
15:16
Forge pulls it off, as far as odin's
15:18
concerned.
15:18
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, uh, well, fingers crossed. Um,
15:22
I think this quote from Matt Gillick,
15:25
uh, who you quoted earlier, says it
15:28
all. I think we all know the hope is fading
15:31
as we continue the mission.
15:33
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, um, I mean, it's what
15:36
we've always said. Space is hard.
15:38
Andrew Dunkley: It's tough out there. Yeah, yeah, it's, uh,
15:41
it's a difficult gig. But they keep on
15:43
trying. And, uh, you know, not all missions
15:45
are absolute failures. Even when they don't
15:47
go well, there's something to learn, and
15:50
there's always something to learn.
15:51
Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
15:51
Andrew Dunkley: It's better next time. Yes, indeed.
15:54
And you, uh, can read about that story if you
15:57
like@spare.com. this is
16:00
Space Nets with Andrew Dunkley and Professor
16:02
Fred Watson.
16:05
Okay, we checked all four systems and team
16:07
with a Go Space Net.
16:09
Okay, Fred, let's, uh, head towards
16:11
Andromeda. Or is it heading towards us?
16:14
Either way, uh, we. We've
16:16
had a few questions recently with Jonti about
16:19
Andromeda, and he was, um. Yeah, uh, he had a
16:22
lot to say about it. Uh, and one of the
16:25
questions we got recently was is the
16:27
Milky Way already affecting
16:30
Andromeda? And you know, to
16:33
a certain degree, not a massive amount. The
16:36
answer is yes, according to Jonti. Uh,
16:39
but uh, we don't have to do that because it's
16:42
now been discovered that Andromeda's um,
16:44
being picked on by some little
16:47
cousins nearby. It's already
16:49
getting ah, a bit of a dust up, so to
16:52
speak.
16:54
Professor Fred Watson: It may. Yeah. So this may be the
16:56
results of something bigger, something
16:59
that we probably need to know about as well.
17:02
Um, the bottom
17:05
line here is you're quite right. Uh,
17:08
the Andromeda galaxy, we can see, we see
17:11
it in the constellation of Andromeda,
17:13
obviously, uh, at a distance of about 2 1/2
17:16
million light years, uh, like the
17:18
Earth. Sorry, let me
17:21
rephrase that. Like the Milky Way,
17:24
our own galaxy, um, it's surrounded
17:27
by a uh, swarm of dwarf
17:30
galaxies. In fact about
17:32
three or four dozen of them altogether.
17:35
Um, it's uh, it is,
17:37
uh, those dwarf galaxies, we call
17:40
them satellite galaxies because they are
17:42
satellites of Andromeda, uh, have
17:45
been analyzed to death, uh, in a,
17:48
in you know, some new research that's been
17:51
carried out using the Hubble Space TeleScope
17:53
still, after 35 years, still doing
17:56
a very, very fine job in giving us
17:59
spectra and images of distant objects.
18:02
So uh, the researchers have used the Hubble,
18:05
uh, essentially to map the motion
18:08
of these dwarf galaxies, which is an
18:10
extraordinary thing to be able to do, um,
18:12
and look at their
18:15
position in three dimensions around the
18:18
uh, Andromeda galaxy. Uh,
18:20
and it's comparing uh,
18:24
what they found with what we know from
18:27
the dwarf galaxies that orbit our own. And
18:29
it's is probably a similar sort of number.
18:31
It's about two dozen, I think, satellite uh,
18:34
galaxies that we have. The biggest two are
18:36
the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Uh,
18:38
so you take all that, um,
18:41
uh, you build a map of where these galaxies
18:43
are around Andromeda and you find that
18:45
they're in quite different orientations
18:48
from what we find in our own
18:51
galaxy. Um, uh, one
18:54
of the comments, uh, in
18:57
this story, uh, and this is uh, coming
18:59
from uh, some of the researchers in fact, uh,
19:02
Daniel Weiss of the University of
19:05
California at Berkeley, uh,
19:08
has basically pointed out
19:11
that something significant has happened to
19:14
Andromeda to change the
19:16
distribution of the satellite galaxies.
19:20
Um, because half of them, uh,
19:22
rather than sort of swarming around, uh,
19:25
like you know, moths around a flame, half
19:28
of these galaxies are actually in a plane.
19:31
Uh, you know, they're
19:33
basically in, in one plane. Of
19:36
the space around, uh, around Andromeda, and
19:39
they're all going in the same direction. And
19:41
that is, uh, as, um, as
19:44
Daniel Weiss says, that is weird.
19:47
Um, he says it was actually a total
19:49
surprise to find the satellites in that
19:51
configuration. And we still don't fully
19:53
understand why they appear that way.
19:56
Another colleague, uh, says,
19:59
um, this uh, is Alessandro
20:01
Savino, says it is clear,
20:04
it's a clear indication of how small galaxy
20:07
growth is disturbed by the influence of
20:10
a massive galaxy like Andromeda.
20:13
Um, and I think the, the bottom
20:16
line here is that they've got much, um,
20:20
younger, uh, stars in them.
20:22
These dwarf galaxies, uh, form
20:25
their stars very early on in the history of
20:28
the Andromeda galaxy, which probably goes
20:29
back 12 or 13 billion years, um, and
20:32
then kept on. And uh, the
20:35
idea is that the,
20:39
the perhaps. And they say that they
20:42
really don't know what's happening, but
20:44
perhaps there was a collision between
20:46
Andromeda and another galaxy,
20:49
uh, some billions of years ago, which
20:52
caused this peculiarity
20:55
of the, uh, of the, of the dwarf galaxies
20:58
surrounding Andromeda. Everything about it is
21:00
weird, including my, um, my account of it.
21:03
Andrew Dunkley: Just
21:06
uh. So they're saying it's weird. They say
21:08
they don't really know what happened, but it
21:11
would have to be some kind of gravitational
21:14
effect or interference, wouldn't it?
21:16
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I
21:18
think that's probably what they're looking
21:20
at, you know, as they try to understand how
21:22
you can end up with a, uh, with a set
21:24
of, uh, something like 15 or
21:27
20 dwarf galaxies, all of which lie in a
21:30
single plane that flies in the face of
21:31
everything we understand about dwarf galaxy
21:33
formation, um, and certainly
21:36
is very different from what we find in our
21:38
own Milky Way galaxy.
21:40
Andrew Dunkley: And from what I can tell, they've tried to
21:42
figure this out using computer simulations
21:44
and it didn't work.
21:46
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there you go.
21:48
And uh, that's just basically telling you
21:51
that you need to put something else into the
21:54
simulation and maybe it is a collision with
21:56
another large galaxy, something else that's
21:58
not in there already, to try and, uh,
22:00
replicate what we see in the real world.
22:03
Andrew Dunkley: So could that mean that if there was a
22:05
collision with another large galaxy, that the
22:07
result is Andromeda?
22:09
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's. I think what you'd have to agree
22:12
with that. Um,
22:15
it, it's not been a, I mean the
22:18
collision between Andromeda and the Milky
22:20
Way, when it happens in three and a half
22:22
billion years or whenever it says in the
22:24
diary that that's going to happen. Uh, it's,
22:27
that changes the shape of both of them.
22:30
Uh, it basically you get a collision. All the
22:33
shockwaves, gravitational shock waves,
22:36
cause formation of
22:38
supernovae. Basically, uh,
22:41
form really big stars which last only a
22:44
short time, then explode as supernovae. That
22:46
uses up all the gas, uh, in the
22:49
galaxies and you end up with what we call
22:52
Milkomeda, the Milky Way
22:54
Andromeda combination, which looks more like
22:57
uh, what we call an elliptical galaxy. A
22:59
galaxy with no, um, no gas, no
23:02
star formation. Uh, and Andromeda
23:04
now is not like that at all. It's a actively
23:07
star forming galaxy. So the suggestion is
23:10
that maybe it was a smaller object that
23:12
caused this disruption to the satellite
23:14
galaxies.
23:15
Andrew Dunkley: It's. Is it classified as a spiral
23:18
galaxy?
23:19
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, it's a, it's a spiral definitely.
23:21
Andrew Dunkley: Okay. Um, and so is ours. But when they
23:24
get together they're just going to be boring.
23:26
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, they will, they'll be shaped like a
23:28
football, uh, with no spiral arms.
23:31
Nothing happening, nothing to see here.
23:33
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Ah, it's a bit sad really.
23:35
Professor Fred Watson: I mean because they're both pretty smart
23:37
looking now.
23:39
Andrew Dunkley: What a pity. Oh well, um,
23:42
you know, we can't stop it. We'll just have
23:44
to put up with it when the time comes. How
23:47
long? Three and a half billion.
23:48
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, it's um, something to look
23:50
forward to, you know, with trepidation
23:52
perhaps.
23:53
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, eventually. All right, uh, that story
23:56
is uh, uh, at Cosmos
23:58
magazine dot com if you'd like to read up on
24:01
that one.
24:04
Generic: Three, two, one.
24:07
Space nuts.
24:09
Andrew Dunkley: Uh, Fred, let's uh, go and visit an old
24:12
friend, uh, someone who we thought had
24:14
stopped writing to us. We don't know what we
24:16
did wrong, but they have reached out to say
24:19
hello. I'm still here. I'm alive again.
24:21
Voyager 1.
24:23
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right, uh,
24:25
20. I looked it up the other day.
24:28
25,
24:30
is that right? Yeah, no, 20.
24:33
About 27 billion kilometers away.
24:36
And the most distant human made
24:39
object. I uh, think it's
24:42
got uh, 22.5
24:45
light hours of travel time for the
24:47
commands. Um,
24:50
so the. What the.
24:53
Basically the story goes back in fact to
24:56
uh, the 20. I uh, think.
24:59
I can't remember what date it was, but it's
25:00
back in November 2023. So it's
25:03
um, you know, well over a year ago,
25:06
uh, that um, the transmission started
25:09
coming through in a gobbledygook
25:11
format. Uh, and
25:14
there was, I think an issue
25:17
with one of the memory
25:19
chips. Um, and
25:22
you know, there was work done on
25:25
trying to fix that, uh, which
25:28
basically I think took Five months or so.
25:31
Uh, and then, uh, was
25:34
it in April 2024,
25:37
uh there was uh, a
25:40
successful uh, receipt
25:42
of data,
25:45
um, and that the
25:48
machine was sending back things that you
25:50
could actually read rather than just
25:52
gobbledygook. So that was back in
25:54
April 2024.
25:57
But I think there's been another loss
26:00
since then. Uh, and
26:03
the you know, the um,
26:05
difficulties that Voyager 1 has are
26:08
uh, to some extent ongoing. Um,
26:11
but uh, there is, you know, it's good news
26:14
that uh, uh, at least we are
26:17
still in some sort of communication with
26:19
Voyager 1 and hopefully there's
26:22
still potential for intelligible uh,
26:25
signals to come back. The, the really
26:28
interesting thing I guess is the, the power
26:30
supply which is the radioisotope thermoele
26:33
generator, which is now delivering a tiny
26:36
fraction of what it delivered right at the
26:38
beginning of the mission in the late 1970s.
26:41
And so we've got uh, an issue
26:43
there. And what NASA has done is switched off
26:46
various instruments progressively so
26:49
that things like the magnetometers that we
26:51
call the magnetic field and things like that,
26:53
I think they are now switched off so that
26:55
you're saving power just for
26:58
pointing the antenna, which is done by the
27:00
spacecraft's thrusters and essentially
27:03
sending signals backwards and forwards.
27:05
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it's uh, it's quite remarkable though
27:08
after all these decades that
27:11
it's still going, we still communicate with
27:13
it, we can still send it information.
27:16
Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
27:17
Andrew Dunkley: And um, of course Voyager 2 is
27:19
still out there and still going strong,
27:22
although it too has had some issues. Although
27:25
I think um, the most
27:28
recent big issue with Voyager 2 was July
27:30
2023 when a series of commands was sent
27:33
to the spacecraft, causing its
27:35
antenna to point away from Earth. I think
27:38
we did talk about that.
27:39
Professor Fred Watson: We did talk about it. That's right.
27:41
Andrew Dunkley: And it stopped the uh, spacecraft from
27:43
receiving commands or sending data back to
27:46
Earth. And I
27:48
think they managed to somehow
27:51
circumvent that. Um, I,
27:54
I, I believe it involved the Canberra deep
27:57
space complex.
27:59
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I was just going to mention that. In
28:01
fact it must have done because that Canberra
28:03
deep space complex, uh, the Tidbin
28:06
Billa dish, as we call it in the trade, uh,
28:09
is uh, the only uh, antenna um,
28:12
on Earth that can actually communicate with
28:14
Voyager 2. And that's because Voyager
28:17
2's at a latitude, if I remember rightly.
28:19
It's about 66 degrees below
28:22
the equator in terms of the direction it's
28:24
going out to, which makes it invisible to
28:27
the other two, uh, stations in the Deep
28:30
Space, uh, network, which are in Madrid and
28:33
uh, Goldstone in California. So, uh, yes,
28:36
only, uh, only Tidbinbilla can see Voyager
28:38
2.
28:39
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, and that's how they saved it. They
28:41
picked up a very faint signal.
28:43
Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
28:44
Andrew Dunkley: NASA was able to transmit some corrective
28:46
data like, uh, to
28:49
Voyager 2 and got it back online, which
28:52
was very good news. Uh, and Voyager
28:55
1's now back with us. So they're both still
28:57
going. They're both still talking to us. We
28:59
did.
28:59
Professor Fred Watson: Extraordinary.
29:00
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. We thought we'd offended both of them,
29:02
but no, it's. It's all good. I mean, they've
29:04
been alone for so long. I can understand them
29:07
being a bit grumpy.
29:08
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. They might
29:11
like their own company though. M. They've
29:13
both got music to listen to, so.
29:15
Andrew Dunkley: Going different ways, aren't they?
29:16
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, they are. That's the thing. Uh, Voyager
29:19
2 is heading much more to the south than
29:21
Voyager 1 is.
29:22
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. M. It's such
29:24
amazing. An amazing story for
29:27
both of them, too. I mean, how
29:30
far past end of mission have they survived?
29:32
That's extraordinary.
29:34
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Decades. It is, it is. It's
29:37
fantastic. And they, you know, eventually
29:40
their batteries will run out. Those, uh,
29:42
radioisotope thermal thermoelectric
29:44
generators will fizzle out so that they can't
29:47
even send power to the, uh, to the
29:49
transmitters. But the spacecraft will keep on
29:52
going because they are
29:55
orbital mechanics. Maybe for billions of
29:57
years. We just don't know.
29:58
Andrew Dunkley: Yes. Until someone catches them in a Venus
30:01
fly trap on some other planet and it's
30:04
all over Red Rover. Who knows?
30:05
Professor Fred Watson: Who knows?
30:06
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, Great, uh, story about Voyager 1. You
30:09
can, um, find that online. There's quite a
30:11
few news stories about it.
30:13
Professor Fred Watson: Can I just, um, add one comment?
30:16
So, the Canberra deep space communication
30:19
complex is 60 years old this
30:21
month.
30:22
Andrew Dunkley: Wow.
30:23
Professor Fred Watson: There you go. I should have, should have
30:24
remembered that. You did, yeah.
30:27
Should have remembered it earlier. 60 years
30:29
old this month.
30:30
Andrew Dunkley: Yes. It took you 60 years to remember that?
30:35
All right, um, we are just about
30:38
done. Thanks, uh, for your company. Thank
30:40
you, Fred, as always. We'll wrap it up and
30:42
we'll catch you on the next episode.
30:44
Professor Fred Watson: That sounds wonderful. I'll look
30:46
forward to it.
30:47
Andrew Dunkley: All right, we'll see you then. Professor Fred
30:49
Watson, Astronomer at large. Don't forget to
30:51
visit us, uh, on our website. In the
30:53
meantime, you can do
30:54
that@spacenutspodcast.com or spacenuts
30:57
IO all sorts of things to see and do and
30:59
buy there. Um, more
31:02
mainly Fred's books. But you know, there's
31:04
other stuff as well. Some of it's even
31:06
interesting. Oh, sorry. Um,
31:09
some of it's not. And I think I wrote those
31:11
books. Never mind. Ah, and thanks, uh, to
31:14
Huw in the studio, who couldn't be with us
31:16
today because he was, um,
31:19
stirring the pot around Andromeda, causing
31:22
all sorts of mayhem. Typical of you.
31:25
And from me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your
31:27
company. Catch you on the very next episode
31:28
of Space Nuts. Bye. Bye.
31:31
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