Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / #424: Gravity Waves & Space Junk: Cosmic Queries Unpacked

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#424: Gravity Waves & Space Junk: Cosmic Queries Unpacked · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Hi there, thanks for joining us. This is a Q and a edition
0:03
of Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley. Coming up, we're going
0:07
to be telling Pete he answered his question about space junk. I think we
0:12
kind of talked about that a bit in the previous episode. Philip wants to
0:18
know about gravity waves, Gego is asking about matter, and Beverly wants to
0:24
talk about seeing an eclipse. That's all coming up on this Q and a
0:28
edition of Space Nuts. Fifteen seconds in channel ten nine ignition siguench space nuts
0:38
ny or three two space nuts as when I re bought it. Neil's good
0:46
and he's here again. It's like he never left. Professor Fred, what's
0:49
an astronomer at La Cello? Fred? I do good to not see you
0:54
today since we see each other. Yeah, we're flying blind because something's chewing
1:00
up bandwidth and we thought, well, if we just turn the cameras off,
1:03
it might improve. But no, technology isn't it great? Now?
1:10
Fred? We might as well get stuck straight into this. I've got a
1:14
couple of text questions and a couple of audio questions, and being as clever
1:19
as I am, I have completely lost the questions. As we speak,
1:26
which is very unusual for me. So I'm going to switch things around and
1:30
we will play an audio question first up from Philip Old Fred Nun Philip bape
1:38
Here originally on Classical to Australia when I was a weird bout air never lost
1:42
the upset. Two things for your debt, so astly I wanted to give
1:47
a big show Gilmot, specially agencies who of course to putting old rocket up
1:51
the northern end of Australia. They're amazing and I wish them all the best
1:56
in their grand quest. Factly, I get the idea that gravity works by
2:00
masters attracting each other and exerting a pool like magnets do. But what the
2:07
heck are gravity waves made of? Then? That can't be made at white
2:10
book ons but just pushed things around you can they? Is it possible?
2:15
Despite what Nicholson and morally discovered, that there is indeed some kind of matrix
2:23
permeating every square micro into the universe that has gravity waves flowing through it,
2:29
just as waves on the ocean move through water until rising the dump swimmers on
2:34
the hedge at on thy Beach. If I'm right the I reckon, I
2:38
could have my Nobel Prize now I'd be happy to share it with you.
2:42
Bonny lads Ay, love the show and why not just keep recording extra shows
2:49
so we can be listening to you both century if I'm new cheers Philip.
2:55
I love the accent, by the way, that sounds great, but one
3:00
hundred years worth of episodes that did take us a little bit of work or
3:04
reckon, Fred, that's what it feels like already, and true have to
3:07
say yes, never mind a great question from Philip, and yes, lovely
3:15
accent. I thought I detected a little bit of Highland in there, as
3:17
well as the Glasgow, but anyway, that's a different story. Be in
3:23
a better position to pick up on that than me. Ireland. Scottish has
3:28
got a very distinctive sound to it, and there's just a few sounds in
3:31
Philip's accent there made me wonder anyway. Thank you very much for the question
3:37
though, And yes, Gilmour Space doing a great job gravitational waves. Philip,
3:42
you're kind of on the money. Really we accept that, we don't.
3:46
We no longer think of gravity as being forces between between massive objects.
3:54
That's what Newton thought, and it's actually very nearly the truth modeling it that
4:00
way makes it, you know, makes the calculations fit what we see in
4:05
space generally very well. But there's difficulties, which are what led Einstein back
4:13
in nineteen fifteen to propose his general theory of relativity, which says that actually
4:17
what's happening is a massive object distorts the space around it, and that distortion
4:26
is what we feel as gravity. So here's the Earth sitting in space,
4:30
a massive object. It's bending the space around it so that the space at
4:36
your feet has a slightly different shape from the space at your head, and
4:40
the effect of that is that you feel as though you're being pulled down.
4:43
It's an extraordinarily different way of looking at things from Newtont's but actually worked very
4:48
well, and in fact, we've never managed to find a flaw in the
4:51
theory of general relativity. And it's because of that distortion of space that you
4:57
can have gravity wave or gravitational wave, because space can distort. So it's
5:03
not entirely rigid. It's billions of times more rigid than steel. That's actually
5:09
incredibly rigid, but it's still malleable. It's still bendable by mass, and
5:15
hence its ability to transmit waves. And so in that regard, what you're
5:20
saying, Philip is it's not too far from the truth. Yes, because
5:26
and Marley experiment did show that there was no ether that would transmit light,
5:32
because that would have shown up. Had the space been permeated by an ether,
5:40
then you would have been able to see changes in the speed of light
5:44
depending on which way the Earth was going, you know, in regard to
5:47
which way the light is going, and those changes were never detected because they
5:51
don't exist. And that's because the speed of light is an absolute constant that
5:57
you know, doesn't need an ether to transmit. So the old idea of
6:00
an ether has now become what we would perhaps refer to as the fabric of
6:05
space, something which can actually bend. It is a matrix, as you
6:12
put it, that doesn't fill space. It's not something in space. It
6:16
just is space, and through that gravitational waves can travel. It's quite esoteric
6:24
stuff, and I think you're touching on some really deep questions here in terms
6:28
of the physics that are involved. But suffice it to say that space does
6:31
have a structure and that it can change if you put mass in it.
6:38
A few weeks ago we did discuss gravitational wave background in the universe. Is
6:44
that akin to what Philip was talking about or is that a completely different concept.
6:48
No, it's a consequence of what we're talking about. Yeah, that
6:54
you've got the gravitational wave background is exactly as you described it in that lovely
7:00
analogue that you presented of throwing a handful of pebbles into a pond. So
7:05
you've got waves. You know, every pebble has its own splash, and
7:10
you've got all these waves, you know, basically traveling across the surface of
7:15
the pond, and that would be a background to you know, if you
7:18
threw a rock in after that, there'd be a very big splash and lots
7:21
of big waves which will be kind of superimposed on that background of lower level
7:27
gravitational waves. And that's what the gravitational wave background is about. Okay,
7:31
Yeah, I love Phillip's question, not only for the accent, but he's
7:35
obviously been thinking hard about this particular situation and it's spawned some ideas that yeah,
7:44
he didn't miss the mark at all, really did he, Philip?
7:47
Your Nobel prizes in the post. It's we're happy to be happy to share
7:54
it with you. Too, thank you. Yes, absolutely, your name
7:57
can go first. Philip was your idea. I'm great to hear from you
8:01
and keep sending your questions into us. So I've got a text question Fred,
8:07
Hi, Fred, and Andrew. As with all questions submitters, I'm
8:11
a great fan of the podcast. In recent weeks, there's been multiple mentions
8:16
of space debris and dealing with it is by burning it up through attempted re
8:22
entry to Earth's atmosphere. This may well deal with most of the larger physical
8:28
pieces that could cause damage. However, presumably at least some of the component
8:33
elements of the junk don't suddenly cease to exist. I'm wondering if burning up
8:37
is really just another example of what I've heard Karl Krishlnitski say he was told
8:43
in his early steel meal days. The solution to pollution is dilution. As
8:50
you often say, space, even just our atmosphere, is really big.
8:54
But are we kidding ourselves to call burning up the final solution. That's Pete
8:58
from marmong point. I think Pete's sent questions in before. It is an
9:03
interesting problem. It is a subject to a lot of discussion globally how we
9:11
deal with space junk and the people who sends material into space are responsible for
9:16
it. These days, Jordi knows that, yes, and I yeah.
9:24
And there are times where space junk comes back to Earth it doesn't get burnt
9:28
up completely. There was a famous case in the last year or so where
9:31
a farmer down in the southern Highlands of New South Wales found a piece of
9:35
a SpaceX rocket. I think it was on his property. There's been all
9:41
sorts of bits and pieces popping up from time to time. It is a
9:43
problem, that's right. I think that was if I remember rightly, it
9:48
was parts of the service module of a Dragon capsule. If I remember rightly,
9:52
Oh yeah, m yes, but there was, you know, not
9:58
but roughly at the same time there was it's a huge fuel tan washed up
10:01
on the beach in Wa which came from an Indian space launch, so that's
10:09
where it was eventually traced back to. So, yes, you're right,
10:11
Andrew that. For the bigger objects that you know, maybe way more than
10:18
a few one hundred kilograms, they often will not burn up completely in the
10:24
atmosphere until you get debris falling to Earth, and most of it, most
10:28
of that is controlled. You can sort of control where the spacecraft is going
10:33
to hit the atmosphere, where the burn up will take place, and where
10:37
any debris might fall. And there is a particular spot in the Pacific Ocean,
10:41
the South Pacific Ocean, which it's got a name which I can't remember
10:45
at the moment, but it's the furthest point from land anywhere on the planet,
10:50
and at the bottom of that ocean, it's a very deep part of
10:52
the Pacific Ocean. There's a lot of space debris because that's where you know,
10:56
you try and if you've got something that you gonna is massive and there
11:01
is a risk that it will not all burn up in the atmosphere, that's
11:05
where you want to put it, so that you're far away as possible from
11:07
any likely damage. But so that's one part of the problem. But I
11:15
think what Pete's question is really aimed at is the stuff that does burn up,
11:22
you know, and for a small satellite's like a Starling satellite, which
11:26
is yes, it's a quarter of aton, but it's still relatively small that
11:31
will burn up completely in the atmosphere. And what happens is the materials of
11:35
which it's made are vaporized and they do hang around, and I think we
11:41
covered a story probably a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago,
11:46
that basically amounted to the fact that atomic species have been detected in the upper
11:54
atmosphere which can only have come from the material of spacecraft. What it's saying
12:01
is that, yes, the solution to pollution is dilution, but that dilution
12:05
of the debris by being burned up and turned into vapor, that's not a
12:11
process that means it disappears. There's still evidence of stuff being around up there
12:16
in the upper atmosphere, and it's now in an atomic form rather than you
12:20
know, solid, solid objects, but we can still detect it. So
12:24
it's a good question that Pete raises. Yep, we are to some extent
12:31
polluting the upper atmosphere by the amount of re entering debris. Well, the
12:37
alternative is to just shoot it off into oblivion, I suppose. But yeah,
12:41
that's probably not as easy as it sounds, that's right, because then
12:46
you've got to, you know, reach the escape velocity of the Earth that's
12:50
eleven kilometers per second. What they do at geostationary orbits, So these are
12:56
the orbits of the geostationary satellites thirty six one thousand kilometers above the surface.
13:03
When they are no longer being used and regarded as a potential danger to other
13:09
geestationary satellites, they put them into what are called graveyard orbits. So these
13:15
are orbits that are pretty stable but a long way out of the way.
13:18
So it's doing exactly what you just suggested, shooting them off into oblivion.
13:22
You're putting them in an orbit that where it's in orbit around the Earth,
13:26
but it's not not going to do any damage down the track. And I
13:31
think that place in the Pacific that you were referring to is Point Nemo Okay,
13:37
which is twenty six hundred and eighty eight kilometers from the nearest land,
13:43
and it's the furthest point from anywhere in the world in terms of solid land.
13:48
It's at forty eight forty eight degrees fifty two point six minutes south one
13:54
hundred and twenty three degrees twenty three point six minutes west. If you want
14:00
to pinpoint it. Nearest land is Dulcey Island, which is part of the
14:03
Pitcan Group. Apparently there you go. Yeah, so if you need to
14:09
go looking for space junk, that's the spot. It is all right,
14:16
thank you, Pete. Love the question, and yes, the problem with
14:18
space junk continues. This is Space Nuts, not Space Junks. With Andrew
14:24
Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Let's take a quick break from the show to
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18:04
Now back to the show. Okay, we take a space Nuts now,
18:11
Fred another text question, Hello Fred and Andrew. This is Geargo from
18:17
Slovakia. My question is about the matter we have in our universe. If
18:21
I understand it correctly. All the matter we have is with us since the
18:26
Big Bang, but energy can be converted to matter, and with the expansion
18:30
of the universe, new energy, vacuum energy is being added to our universe.
18:33
Could this vacuum energy be converted into matter, thus creating matter that has
18:37
not been with us from the very beginning? Thank you in advance for your
18:41
longer version of no love your show ge goo. Oh, I love that
18:52
at least is confident. Maybe let's let's modify it slightly and make it perhaps
19:00
or perhaps not. H So we we have talked before about the process of
19:07
converting energy into matter. Ah we we we commonly convert matter into energy.
19:17
That's what happens in nuclear reactors. You're you know, you're turning the mass
19:22
of your uranium fuel or whatever it is, directly into energy, without needing
19:29
it to go through other processes chemical processes, for example. And so that's
19:33
that's where that equivalence come. Excuse me, it comes from equals mc squared
19:40
the tour are equivalent. There are only a few natural processes and we did
19:48
talk about them, and I can't remember what they were that work the other
19:52
way, and I think they only occur in very high intensity energy situations by
20:00
working the other way, I mean, converting energy directly into matter. There
20:03
are a few examples of it, but I can't remember what they are.
20:08
We did cover it, and I remember reading up about it. So you
20:12
know, the idea of the vacuum energy, the dark energy as we also
20:18
call it, turning into something solid. It's quite frightening. Actually, you
20:26
know, space is getting more and more rarefied, and so the vacuum energy
20:30
is not in any sense in a high energy situation where you might get this
20:37
process of energy being directly converted into matter. But it is an interesting question,
20:42
So I hope that's a long enough version of no go. I think
20:48
back in the sixties thread they looked into this problem of dark energy turning into
20:52
matter and decided that the only thing that dark energy could turn into was a
20:59
rolling pin, so usually in a domestic environment. Well, that's really that's
21:06
black energy. Isn't it very dangerous topic too? That one? It is.
21:15
Yeah, Sogo, the answer is no ish. No great question.
21:25
Thank you for it. It was a good question, and one more quick
21:27
one to finish off. This is a little bit behind the times, but
21:30
only because of me having to find files that got ditched by my computer without
21:36
my permission. It happens. This is Beverly. Hello, spetsnuts. This
21:42
is Beverly from College Station, Texas. I hope to be seeing my first
21:48
Total Selary clips very soon, and I'm beyond excited. I was wondering if
21:52
either or both of you had seen a Total Sulery clips. I would mind
21:56
sharing your experiences and maybe your thoughts, your feelings about seeing Natty clips,
22:04
and any insight you have. I really appreciate your podcasts and I listened to
22:10
it in the mornings when I walk. Thank you so much, have a
22:14
great day. Thank you, Beverly. A lovely question. I threw that
22:18
one in, Fred because I wanted to see if you could figure out how
22:22
many you've actually witnessed, because I know you've seen a few. I haven't
22:27
in person ever witnessed one. Never. Well, you should come with us
22:33
on one of our clips to us. Actually, you are you are going
22:37
to you are going to see one in twenty twenty eight. So yes,
22:42
yes, yes, indeed exactly. I don't have to go anywhere, I
22:47
just have to wait. But how many of you, saying Fred, I
22:51
think the April eighth eclipse, which is the one Beverly's talking about. She
22:56
was before April eight when she recorded that. I think that was the sixth.
23:02
In fact, I'm sure it was the sixth. One of them,
23:03
just one was clouded out, and that was the one in the Faroe Islands
23:08
where they get two hundred days of rain per year, and so we weren't
23:12
expecting big events. I did see just a little bit of the eclipse phenomena.
23:18
I saw something called Bailey's beads, which is where the Sun's discs shines
23:22
through the valleys between the mountains of the Moon. So I did see that
23:26
through binoculars, but it wasn't a crystal clear experience the one in Texas,
23:32
and we were probably not that far from Beverly. We were in a little
23:36
village called I think it was Bristol and British name, but it's not very
23:41
far from Fort Worth and Dallas. So we had a cloudy morning there and
23:52
the eclipse was sort of round about the middle of the day and Marley had
23:55
forecast she'd looked at all the best forecasts that said the sky will clear in
24:00
tanthony clips and during the period when you're leading up to the total eclipse,
24:07
which is as the Moon's disc gradually covers the disc of the Sun. It's
24:11
an extraordinary times sort of building tension and it's just like you know, it's
24:15
like a live show, Andrew done by the very best impresarios, where you
24:22
build up people's excitement and then there's a climax of a few minutes of the
24:26
Sun being blacked out completely. During that period when the Moon was gradually crossing
24:30
the disc of the Sun, we were seeing quite a lot of it through
24:34
holes in the cloud, but it was still basically cloudy. And then seconds
24:40
before totality, the sky completely cleared. It just cleared totally and we had
24:47
the most perfect view of the total eclipse that you could expect. And then
24:51
throughout the afternoon it was clear. It was sensational and just turning to what
24:56
bever Is asked about the you know, the emotional it is almost a spiritual
25:02
experience, if I can put it that way, Andrew, where you recognize
25:07
that something deep and profound is happening. You've got this exact alignment between your
25:14
spot on the Earth, and it's not there for everybody. It's only where
25:18
the Moon's shadow crosses passes across the Earth and the moonshadow is only typically one
25:23
hundred kilometers or so wide. You've got that alignment between your spot on the
25:29
Earth, the moon itself, and the Sun, and it's the geometry of
25:32
that that it just somehow breathtaking, that it gives you this unique experience of
25:37
a black disk surrounded by the corona of the Sun and sometimes, as we
25:42
saw on the eighth of April, Prominence's pink dots around the edge of the
25:48
Sun which are clouds of glowing hydrogen. So it is, Yes, it's
25:52
quite all inspiring. People burst into tears, you know, there's so much
25:56
emotion tied to it. Of that is just the build up as the you
26:02
know, as the thing gradually takes place, and you see all these interesting
26:06
phenomena as the sky gets darker. You see things called shadow buns, which
26:08
are little bunds of shade that race across the surface of the Earth caused by
26:14
turbulence in the upper atmosphere. It's the whole excuse me, a whole array
26:18
of different phenomena that's well worth watching for so, yes, very very rare.
26:26
Indeed. Yeah. The next total solar eclipse is the twelfth of August
26:32
twenty twenty six, which will start I would basically up in the northern Arctic
26:38
region, and then we'll move down across the Atlantic into southern Europe by the
26:45
look of it, and then the next one is the twenty twenty seven August,
26:49
and then ours in twenty twenty eight, the twenty second of July.
26:52
In fact, I'm just looking at the future map for total eclipses for it,
26:57
and this is an interesting phenomenon. There'll be two in a row that
27:02
will cross the will cross continental Australia and they will actually intersect around about southwest
27:10
Queensland, northwest New South Wales and probably northeast South Australia. So that particular
27:15
spot will get two in a row in twenty twenty eight and twenty thirty,
27:21
which will be very exciting. That'd be the place to go. Yeah,
27:25
there's actually five if you I think there's four more if you include the one
27:30
on the twenty third of April last year which was off the which just touched
27:33
the Exmouth, the coast at Exmouth in western Australia. Including that one,
27:38
there are five coming up in the next twenty years or so, I think
27:42
up to twenty thirty five. So quite right. They are really interesting.
27:48
They passed to across in an unusual way that is related to the sort of
27:52
cycles that determine how eclipses work, because you know, everything in the in
27:57
the Solar system is cyclic going round each other, so they do repeat in
28:02
a sort of complex way. Twenty twenty seven. Sorry, the one in
28:07
twenty twenty seven will intersect with the one in twenty thirty four, so there'll
28:11
be another place where you can go to the same place twice. But I
28:15
found the interesting one that also the twenty twenty seven eclipse will end where the
28:22
twenty twenty eight clips will begin. Oh that was interesting. Yeah, I
28:26
think it is a click phenomena. We're going to be in Gibraltar for the
28:32
twenty twenty six eclipse, I believe. Nice, So the southern tip of
28:37
southern tip of Spain if you're interested, Yes, yeah, it could be
28:44
the go. Yeah, I can see that one on the screen here.
28:48
That one's going to stretch out over the Arctic and then move down through the
28:52
Atlantic Ocean by the look of it, or that area anyway. But yeah,
28:56
a lot of them do start in the ocean. But that's just because
28:59
seventy five percent of the surfaces ocean. I suppose it's just the way it
29:02
works out exactly, but Beverly, yeah, I hope you've got great joy
29:06
out of witnessing your eclipse. I'm still waiting for my first one, so
29:10
one ahead of me. And don't forget to keep sending your questions in.
29:15
You can do that via our website, space nuts podcast dot com or space
29:18
nuts dot io. You can send text and audio questions via the AMA tab
29:22
up the top and on the right hand side you'll see a little green sideways
29:26
button that says send us your or send us your questions. If you hover
29:30
over that, it turns purple. Extraordinary. Never seen that before. Exciting.
29:36
I'm easily amused. But yes, don't forget to tell us who you
29:40
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all set. And don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube and to send
29:48
in your reviews via your favorite podcasting platform. Fred, we are done.
29:52
Thank you so much, great pleasure, Andrew always good to chat and thanks
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for all the questions. Everybody wonderful. It's fabulous. We'll talk to you
30:02
soon. Fred Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large and Hugh in the studio is
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doing what he does best and I don't know what that is, but thanks
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anyway, Hugh, and from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company on
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this episode. Catch you on the next episode of Space Nuts soon. Bye
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bye Spacenuts. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts,
30:25
Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream
30:30
on demand at bites dot com. This has been another quality podcast production from
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Sites dot com.