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Little Bangs, Outer Planets & the Cosmic Budget Crunch · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi there, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: My name is Andrew Dunkley. It's great to have your
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: company yet again. Coming up on this episode, we will
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: be looking at a new Big Bang theory, so to speak.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: It's sort of wrapped up with dark matter and dark
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: dark energy and all that dark and foreboding stuff, so
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about that. Some other data is pointing to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a potential outer planet and it may not be Planet nine,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: or is it. We're not sure yet.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about that and.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Some space science stuff. An old Russian spacecraft is headed
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: back to Earth and unfortunately that's not where it was
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: originally supposed to go back in nineteen seventy two.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Artemis too.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: An update on that, and a bit of a budget
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: cut issue with NASA. That's all coming up on this
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: episode of Space Nuts fifteen in Channel ten nine Ignition
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Space Nut or three.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Two one Space Nurse when I report it.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Neil Good and it's good to see Professor Fred Watson
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: again joining us on this episode of space and that's
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: high Fred.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: Hello, Andrew, very good to see you too.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: You're looking hale and hearty.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I have to say yes, I've got I've got a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: new background you like my new office. Yes, my new
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: virtual office.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: It's it's saying a lot of hellos at the moment
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: it is has.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Got a low error.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: And if I put my hands in the right place,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: they're invisible.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: In fact, if I go yeah, if I look around,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I go invisible.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Do Yes.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: Yes, you went invisible a minute or two ago, and
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: I thought you'd lock it in into space.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Never mind, it was one day, No doubt you will.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But now you've been away, haven't you.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: We were over in lord How Island, which is an
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: island some some kilometers off of the coast of New
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: South Wales, is on the same latitude of Port Macquarie.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I used to broad to.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, she did that.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: I didn't actually have that much chance to talk to
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: many of the locals in detail, or else I would
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: have asked them if they In fact, I think I
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: did ask one person whether they listened to.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: You, and they said yes.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: But we were there for a dark sky festival.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Lord How is.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Working on the prospect of becoming Australia's first dark sky island,
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: which is like a dark sky park, but it's an island.
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: I'm not giving away any secrets there, but there are
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: people working on that very enthusiastically and we wish them
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: every success with it. So one of this was a
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: sort of kickoff festival with talks and presentations and I
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: took the old Gibson guitar and Marny and I did
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: a set in their music night. We did seven songs
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: between us. I was cool and I've done that for
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: about fifty years. And then you know, we did some
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: experiments with the friend of ours, Marcuscaro, launching rockets with
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: which were fueled by vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, which
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: meant we all ended up smelling of vinegar for the
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: next four days. And yeah, it went. It went went
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: very well. That was a fun thing for the kids
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: to do. So it was a good festival and it
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: wound up on Thursday evening with very nice meal cooked
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: up by one of the top chefs on the island.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Wow, it's fantastic. I haven't been the lord here, but
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to get there you need.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: To go, you do need.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: It's also the home of some unique wildlife I believe.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: There are yes, and particularly the wood hen which is ubiquitous.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: They had a program four or five years and three
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: or four years ago I think it was to eliminate
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: all the rats on the island which were eating the woodhens,
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: and that was quite controversial, but it's worked, and the
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: woodhens are there in remarkable proflicty.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Was that there?
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And they also have those quite rare stickings. Is it
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: on the spire it's on Balls Pyramids? Yeah, Balls Pyramid
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: twenty kilometers off. Lord how we had a very rough
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: crossing to Balls Pyramid. We went because I always wanted
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: to see it up close and personal. It's this stick
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: of rock five hundred.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: Meters high and remarkable and as you said, it does
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: have I think it's the only place where these nocturnal
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: stick insects are phoned, and they're usually quite big.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: So a photograph of one.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that story breaking many years ago when
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: they found them and they went, oh my goodness, didn't
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: know they were here.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, incredible place it is.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: It's amazing. So what about you have? How's your week been?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Pretty quiet? Actually, just sort of settling back into normal life,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: even though that's going.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: To be temporary.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: But I did want to show you something from our trip.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: As you know, we went to San Francisco, and San
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Francisco is the home of a big rock known as Alcatraz. Indeed,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and you know, I like to collect souvenirs wherever I go,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: particularly particularly little rocks from different places. But this one's legal.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: There it is save the rock. Yeah, and inside that box, yes,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: two pieces, two pieces of the cell block of Alcatraz
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: because they're trying to do renovations to keep it going
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: for future generations, and so as a part of the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: renovation process, they've had to demolish certain sections and they're
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: selling the rock to fund the renovations.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I've got two pieces of the cell wall from Alcatraz.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: In my collections.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Now see them as your screen tries to wipe them
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: out and make them part of the background. But if
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: I tip it forward a dispute can see them.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: So that's yeah. They are. Oh there they are, yes.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: Looking very very penal commonly this.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Chunk of concrete, It says, this chunk of concrete is
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a byproduct of a major rehabilitation effort now underway on
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the island. It's been inspected by park historic preservation specialists
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: to be sure that it contains nothing of research potential.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So it's just looks like a piece of concrete but
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: it's actually a piece of Alcatraz. It's all mine.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: And interestingly it's in the news at the moment, of course,
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: because President Trump wants to reinstate it.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: As a jail, does he.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear that one. It needs well, I'll tell
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: him one thing for free. It needs work. It needs work.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: But it's only a fifteen minute trip to get over there. Yes,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: that's right, thirty nine, So yeah's it's worth visiting. Though,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: we better get down to the business of the day,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and that is astronomy in space science. And we'll start
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: off with this story fred a new theory on the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, all of that stuff
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: is rolled into this this paper that's been released through
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the Universe. City of Alabama in Huntsville. This is this
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: is a physics professor who's come up with alternative theories
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: in the past or other things. This one, though, is
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: probably going to get pulled apart under the microscope. What
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: he's suggesting is there might not have been one big bang,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: but lots of little bangs.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: That's right exactly, and you know you've you've described it perfectly.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: It's a really interesting theory in that if you have
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: lots of little bangs rather than one big one. Apparently,
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: mathematically you can get rid of dark matter and dark energy,
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: which are of course the two big problems in current cosmology.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: What are these And just a bit of background there.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Dark energy, we think is the property of space that
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: makes the expanding universe accelerating its expansion, although there's just
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: we're just starting to see evidence that that might slow
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: down that acceleration. It looks as though it was more
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: rapid five billion years ago than it is today. And that's,
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: you know, new news. I guess on the on the
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: what you might call the conventional picture, and of course
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: the other half of that is the dark matter, which
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: is something that we believe holds galaxies together and holds
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: clusters of galaxies together, which is invisible and undetectable except
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: by its gravity. Two big problems for modern cosmology. So
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: Professor new It thinks that he's solved both of these
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: with a theory that it's got a name.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: I can't remember what it is.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: It's his paper is entitled I can't find the title
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: of his paper. It's something like getting rid of dark
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: matter and dark energy. It's basically the idea exactly as
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: you've said, is that you instead of having one big bang,
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: you you have several little ones that sort of every
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: time you get one, they you know, it sort of
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: restarts things in an odd way. And that's the bit
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: of this that I have to say, I don't understand
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: because we have such great evidence that there's only been
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: one big bang, and that is the fact that we
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: still see it the cosmic microwave background radiation.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wasn't that wouldn't that just wipe this theory out instantaneously?
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: Well, unless he suggests that you get, you know, a
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: new microwave background radiation every time there's one of these
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: mini big bangs. But that actually flies in the face
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: of the research, the observations that Professor lew is suggesting
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: that we do to detect these multiple big bangs. I
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: think the cosmic microwave back radiation is a showstopper for this.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: And the reason is when we look out into space,
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: we see progressively objects, most notably galaxies, at different red shifts.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: They're increasing red shift.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: It's the red shift is the move of the of
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: the light to the red end of the spectrum. It's
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: what we measure. We believe it's happening because space is expanding.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: That stretches the light waves and gives you the red shift.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: And if you look at a high enough redshift, what
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: you see you see the big Bank, You see the
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: cosmic microwave background radiation, the flash of the Big Bang
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: when it became from when the universe became transparent about
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: three hundred and eighty thousand years after the Big Bang event. Now,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: what Professor lew is saying is that you could test
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: his theory by looking for as you look back in time,
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: in other words, that increasing red shifts, look for jumps
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: in red shift, which you know it might mean that
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: if you're looking along a particular line of sight, you
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: see all the galaxies along that line of sight, you
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: see them gradually increasing in red shift, and then suddenly
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: you see a jump in redshift, which looks as though
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: something's missing. And what he's suggesting is that's where you
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: get a mini Big Bang. But that, as I said,
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: flies in the face of the cosmic micround radiation, because
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: that is at the most extreme red shift we can observe.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: It's a the red shift of about thirteen hundred because
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: the universe has expanded by a factor similar to that
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: in the time since since it became transparent, which is
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: what we can see. We can see the opaque universe
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: at that great distance. So that's my take on it
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: for what it's worth from a non cosmologist. But it's
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: causing interest.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: It's really, you.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: Know, actually an interesting piece of work. I haven't looked
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: at the original paper, but as you pointed out, I
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: think you found this one, Andrew. This is on the
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Brighter Side of News website. There's a lovely piece of
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: pros at the end of that article which I'd love
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: to read out to you, quotching the brighter side of news.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: Instead of hunting for invisible ingredients i e. Dark matter
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: and dark energy. Instead of hunting for invisible ingredients, scientists
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: might start listening for the echoes of ancient, unstoppable bursts,
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: the hidden rhythms of a universe still in motion.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Very poetic, very very I think the paper is titled
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: are dark matter and dark energy Omnipresent?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Yes? That's yeah, I had that, but I couldn't remember it. Now,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Well why would you remember that? Yes, So watch this space.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: We'll see what other physicists and astronomers may of it,
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: and hopefully see a bit more.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: That's What I like about these papers is that everybody
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: gets to read them and go, Okay, I think that's
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: wrong and this is why, or I think that could
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: be on the money, and this is why. You know,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: everybody gets a say in it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: So it gets.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Bounced around like a yeah, it's a pinball until everyone
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: seems to settle on some agreeable potential answer.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Would that be right?
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, And it's a consensus. It's you know,
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: as the scientific consensus emerges, that's what we then regard
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: as as the standard.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Model, if I can put it that way.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: But often, like some of this particular work, is going
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: to take a lot to verify it, and looking for
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: redshift steps might be one way of doing it. And
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: in fact I was going to mention this that is
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: not new. I remember back in the seventies when I
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: was working at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, one of
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: my colleagues was looking for what he called quantized redshifts,
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: redshifts that appeared in groups among the galaxies, which is
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: the sort of thing that you might expect Professor Lew's research.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: To throw up. He didn't find them.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: That the person who was my colleague at Edinburgh he did,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: he never found them, so but that was, of course,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: with nineteen seventy technology. We have moved on a very,
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: very long way since then. Just a little bit.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sure we'll hear more about this story as
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: people analyze his theory. So we'll keeping on that. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: as Fred said, it's available for you to read on
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the bright side dot news website. Let me tell you
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  Speaker 1: space Nuts. Now back to the show space Nuts. Now, Fred,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: let's move on to another story that we've looked at
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: many times, and that is planet nine. Although this is
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: probably not about planet nine, but they have been looking
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: at data that suggests there is an out of planet
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: further out than I think we're planet dark nine should be.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: So this could is this planet ten or nine point
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: five or what.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: I think they're calling it eight and a half because
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: we've got yes, this is not planet nine, that is
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: planet eight point five.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Right, that's okay, So what's the story.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: So well, let's scan backwards to two thousand and sixteen.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: I think it was, yeah, twenty sixteen, when two US
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: astronomers basically puts out paper suggesting that the fact that
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: we've got all these distant asteroid orbits these are objects
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: trans Neptunian objects, objects that are beyond the orbit of Neptune,
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: and in fact, some of them are called extreme trans
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Neptunian objects, objects a long way beyond the orbit of Neptune,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: whose orbits are highly elliptical, they're very very elongated, but
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: they seem to line up the you know, the elongated
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: orbit seemed to line up, and they suggested that was
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: because there's a planet out there that we haven't found.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: They call it Planet nine. They think it's probably ten
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: times the mass of the Earth, what you might call
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: a super Earth or a sub Neptune. Those are the
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: planets that are kind of common in other solar systems
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: but are missing in our Solar system. So it sort
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: of fit fit the bill. Lots of enthusiasm for this,
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: but also again lots of controversy. I think I've probably
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: mentioned to you at the beginning of last year, was it.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: I think yes.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: When I was in Canada, I spoke to a planetary
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: scientist there who said Planet nine is rubbish. And that
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: was somebody who was well tuned with you know, with
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: the with the science anyway, we now have a.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: New theory or.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: Sorry, some new observations which come from astronomers in Taiwan,
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: Japan and here in Australia. And what they've done is
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: they've looked through archival images from two infrared satellites. One
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: was called IRAS, which I remember well. It was a
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: NASA Netherlands UK satellite dating from nineteen eighty three, a
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: very very productive satellite, infrared astronomy satellite, that's what the
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: abbreviation was. And Akari, which was a kind of Japanese equivalent,
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: which was launched quite a long time later in two
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: thousand and six. And that means, excuse me, both these
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: satellites surveyed the sky.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Excuse my frog in my throat.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: But they are you know, they're doing it at two
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: completely different times, which are twenty five ish years apart.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: And so what that means is that if there's something
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: deep in the Solar system that is slowly moving, you
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: will you might be able to pick it up, pick
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: up its motion on these sets of images that were
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: taken so far apart in time.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: That's what they've found.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: They basically had two million objects in the two catalogs,
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: and they got down to I think it was thirteen
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: candidates of objects that moved slowly across the sky in
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: the time, and then they looked at each one by eye.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: Some of them probably turned out to be flaws in
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: the data and things of that sort, but one of
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: them actually looked very promising because the two observations, the
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: Iras and Nikari observations, separated by twenty odd years, showed
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: an object that had moved, but its color and its
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: brightness were the same in both images, and so they
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: are suspecting that that makes it the same object rather
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: than two bits of data or.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Something like that. Now it's it's actually.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: Something different from what Planet nine has been suspected. First
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: of all, this object, if it is real, goes around
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: the Sun in the opposite direction from everything else. It's
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: tilted way over its orbits tilted at one hundred and
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: twenty degrees, which because it's more than ninety degrees, means
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: it's going the wrong way around. Whereas planet nine, the
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: theory that was built around these extreme trans Neptunian objects
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: that you know, provided a model for planet nine that
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: really needed a very low orbit tilt fifteen degrees or
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: so in order to do the stretching of these orbits
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: or the alignment of these orbits. So the two scientists
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: who were the original proposers of planet nine might grow
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: and constanting Latigin, they say, well, whatever this is, it's
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: not planet nine, and it's it's but it may be
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: something else.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: That's the.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Inference that this thing may be real, and it clearly
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: needs more data to determine whether it's a real object.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: If it is, it might as exactly as we were
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: said before, might be planet eight and a half or
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: nine and a half. I guess the best bet for
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: finding it is going to be when we get the V. C.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Rubin Observatory online, which is going to be towards the
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: end of this year, and that is going to be
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: able to look at the Southern Sky, which I think
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: is where this object is. I can't remember what constellation
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: it was in, but it's going to be able to
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: look at the Southern sky in much detail, and it
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: may find Planet nine, or it may confirm Plant eight
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: and a half, or may just tell us there's nothing
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: out there at all. So this is something that we're
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: going to look forward to, and you and I will
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: talk about it, I'm sure.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And this has also created another issue because if
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: this is a planet beyond where planet nine should be,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: there is another theory that suggests that it will basically
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: eliminate the potential existence of planet nine because they would
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: interfere with each other, and that's not evident in this data.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: That's correct, that's right.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, you picked up on something I've forgotten when
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: I when I read the piece.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: It's if this is a real object, it would not
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: be compatible with there being a planet nine, which would
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: actually be much nearer than this. This is a long
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: long way away, right on the edge of the Solar System,
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: if it's real, and it would conflict with the idea
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: of a planet nine. Yes, So so it may be
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: that this will if it turns out to be the
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: right thing, If it turns out to be a real thing,
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: then it might not the planet nine theory on the
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: head altogether.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: But it's still just as exciting because it's it's it's
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: a planet.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be a planet that's.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Want to be a planet regardless, So yeah, forget planet nine, yeah, whatever,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. Yeah, Well, hopefully we can we can
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: find that one they might end up calling a planet
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: nine anyway, because well.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: That's what it will be, what it will be exactly.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting. This one just keeps coming up.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm giving it does. Yeah, I love it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: If you would like to read up on that, it's
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: been published on the website science dot org. This is
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Space
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Nuts now Fred quick stories about various things that are happening,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: mainly involving space craft or space missions or lack of
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: although the last story is more of a budget cut issue.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: But let's go back to nineteen seventy two when the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union and the United States were very heavily involved
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: in the space race, and the Soviet Union launched a
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: spacecraft that was supposed to send a lander to Venus,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: didn't quite make it, and now it's coming it's probably
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: going to crash back down to worse.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: So Cosmos four to eight to two was the name
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: of the mission, and it was on its way to Venus.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: You're absolutely right. But apparently one of the final stages
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: in the rocket, the upper stage, the booster, basically malfunctioned
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: and so the spacecraft went in orbit around the Earth.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: It's probably quite a big orbit. I'm not sure if
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: its dimensions, but it's so it's been in orbit around
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: the Earth for the last fifty three years, and that
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: time has now come when its orbit is decaying and
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: it looks as though it is going to re enter
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: the Earth's atmosphere, and with actually a prediction for its
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: century almost as soon as the end of this week.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: It's and that's very hard to predict because it is
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: it's uncontrolled. It doesn't have you know, it doesn't have
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: any any sort of way of being being directed as
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: to where it will re enter the atmosphere, so it'll
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: come down in a random place. And as you mentioned
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: earlier on, it's it's dangerous in a sense because this
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: spacecraft was designed to penetrate the atmosphere of Venus, and
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: Venus's atmosphere is much thicker than our atmosphere. Now, it
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: would have been a controlled entry into the atmosphere of Venus,
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: it would have had breaking rockets to slow it down,
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: which it doesn't have coming into the Earth's atmosphere. But
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: it does mean that there might be bits of this
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: capsule which will actually survive re entry and could land
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: on the grounds. One to watch I think is this
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: because we could see a headline that this piece of
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: ancient space junk has landed in somebody's paddic or we're
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: still landed on somebody's house, and we'll probably cause global news.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: So look out for news on that within the next
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: few days.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: It might create one heck of a fireball.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: It could, Yes, that's right, Yeah, it could. As it comes.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Down, we don't know. We don't know where it might.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Land at this stage. It's one of these.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Very unpredictable, unpredictable scenarios, So it could just land anywhere.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, odds are it's going to miss something significant.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: It's just probably going to land in Probably water would
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: be most likely.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Well, that's that's correct, because water is what covers most
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: of the Earth or seventy five percent, that's right, And
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: that sort of tends to be what happens with re
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: entering space ABAE.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Most of it goes into the ocean.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they go on to say that the risk
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of something getting hit is not particularly high, but not zero.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: That's great, But I guess that's always the case with
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: anything coming through the atmospheres. Yes, watch with interest, keep
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: your eye on the sky. That story in Space Daily
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: dot com. Let's move on to our next story. This
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: is really exciting news. Lockheed Martin has finished the Orion
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: capsule which is going to be put on top of
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Artemis two.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: Indeed, that's right for launch next year, and Artemis two
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: will will carry four astronauts and in a in a
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: repeat mission of Artemis one, which was basically going to
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: the Moon and back, going into a very elongated orbit
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: around the Moon, and then coming back to Earth, re
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: entering and landing back on Earth. That was all done
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: as a dress rehearsal. It's I think it's two years
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: ago now, and it worked flawlessly. Actually, everything worked very
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: well after a few hiccups on the launch pad. So
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: Artemis two is the same thing, but will carry a crew.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: I think the capsule has been I think it's had
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: some upgrades from the original planned one.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: And I think they I think they put a toilet
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: in it.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: That would be very good if they did.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: These are We've got a quote here that comes from
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: one of the Lockheed Martin technical engineers. To support the
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: health and safety of the crew, this new systems have
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: been added, which include life support, air water, thermal control,
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: waste management as you said, displays and controls, audio communications,
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: an exercise machine, and a fully functional launcher boort system
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: and so and lots and lots of other bells and
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: whistles on it. And so there'll be a lot of
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: work now to kind of get the thing ready for
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: launch next year. But yes, Artemis is on track for
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: Artemists too, flying very soon.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they will carry astronauts this time.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: This will be a human.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Mission and they're going to go way past the Moon
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: like the first mission. Yes, will this be a record
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: as to the furthest people have been out?
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: It will indeed, that's right, it's going to be the
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: you know, it's going to be the furthest from Earth
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: that any human has ventured.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: So that's yes, Yeah, the moment, I think that record
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: is held by Michael Collins because he was by himself,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't he in the Apollos actual?
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that might be right. I mean, all the Apollo astronauts,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: the the what was it it was the capsule commander
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: I think were left in orbit around the Moon. I
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: don't know, until some of those orbits might have been
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: higher than others.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I just said rings a bell. I think
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be corrected.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I could look it up.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: But yeah, bother we've got Space notes listeners.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: They're very quick to correctors.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, But this is all the exciting news and it
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: looks yeah, they're looking at was it April next year
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: or launch? Everything on schedule at the moment. But this
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: is another example of the collaborative effort to put these
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: missions together. It's Lockheed Martin's just one company. I think
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: air Bus is involved in this as well, and so
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: many others. So we will watch with interest. I'm kind
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: of glad they put that life support system in. That
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: would probably be useful.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: It might be, yes, it might be helpful.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Indeed, you can find plenty of stories that talk about
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: that particular mission online if you care to search. One
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: final thing, Fred, and this is probably not good news,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and that is a potential budget cuts that will hit
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: NASA pretty hard.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Very hard. Yeah.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: So this is the White House has proposed federal spending
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: budget for twenty twenty six, and there's cuts in many,
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: many areas. But NASA have actually taken the brunt of
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: this with a cut facing a possible cut has to
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: be approved clearly, but it's twenty four point three percent,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: coming down from twenty four point eight billion in this
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: financial year to eighteen point eight billion in the next
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: financial year. And of course, so many of NASA's programs
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: are very very sensitive to funding. Many of them are
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: on shoe string budgets, you know, like keeping the Voyagers
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: in Touch and the deep space programs, all of that,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: possible future missions for new horizons, that's all you have
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: to worry about the future of them. What's perhaps more significant,
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: and you know, I can see sort of where this
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: is going is we've just been talking about Artemis. The
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: current Artemis program has I think five missions, which the
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: last ones would have you know, would have.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: The Gateway, the Gateway.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: Space station in orbit around the Moon. Basically, the cuts
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: would bring the Artemis mission to an end. After Artemis three,
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: Gateway would be canceled, and those later Artemis landings would
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: be canceled as well, and the sort of load on
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: lunar exploration would then be taken by the private sector.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: That's the idea that you get the.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: Private sector to do it, which probably means SpaceX and
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: Blue Origin and companies like that, and so it will
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: be a remarkably big change to what's currently planned.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: So the.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: Launch vehicles for Artemis are the Space Launch System SLS,
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: which uses recycled Shuttle components, and the Orion capsule. That's
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: what we've just been talking about. The capsule will hold astronaut.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: The idea would be to phase it out after the
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: three flights, after Artemis three, so that includes the SLS
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: as well.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: That would go.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and what I found in regards like twenty four
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: point three percent funding cut, that is a huge, huge cut.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: It is, and most of that would be felt in
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the Space and Earth Science divisions of NASA. And when
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: you look at what they do. Space Science Division does heliophysics,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: planetary science, and astrophysics, and the Earth Science Division looks
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: at atmospheric sciences, oceanography, land sciences, criosphere technology, biosphere technology.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I would have thought they were pretty important areas.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: But yes, yes, that's rue.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: They could get hammered in this if this budget cut
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: goes ahead. Do you think Elon has sort of been
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: saying to mister Trump, look, I can do this, you
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: don't have to pay for.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: I couldn't possibly guess that the conversations that go between
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: those two, but it wouldn't be rised.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a bit of a worry. Someone
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: else told me that they've totally cut funding to national
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: public Radio NPS, which is that's the US equivalent to
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the A b C.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: So I heard that.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: So that that's fairly tragic, I think in this scheme
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: of things.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so this this these budget proposals have to go
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: to the US Congress because they appropriate the funds, and
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: it's you know, it's remains to be seen what happens
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: after that. The Congress is fairly evenly balanced, I think politically, so.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, unlike unlike our new government that's just been elected there,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I think it's looking pretty lopsided at the moment.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, quite quite quite a result. That was Okay, thank
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: you for Verdi.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to look into that story about the
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: budget the potential budget cuts to that's a spaceflight now
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: dot com is the website. We're all done, Fred, Thank you.
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: It's been a pleasure, always good to talk and to
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: bring us ourselves up today as well as everybody.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Else on what's going on in the world of space
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: and astronomy.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Very true, all right, we'll catch you on the next episode.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you Fred, Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large. And
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: we would say thanks to here in the studio, but
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: he's not where us. Budget cuts or you know how
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: it goes. And don't forget to visit us on our
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: website social media, and please leave reviews on your favorite
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: podcasting platform apparently they're quite helpful. And from me Andrew Dunkley,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: thanks for your company. See you on the next episode
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: of Space Nuts.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Bye bye.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast player.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: This has been another quality podcast production from sites dot com.