Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / #453: Starliner Suit Dilemma, Iron Rain on WASP 76b & Kuiper Belt Mysteries

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#453: Starliner Suit Dilemma, Iron Rain on WASP 76b & Kuiper Belt Mysteries · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello again, thank you for joining us. This is Space Nuts.
0:03
Speaker 1: My name is Andrew Dunkley and glad you could join
0:06
Speaker 1: us yet again. Coming up on this episode star Liner. Yes,
0:10
Speaker 1: we have another update. This is a really strange problem,
0:14
Speaker 1: a really strange problem. Nothing to do with noises coming
0:17
Speaker 1: from the inside of the star Liner either. It's a
0:20
Speaker 1: completely different problem they probably never anticipated. We're also going
0:25
Speaker 1: to visit planet Wasp seven six B because it's got
0:29
Speaker 1: rain that you never want to get involved in unless
0:32
Speaker 1: you love heavy metal. The Kuiper Belt is busier than
0:37
Speaker 1: we thought, and they think they know where all the
0:40
Speaker 1: water went on Mars. It's not here, but it's somewhere.
0:44
Speaker 1: We'll tell you all about it on the current episode
0:47
Speaker 1: of Space Nuts fifteen.
0:51
Speaker 2: Channel ten nine Ignition.
0:55
Speaker 3: Space Nuts or three.
0:58
Speaker 1: Two one spaces Can I report it, Neils good and
1:06
Speaker 1: to tell us all about it is the man himself,
1:09
Speaker 1: Professor Fred. What's an Hello Fred?
1:14
Speaker 3: Hello, Andrew.
1:15
Speaker 2: It's good to be the mud himself. I appreciate that
1:17
Speaker 2: very much better than being the mud and somebody else.
1:20
Speaker 1: Yes, it probably happens sometimes. Yeah, No, good to see
1:26
Speaker 1: you too. We should get stuck straight into this because
1:29
Speaker 1: we've got a lot to get through, and some of
1:31
Speaker 1: these stories are extraordinary. We talked about Starliner last week
1:37
Speaker 1: and the issue of that noise coming from the inside,
1:41
Speaker 1: which turned out to be feedback on their audio system,
1:46
Speaker 1: which is not a big problem. You just turn off
1:49
Speaker 1: the speaker or the microphone or both. But the new
1:53
Speaker 1: problem is one involving the two astronauts who are basically
2:00
Speaker 1: stuck on the International Space Station because of the technical
2:04
Speaker 1: hitches that the Boeing star Liner is suffering. We're talking
2:07
Speaker 1: about Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams. Now they're looking at
2:14
Speaker 1: how they're going to get them back. There's talk of
2:16
Speaker 1: getting them back sometime next year. But a new problem
2:21
Speaker 1: has arisen as a consequence of one of the potential solutions.
2:26
Speaker 2: That's correct, So the potential solution, which is what's going
2:31
Speaker 2: to happen, and some of this may have already happened
2:33
Speaker 2: by the time this episode goes to air, in particularly,
2:36
Speaker 2: the star Liner itself might have come back empty, which
2:40
Speaker 2: is the plan at the moment. But the problem is
2:44
Speaker 2: when these two Boeing Starliner astronauts, Butcher and Sunny, as
2:50
Speaker 2: you've mentioned, when they do finally come back, it will
2:54
Speaker 2: not be on a star Liner spacecraft there will be
2:58
Speaker 2: coming back in a SpaceX Crew Dragon, and the space
3:03
Speaker 2: suits that you use on a star Liner are not
3:06
Speaker 2: the same as the ones that you use on a crew.
3:08
Speaker 3: Dragon, and they're incompatible.
3:11
Speaker 2: So what it means is that when their trip, when
3:16
Speaker 2: their ferry home is launched up to the space station,
3:20
Speaker 2: this will be the crew Dragon that is going to
3:22
Speaker 2: bring them back home next February.
3:24
Speaker 3: It's going up there.
3:25
Speaker 2: Sometime we think this month September, with two empty seats
3:29
Speaker 2: in it. They will also have to send up two
3:33
Speaker 2: empty space suits for Butch and Sunny. The reason why
3:39
Speaker 2: it's tricky is because it's you know, once once that
3:44
Speaker 2: once that spacecraft arrives, that's the crew Dragon later later
3:48
Speaker 2: this month. Once that arrives, the problem solved because there's
3:52
Speaker 2: NASA will send up their correct space suits with it.
3:56
Speaker 2: But if there's an issue before then, an issue in
4:00
Speaker 2: which the International Space Station has to be evacuated, and
4:05
Speaker 2: that's always at the back of people's minds. You've got
4:07
Speaker 2: to be ready to get off just in case something
4:09
Speaker 2: goes catastrophically wrong, like you know, a big bit of
4:13
Speaker 2: space junk colliding with it or something like that.
4:16
Speaker 3: If they had to return.
4:18
Speaker 2: There is a Crew Dragon docked with the space station
4:23
Speaker 2: at the moment, which will carry the current crew of
4:26
Speaker 2: four astronauts in what's called the Crew eight mission back
4:31
Speaker 2: to Earth, and it will have room for Sunny Williams
4:36
Speaker 2: and Bruce Wilmore. It will have space on a cargo
4:40
Speaker 2: palette underneath the seat.
4:43
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
4:46
Speaker 2: It's like riding in the back of the ute. So
4:50
Speaker 2: they're going to be huddled under there. But the problem
4:53
Speaker 2: is their spacesuit designed for the Starliner will work, so
5:00
Speaker 2: we're going to have to do it, so they have
5:03
Speaker 2: to leave them behind.
5:05
Speaker 1: They have to leave them behind and go and go
5:07
Speaker 1: home in their andes.
5:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably a little bit more than they're on this.
5:11
Speaker 2: But they will not be protected by a space suit,
5:14
Speaker 2: which has been standard practice for many decades in both
5:18
Speaker 2: NASA and ross Cosmos flights that you don't land or
5:22
Speaker 2: launch without your spacesuit on, just in case something goes
5:25
Speaker 2: wrong and the spacecraft to pressurize.
5:26
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but they will be in that situation. It's
5:32
Speaker 3: likely that you know, I mean, it would have.
5:33
Speaker 2: To be a real emergency situation for them to do that,
5:37
Speaker 2: and you would hope that everything would work out all right,
5:41
Speaker 2: but it is.
5:42
Speaker 3: Yes, it's putting them in an interesting position.
5:44
Speaker 1: So well, at the very best, they get to come
5:48
Speaker 1: home fever next year for very next year with alternative spacesuits,
5:55
Speaker 1: but in an emergency could end up having to come
5:58
Speaker 1: back without space suit.
6:00
Speaker 3: It's wow.
6:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, only if that emergency occurs before the crew line
6:04
Speaker 2: spacecraft gets there.
6:06
Speaker 3: So yeah. So it's a short window.
6:09
Speaker 2: When there is this situation, but it is a situation
6:11
Speaker 2: that has real risks.
6:14
Speaker 1: Gosh, wouldn't you love to be in a room just
6:17
Speaker 1: watching the people trying to figure all this out? How
6:20
Speaker 1: are we going to do this?
6:21
Speaker 3: What are we going to do?
6:22
Speaker 2: Oh?
6:22
Speaker 1: Hang on, there's a new problem. You know. We set
6:25
Speaker 1: that palette of bricks up. Can we use the palette?
6:30
Speaker 3: That's it? Yes, I never throw away a good parlort.
6:34
Speaker 1: No, that's right.
6:36
Speaker 3: They're very useful.
6:38
Speaker 1: People make Christmas trees out of them, you know.
6:41
Speaker 3: Well, I'm sure they do.
6:42
Speaker 1: My son's got a Christmas tree made out of an
6:44
Speaker 1: old palette.
6:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, looks nice.
6:47
Speaker 1: Wow. So that's the state of play as we speak.
6:51
Speaker 1: But like we're recording ahead of time to cover a
6:53
Speaker 1: trip of mine, so may well be a different story
6:57
Speaker 1: by the time this comes out. But that's that's that's
7:00
Speaker 1: a unique problem. I don't think I've ever heard of
7:02
Speaker 1: that one before. Fascinating. All right, well, we'll try to
7:07
Speaker 1: keep you informed, but time might work against us over
7:10
Speaker 1: the coming weeks. But yes, it's been a fascinating it's
7:15
Speaker 1: been the soap opera, really, hasn't it a little bit?
7:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, so sure of a story bullying.
7:20
Speaker 2: Wouldn't like it to be called but I think you're right.
7:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was better than a horror movie, Yes, exactly.
7:26
Speaker 1: Okay, let's move on to our next story, and this
7:30
Speaker 1: one takes us a long way away to a planet
7:34
Speaker 1: called Wasp seventy six B. It was only discovered what
7:39
Speaker 1: eleven years ago, but it's been the subject of a
7:42
Speaker 1: lot of study and they are learning more and more
7:45
Speaker 1: about it. And what's really good is they've been able
7:47
Speaker 1: to actually optically observe this one. I think, Fred it's
7:52
Speaker 1: a stink and hot place. Though Australians would like it.
7:55
Speaker 1: We like the heat.
7:57
Speaker 3: I'm sure you like this much.
8:01
Speaker 2: So, yes, it is a star that is very very
8:05
Speaker 2: close sorry, a planet that is very close to its
8:08
Speaker 2: parents style.
8:09
Speaker 3: The parents star is Wasp seventy six.
8:11
Speaker 2: And in the normal convention, you put a bee after
8:13
Speaker 2: it for the first planet that's discovered around it, and
8:16
Speaker 2: it's seventy six B, which is the planet that we're
8:20
Speaker 2: talking about. It's about something like getting on for twice
8:27
Speaker 2: the size of Jupiter.
8:28
Speaker 3: So it's what we call a hot Jupiter.
8:31
Speaker 2: But it is very very close to its parents star.
8:34
Speaker 2: Distance is measured almost its centimeters, not quite, but it's
8:40
Speaker 2: actually about forty million killer meters from its parent star.
8:45
Speaker 3: And now that sounds like a lot, but.
8:47
Speaker 2: It's such a you know, such a close place to
8:52
Speaker 2: its parent star that it goes around something like once
8:57
Speaker 2: every two.
8:59
Speaker 3: Days of their wealth. Is it ridiculously short length of time.
9:02
Speaker 2: I can't find the exact figure, but it's that sort
9:05
Speaker 2: of length of time. It absolutely whizzes around. It's actually
9:10
Speaker 2: one point.
9:11
Speaker 3: Eight earth days.
9:13
Speaker 2: And so that means a number of things. First of all,
9:15
Speaker 2: because the star and its planet is so close together,
9:19
Speaker 2: the star is more massive. It's actually I think more
9:22
Speaker 2: massive than the Sun, about one and a half times
9:25
Speaker 2: the mass of the Sun. What that means is that
9:28
Speaker 2: the planet itself is locked tidally, so it always faces
9:33
Speaker 2: its parent star.
9:35
Speaker 3: Wasn't seventy six and so you know, it's always got
9:39
Speaker 3: a hot side, and.
9:40
Speaker 2: Not exactly a cold side, but a cooler side. Now
9:44
Speaker 2: on the hot side, you've got temperature high enough to
9:50
Speaker 2: not just melt iron, but vaporize iron. So there is
9:55
Speaker 2: iron vapor in the atmosphere of this planet. It's about twenty.
9:58
Speaker 3: Four hundred degrees cell.
10:00
Speaker 2: You're about four three hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit on
10:04
Speaker 2: the hot side.
10:05
Speaker 3: Now that that vapor.
10:09
Speaker 2: Is whizzed around by really strong winds that exist on
10:13
Speaker 2: WASP seventy six B, and those winds are generated by
10:17
Speaker 2: the sheer heat of the atmosphere being so close to
10:22
Speaker 2: its parents star, so that this vaporized iron whizzes around
10:26
Speaker 2: to the backside of the planet, the night side, the
10:29
Speaker 2: permanent night side, and there is it gets cooler, cool
10:33
Speaker 2: enough to be not vapor but liquid, and so it condenses.
10:39
Speaker 2: It condenses into droplets of iron rain. So iron rain
10:44
Speaker 2: to me does not sound that good. Yes, it's cooler,
10:49
Speaker 2: but not that much cooler.
10:51
Speaker 1: So you've got you'd have to come up with a
10:53
Speaker 1: really good umbrella.
10:56
Speaker 2: I think you would too. But that's that's only part
11:00
Speaker 2: of the story. And I should say that this planet
11:03
Speaker 2: has become almost the personal property of scientists at the
11:08
Speaker 2: University of Geneva in Switzerland. They've done a lot of
11:12
Speaker 2: serious research on this planet and it's a release from
11:16
Speaker 2: them that's really discovered these very hot winds of vaporized iron.
11:23
Speaker 2: It's such an extreme planet that it's well worth studying
11:26
Speaker 2: because it gives you an idea of, you know, how
11:29
Speaker 2: extreme things can be, and sheds light on other planets
11:34
Speaker 2: which are also in our part of the universe.
11:38
Speaker 3: So that there's just an aside.
11:40
Speaker 2: The work that's been done in Geneva is using a
11:43
Speaker 2: telescope that we Australian astronomers also have access to, the
11:47
Speaker 2: ESO European Southern Observatory, very large telescope down in Chile.
11:51
Speaker 2: There's an instrument on that.
11:54
Speaker 3: That is.
11:56
Speaker 2: Excuse me, I just have to press a button of
11:59
Speaker 2: my watch here worry about that. There's an instrument on
12:03
Speaker 2: that that was actually built by the University of Geneva.
12:06
Speaker 2: So that's what they're using to make these measurements of
12:09
Speaker 2: the vaporized iron whizzing around the planet. But wait, there's more,
12:14
Speaker 2: because some research done I think by the same group
12:21
Speaker 2: and published a little while ago. Actually we missed this
12:23
Speaker 2: story back in April. It's work that concerns what might
12:29
Speaker 2: happen to those iron droplets in the atmosphere. Yes, you've
12:33
Speaker 2: got iron rain. Now, when we have rain on our planet,
12:41
Speaker 2: you get phenomena like rainbows and things of that sort.
12:45
Speaker 2: And there's evidence that phenomena like that are occurring on
12:50
Speaker 2: WASP seventy six B, not specifically rainbows, but rainbow like phenomena.
12:57
Speaker 2: And in particular, it's something called a glory, which most
13:00
Speaker 2: of us have actually seen, believe it or not, and
13:03
Speaker 2: I'm sure you have, Andrew.
13:05
Speaker 1: Does it happen in the morning, that's a different thing altogether,
13:15
Speaker 1: And I should explain to non Australian listeners that there is.
13:20
Speaker 2: A plant called the morning glory which blossoms in the morning.
13:24
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's what you were talking about. And no,
13:30
Speaker 2: a glory is is something I was just going to say.
13:34
Speaker 2: You've almost certainly seen it, because if you've looked out
13:38
Speaker 2: of the window of an aircraft that's flying over cloud,
13:41
Speaker 2: you will often see a little shadow of the aircraft
13:44
Speaker 2: from if you're on the right side of the plane,
13:47
Speaker 2: with circular colored rings around it, and that's called the glory.
13:52
Speaker 2: It occurs because light is being diffracted by the rain
13:56
Speaker 2: droplets in the clouds, and diffraction process splits it up
14:01
Speaker 2: into its rainbow colors, and you see this succession of
14:04
Speaker 2: rainbow rings similar to something you might have seen today
14:09
Speaker 2: if you'd be looking in the right direction, which is
14:12
Speaker 2: called a pollen corona.
14:13
Speaker 1: Yes, I should go out there and try and take
14:16
Speaker 1: another photo.
14:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got a lovely photo of all last year.
14:19
Speaker 1: Well the yeah, and a few years back when you
14:21
Speaker 1: first told me about them, and I took up the
14:23
Speaker 1: challenge and I went outside and I couldn't see it
14:26
Speaker 1: because it was so bright, but the camera picked it
14:29
Speaker 1: up and got a beautiful photo of a pollen corona. Yeah,
14:34
Speaker 1: they're quite strong, which they are.
14:37
Speaker 2: And the corona is a little bit different because it's
14:39
Speaker 2: around the sun when you're looking towards the sun, but
14:42
Speaker 2: it's still caused by this same diffraction effect and a glory.
14:46
Speaker 1: We've got this very windy day today, and it's sunny
14:49
Speaker 1: and the sun is just in the perfect position, so
14:52
Speaker 1: I might go out and take a snapshot.
14:55
Speaker 3: Are you going to do it now?
14:57
Speaker 1: Not right this minute?
14:58
Speaker 3: That's good.
14:59
Speaker 2: I'm glad to to hear that, because otherwise I had
15:01
Speaker 2: to waffle on for a little while and might rather
15:04
Speaker 2: be talking to you. So, yeah, so, but you're familiar,
15:09
Speaker 2: I'm sure with that phenomenon. Looking down from an aircraft,
15:12
Speaker 2: you see the clouds, you see often see the shadow
15:15
Speaker 2: of the plane, and around it is this glory, this
15:19
Speaker 2: succession of colored rings. We think that might be occurring
15:23
Speaker 2: on WASP seventy six B. And the reason why scientists,
15:28
Speaker 2: as you said, at the University of Geneva and actually
15:33
Speaker 2: the Institute of Mastrophysics and Space Science in Portugal, there's
15:38
Speaker 2: a group involved with it there too.
15:41
Speaker 3: They have.
15:44
Speaker 2: Worked out from asymmetries in what we call an asymmetric
15:52
Speaker 2: like curve. The light curve is the way the light
15:54
Speaker 2: of this planet varies as it goes around its parents star,
15:58
Speaker 2: and you expect that to be more less symmetrical, because
16:01
Speaker 2: when it is on one side of the star, it's
16:04
Speaker 2: shining with a particular.
16:05
Speaker 3: Brightness, and it should be the same when it's on the.
16:07
Speaker 2: Other side of the start. But they've discovered it's not.
16:10
Speaker 2: There are asymmetries in it, so it's not symmetrical, and
16:13
Speaker 2: these scientists are putting that down to the existence of
16:16
Speaker 2: a glory on the in the clouds of WASPS andy
16:20
Speaker 2: six b, which is quite an extraordinary claim, really in
16:23
Speaker 2: an extraordinary discovering.
16:24
Speaker 1: What would what would an iron iron rain rainbow look like?
16:30
Speaker 2: Pretty hot? I think no, it's a good, good question.
16:34
Speaker 2: So it depends on the transparency of the droplets, which
16:40
Speaker 2: I find it hard to, you know, to get my
16:43
Speaker 2: head around transparent iron droplets, because you think of iron
16:49
Speaker 2: as being a metal. But if it's heated enough and
16:52
Speaker 2: it's on the point of becoming vapor, the droplets might
16:56
Speaker 2: be quite transparent.
16:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, and would give you these various.
17:01
Speaker 2: Phenomena refraction and diffraction. But it's something, yes, we need
17:05
Speaker 2: to look into. And I can hear you typing on
17:07
Speaker 2: your keyboards. You're probably doing it as we speak.
17:09
Speaker 1: I'm trying to see whether or not there is a
17:12
Speaker 1: color for iron vapor. But it's not something that's been
17:16
Speaker 1: searched for very much, so there's not many references to it. Yeah,
17:21
Speaker 1: it might be something for another day, indeed. Yeah, great story, though,
17:26
Speaker 1: so much to learn from what's seventy six b. And
17:29
Speaker 1: was I right that it's one that has been observed optically?
17:35
Speaker 2: I think it's still yes, but not directly. I think
17:39
Speaker 2: what has been measured is the way the combined brightness
17:43
Speaker 2: of the star and the planet change as it goes
17:45
Speaker 2: around in it's all bit. I think that's the optical observations.
17:50
Speaker 1: Okay, very good. If you'd like to read up on
17:52
Speaker 1: that story, you can find out more about it the
17:55
Speaker 1: Iron Rains of WASP seventy six B in the Journal
18:00
Speaker 1: Astronomy and Astrophysics. There's a space nuts Andrew Dunkley here
18:05
Speaker 1: with Professor Fred Watson.
18:09
Speaker 3: Okay, we take a.
18:12
Speaker 1: Space nuts.
18:14
Speaker 3: Oh that was a short break.
18:16
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to take a breath.
18:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. You don't get time for breaths in this No.
18:24
Speaker 1: Our next story takes us to the Kuiper Belt. Now
18:28
Speaker 1: what's interesting about the Kuiper Belt is well, just about
18:30
Speaker 1: everything about it. But now they think it might actually
18:34
Speaker 1: be bigger, deeper, and more occupied than we first thought. Fascinating.
18:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
18:40
Speaker 2: So a very nice combination of astronomical infrastructure here, because
18:50
Speaker 2: this is work that combines the Japanese Subaru telescope on
18:55
Speaker 2: Monica in Hawaii, which is an eight meter class telescope
19:00
Speaker 2: named Subaru after the Japanese name for the Pliades the
19:03
Speaker 2: Seven Sisters, and the work has been done in collaboration
19:10
Speaker 2: with the mission scientists of New Horizons. The spacecraft that
19:14
Speaker 2: is leaving the Solar System, one of five that's leaving
19:17
Speaker 2: the Solar System. Now, you and I spoke about New
19:20
Speaker 2: Horizons not very long ago, because it's used its cameras
19:24
Speaker 2: to measure the night sky brightness, so it's just the
19:29
Speaker 2: brightness of the sky because it's.
19:31
Speaker 3: Night all the time out there.
19:33
Speaker 2: This is sixty astronomical units from the Earth, which is
19:36
Speaker 2: where the spacecraft is at the moment. Remember, one astronomical
19:40
Speaker 2: unit is one hundred and fifty million kilometers.
19:42
Speaker 3: It's the distance between the Earth.
19:44
Speaker 2: And the silm so a long long way, sixty times
19:48
Speaker 2: further away from the Sun than the Earth is. And
19:52
Speaker 2: it's the New Horizons flew by Jup between twenty fifteen, sorry,
19:57
Speaker 2: flew by Pluto twenty fifteen, flew by Arakoth a couple
20:01
Speaker 2: of years later, a distant Kuiper Belt object, and used
20:04
Speaker 2: his cameras to very good effect. He's got fantastic cameras
20:07
Speaker 2: on board.
20:08
Speaker 3: Now.
20:09
Speaker 2: The mission team of New Horizons, which is still scanning
20:13
Speaker 2: for new Kuiper Belt objects to try and divert New
20:17
Speaker 2: Horizons too to have a close look at. Given the
20:22
Speaker 2: limited fuel that they've got on board New Horizons. In
20:24
Speaker 2: order to do that diversion, they've got to be fairly
20:28
Speaker 2: careful about what they choose, and at the moment there
20:30
Speaker 2: are no candidates.
20:32
Speaker 3: And part of the.
20:32
Speaker 2: Problem for that is that whilst New Horizons has got,
20:35
Speaker 2: as I said, superb cameras on board, they're not wide
20:38
Speaker 2: angle cameras. They're not the kind of camera that you
20:40
Speaker 2: want to use for searching for potential candidates. And for
20:44
Speaker 2: that you need a wider field of view. And it
20:47
Speaker 2: turns out that back here on Earth, back home on
20:51
Speaker 2: our sunny planet, as it is for me now, the
20:54
Speaker 2: Subaru telescope has a wide field camera which is capable
20:58
Speaker 2: of detecting these faint objects at these great distances from
21:05
Speaker 2: the Earth. And so the combination of the two of
21:08
Speaker 2: them has been to identify some Couiper Belt objects that
21:12
Speaker 2: New Horizons can sort of foam in on at least
21:14
Speaker 2: with its camera not necessarily being diverted there, but they
21:18
Speaker 2: can have a look at it with the New Horizons
21:20
Speaker 2: camera because it's much closer than Subaru is. Subaru can
21:23
Speaker 2: find these objects and say there's a target that you
21:26
Speaker 2: need to look at, and New Horizons.
21:28
Speaker 3: Can then have a close look at it.
21:29
Speaker 2: And the upshot of all this is that it looks
21:33
Speaker 2: as though the Kuiper Belt has more these icy asteroids
21:38
Speaker 2: in it than we thought. Basically, we thought that the
21:41
Speaker 2: Kuiper Belt ran out of steam roughly at the distance
21:44
Speaker 2: where new Horizons is sixty astronomical units from the Sun.
21:50
Speaker 2: But it turns out that there's more. They've found a
21:53
Speaker 2: population of these things beyond and in the region of
21:58
Speaker 2: a dozen I think or so that have been found
22:00
Speaker 2: so far, perhaps a few more than that, but these
22:03
Speaker 2: kind of cluster around eighty astronomical units from the Sun,
22:08
Speaker 2: so another you know, another quarter, sorry third of the
22:11
Speaker 2: distance away, you've got another group of these objects, which
22:16
Speaker 2: is something that.
22:18
Speaker 3: Was not known. We do know that the icy.
22:21
Speaker 2: Asteroids beyond Neptune, which we call trans Neptunian objects, we
22:25
Speaker 2: know that they do group into different groups, and the
22:28
Speaker 2: Kuiper Belt is the innermost of those groups. There are
22:32
Speaker 2: some things called scattered disc objects, which are much further away,
22:36
Speaker 2: and I don't think that's what we're looking at though.
22:39
Speaker 2: We're not looking at.
22:39
Speaker 3: The scattered disc. We're looking seriously at the Kuiper Belt
22:42
Speaker 3: and finding that there's more in it. Than we thought
22:44
Speaker 3: there were.
22:46
Speaker 2: And the conclusion to be drawn from that is that
22:50
Speaker 2: perhaps the protoplanetary disc around the Sun when the planets
22:54
Speaker 2: were being formed was bigger than what we thought it was,
22:57
Speaker 2: because we're finding debris out there that is almost certainly
23:00
Speaker 2: left over from that process. But it's further away from
23:03
Speaker 2: the some than we expected.
23:05
Speaker 1: Okay, now someone's going to think of it, So I'll
23:08
Speaker 1: just ask if this is the case, and we've got
23:11
Speaker 1: a bigger Kuiper Belt than we thought, and there's much
23:14
Speaker 1: more junk out there from you know, our Solar System origins.
23:21
Speaker 1: Could planet nine be a part of that? Or is
23:24
Speaker 1: it not? You is it further out than even that?
23:28
Speaker 2: No, that's a great question. And the thinking with planet
23:32
Speaker 2: nine is that it is much further away, perhaps twice
23:35
Speaker 2: that distance, right, But we don't, you know. The thinking
23:41
Speaker 2: about the hypothetical planet nine is that it affects these objects,
23:46
Speaker 2: these really most distant objects in the trans Neptunian region
23:52
Speaker 2: beyond Neptune, and it changes their orbits. That's that's the
23:56
Speaker 2: thinking why some astronomers believe that planet nine exists. Some
24:00
Speaker 2: believe it doesn't exist as well. Talk to one earlier
24:03
Speaker 2: in the year who was a planetary scientist who said, no,
24:07
Speaker 2: it's probably in the sky. So you've got very different opinions.
24:11
Speaker 2: But anyway that you know that that idea of planet
24:17
Speaker 2: nine being part of this part of this new population
24:21
Speaker 2: of Copper Belt objects, I think it's too far away
24:23
Speaker 2: to be included with in what is being considered here.
24:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's certainly a great discovery that the Kype
24:30
Speaker 1: Belt might be bigger and contain a lot more objects
24:34
Speaker 1: than we ever thought.
24:35
Speaker 3: So probably a lot.
24:37
Speaker 1: More to learn and a lot more to talk about
24:39
Speaker 1: going forward, and you can find out more about it
24:42
Speaker 1: when they publish. I think there's a couple of papers
24:45
Speaker 1: on this which will be published in the planetary science journal.
24:55
Speaker 3: Space Nuts.
24:56
Speaker 1: Okay, moving on from the Kuiper Belt to a little
25:00
Speaker 1: rock closer to its parent star, and that is a
25:04
Speaker 1: planet called Mars. And one of the things that gets
25:08
Speaker 1: people scratching their heads about Mars is what happened to
25:11
Speaker 1: the water, what happened to the atmosphere? You know, what
25:14
Speaker 1: happened all the dogs and cats that lived there. But
25:20
Speaker 1: we may have an answer on the water issue.
25:23
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, And again this is a really nice
25:26
Speaker 2: collaboration between very well known facilities, and that both NASA facilities.
25:32
Speaker 2: In this case, NASA has a spacecrafting orbit around Mars.
25:36
Speaker 2: It's got a number of space crafting orbits around Mars,
25:39
Speaker 2: but one of them is Marvin or MAVEN, which is
25:43
Speaker 2: an acronym for Mars atmosphere and volatile evolution. So as
25:48
Speaker 2: the name implies, Maven is looking at the atmosphere of Mars.
25:52
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why Maven was set to Mars,
25:55
Speaker 2: and in fact it's probably the best part of the
25:57
Speaker 2: decade ago, it's quite a long time ago. The reason
26:00
Speaker 2: for that was to look at exactly what we're talking about,
26:03
Speaker 2: the prospect of atoms leaving Mars's atmosphere, and the I
26:11
Speaker 2: guess the main culprit, especially if you're thinking about water,
26:16
Speaker 2: is hydrogen, because water is hydrogen and oxygen. We think
26:21
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why Mars has lost its water
26:24
Speaker 2: is is because of the dissociation of water into hydrogen
26:32
Speaker 2: and oxygen, and the hydrogen basically escapes from Mars's atmosphere,
26:36
Speaker 2: and that has been kind of demonstrated already by Maven.
26:42
Speaker 2: But there is an issue with the observations, and it
26:48
Speaker 2: is because during the Martian I think it's the northern
26:54
Speaker 2: hemisphere winter, it's Mars. Just to step back, I mean Mars.
27:01
Speaker 2: Mars has and orbits which is much less circular than
27:04
Speaker 2: the US orbits. It's highly elliptical, quite quite elongated. So
27:09
Speaker 2: for part of the year, Mars is significantly further away
27:13
Speaker 2: from the Sun and it is at other times of
27:17
Speaker 2: the year. And what happens is this spreading of hydrogen
27:23
Speaker 2: into space from Mars's a par atmosphere. Actually, in that period,
27:28
Speaker 2: when Mars is a long way away, it becomes too
27:30
Speaker 2: faint for Maven to see, and that is why the
27:37
Speaker 2: mission scientists have turned to the Hubble Space Telescope, another
27:41
Speaker 2: NASA facility which can see Mars pretty clearly and is
27:46
Speaker 2: able to actually provide data on the hydrogen escaping from
27:50
Speaker 2: Mars back to nineteen ninety one.
27:53
Speaker 3: Actually, and in fact, I've just.
27:55
Speaker 2: Seen that Maven arrived at Mars in twenty fourteen, so
27:58
Speaker 2: I guess of it being the best part of ten
28:00
Speaker 2: years was right about spot on. Now there's a subtlety
28:04
Speaker 2: to this though, that I just must mention, because it's
28:07
Speaker 2: not just the ordinary hydrogen that the.
28:10
Speaker 3: Hubble is helping out with.
28:12
Speaker 2: It is deuterium, the heavy hydrogen. And you and I
28:15
Speaker 2: have spoken about this before, that heavy hydrogen has an
28:21
Speaker 2: additional neutron, which means its mass is about twice A
28:25
Speaker 2: massive hydrogenism is about twice what it is normal hydrogen.
28:30
Speaker 2: We call it deuterium, sometimes called it heavy hydrogen, but
28:33
Speaker 2: we call it deuterium. If that combines with water, sorry
28:38
Speaker 2: with oxygen, then you get heavy water. And it's the
28:41
Speaker 2: ratio between these two that is the clue to what
28:45
Speaker 2: might have happened to Mars's oceans in the distant past.
28:50
Speaker 2: And so these scientists what they're doing is they're looking
28:52
Speaker 2: at the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium in the gas
28:57
Speaker 2: that is leaving Mars at present that it's a bit
29:01
Speaker 2: like carbon fourteen. Dating from that, it can work out,
29:04
Speaker 2: you know, how early in Mars is history that water left,
29:08
Speaker 2: how long, how long it's been.
29:11
Speaker 3: Being lost from Mars.
29:13
Speaker 1: So they can they can do the calculations backwards and
29:16
Speaker 1: see how long that's right, and the calculation that's it incredible.
29:21
Speaker 1: And so they've they've basically confirmed that it's this deuterium
29:28
Speaker 1: that's zipping out into the No, it's it's it's heavier,
29:32
Speaker 1: isn't it.
29:32
Speaker 3: So it's yes, so so he probably does.
29:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the heavy stuff probably stays stays closer to
29:40
Speaker 2: Mars than the light stuff. Right, but you've got to
29:43
Speaker 2: it's the ratio of the two of them that you're.
29:45
Speaker 1: Really interested in, and that's what's telling the tail.
29:49
Speaker 3: That is what's telling the tale. That's right, as is
29:52
Speaker 3: it phiz puts it.
29:54
Speaker 2: Ye, Measuring the ratio today gives scientists a clue as
29:57
Speaker 2: to how much water was present during the warm wet.
29:59
Speaker 3: Period on Mars.
30:01
Speaker 1: Fascinating. Yeah wow, all right, so we yeah, it's been
30:06
Speaker 1: sort of zipping off into the ether basically. Yeah, yes,
30:12
Speaker 1: and it's still happening by the description you gave.
30:16
Speaker 3: That's correact.
30:16
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, look, I'll read the next sentence to that,
30:19
Speaker 2: because it's beautifully put by a phizz dot org. By
30:22
Speaker 2: studying how these atoms currently escape, they can understand the
30:25
Speaker 2: processes that determine the escape rate over the last four
30:28
Speaker 2: billion years, and thereby extrapol aid back in time the
30:32
Speaker 2: nastly done. Indeed, I think I think actually that might
30:35
Speaker 2: be enough suppress release rather than a phystal org article.
30:39
Speaker 1: Okay, but you can read it on fizz dot org.
30:41
Speaker 1: You can also read the study in science advances that
30:47
Speaker 1: brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you
30:50
Speaker 1: so much. Fred.
30:52
Speaker 3: Oh it's a pleasure, Andrew. We should do it again sometime.
30:54
Speaker 3: We probably will in.
30:55
Speaker 1: A few minutes, will soon in a few days. Yes,
31:00
Speaker 1: thank you Fred, Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large. And
31:03
Speaker 1: thanks to Hugh in the studio for being Hugh in
31:06
Speaker 1: the studio and no one else can be Hugh in
31:08
Speaker 1: the studio. I can tell you that for free and
31:12
Speaker 1: from me Andrew Ugley. Thanks for listening in to another episode.
31:16
Speaker 1: Don't forget to leave some reviews and check our social
31:19
Speaker 1: media and our website while you're at it, and we
31:22
Speaker 1: will catch you again soon on another episode of Space Nuts.
31:26
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31:29
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31:38
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