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Dyson Spheres, Dark Matter Mysteries & Time Twists: #480 Q&A · 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. This is our final Fresh
0:06
Speaker 1: episode of the year, and I'll tell you what we're
0:08
Speaker 1: doing at the end of the episode over the Christmas
0:10
Speaker 1: New Year period. But it's a Q and A episode,
0:14
Speaker 1: which means we'll answer audience questions. We'll be basically focusing
0:20
Speaker 1: on Dyson spheres today. We'll be getting a question about
0:26
Speaker 1: the dark matter effect as a matter of fact, and
0:30
Speaker 1: black hole effects and time distortion without gravity and if
0:34
Speaker 1: you can chuck anything else, and we will time permitting
0:37
Speaker 1: on this Q and A edition of Space Nuts fifteen
0:41
Speaker 1: second the Channel ten nine ignition sign Space Nuts NI
0:49
Speaker 1: or three two.
0:53
Speaker 2: Space Nuts has.
0:54
Speaker 1: Been actually bought it.
0:55
Speaker 2: Bill's good And for.
0:57
Speaker 1: The last, last, last, last, last time official this year,
1:00
Speaker 1: we welcome Professor Fred What's an astronomer at Larchello. Fred?
1:04
Speaker 3: Hello, Andrew, good to see you again. You true really
1:08
Speaker 3: really been missing you.
1:11
Speaker 1: It's been so long. But yes, it is our final
1:14
Speaker 1: episode of the year and we've got all audio questions
1:18
Speaker 1: today and we'll try to answer one or two of them.
1:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's been a busy year. There's been a
1:25
Speaker 1: lot to talk about. Some amazing discoveries, some mysteries that
1:29
Speaker 1: continue to elude us, and that's what tends to spawn
1:33
Speaker 1: most of our questions. To be perfectly honest, are you
1:36
Speaker 1: ready to get into it? And we'll take question one?
1:41
Speaker 4: Why do we do that?
1:43
Speaker 1: Yes? Nothing else today? I think all the questions come
1:47
Speaker 1: from regular contributors. Our first one comes from mikey.
1:53
Speaker 2: Ethrid and Andrew Hope everything's well done there in the
1:56
Speaker 2: Southern Hammy. This is Mackey again from Illinois. If a
2:00
Speaker 2: dison sphere is a megastructure surround the star, how does
2:03
Speaker 2: the planet get light or is the planet inside of
2:08
Speaker 2: the dison sphere as well? And if the latter is
2:12
Speaker 2: the case, do you just prevent every other planet or
2:16
Speaker 2: that's already in that start from receiving any light, heat
2:18
Speaker 2: and energy, completely wiping out any other chances for life
2:22
Speaker 2: on any of those other planets and our moons orbiting
2:25
Speaker 2: it like you know, like Europa or tighten here, I
2:29
Speaker 2: mean without if I'm biggeno this right, If a dice
2:32
Speaker 2: and sphere in cases the sun, you know, how's how's
2:38
Speaker 2: life going to get a chance without any heat or
2:40
Speaker 2: sun or any type of energy from that star? Anyways?
2:44
Speaker 2: Just trying to wrap us all on my head. See
2:47
Speaker 2: what you guys think.
2:48
Speaker 1: Thanks, Thanks Mirky, you might get out of perspects, Mikey,
2:52
Speaker 1: that's really the solution, m I didn't know. It's a
2:58
Speaker 1: really good question. I haven't really thought about that side
3:00
Speaker 1: of it. If a civilization had enough technology to build
3:06
Speaker 1: a Dyson sphere and harness the energy of the Solar
3:10
Speaker 1: System's star, what happens to the light and what happens
3:13
Speaker 1: to the planets that reliant on that light and that
3:16
Speaker 1: energy that's been mopped up by an object that's basically
3:22
Speaker 1: surrounding the Sun.
3:26
Speaker 3: So that's the I guess the misapprehension that most of
3:32
Speaker 3: us have and what a Dyson sphere is because Dyson
3:38
Speaker 3: himself didn't envisage that his I haven't read the paper. Actually,
3:45
Speaker 3: it's published in Science back in nineteen sixty. It's called
3:49
Speaker 3: Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation.
3:54
Speaker 4: What he's saying is.
3:55
Speaker 3: That if you've got a structure built around a star
4:00
Speaker 3: because you've got such an energy hungry civilization, then you basically,
4:07
Speaker 3: you know, you build things around the star that collect
4:12
Speaker 3: the energy from the star and turn it into electricity.
4:17
Speaker 3: But they would naturally reradiate the excess heat in the infrared,
4:24
Speaker 3: and indeed he's suspecting that it would be perhaps the
4:28
Speaker 3: far infrared, longer wavelengths. So and his proposal was that
4:36
Speaker 3: that would be a far infra red signature around a
4:41
Speaker 3: star that you'd expect to be just pumping out visible light,
4:45
Speaker 3: wouldn't suggest that there was some sort of structure around it. Now,
4:51
Speaker 3: there is a quotation that I'm reading from Dyson himself
4:56
Speaker 3: who says a solid shell or ring surround a star
5:00
Speaker 3: is mechanically impossible. The form of biosphere which I envisaged
5:05
Speaker 3: consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling
5:10
Speaker 3: on independent orbits around the star. And that's basically the
5:15
Speaker 3: bottom line that the dicesphere isn't really a solid sphere.
5:19
Speaker 3: It's a region around the star where you've got many
5:22
Speaker 3: objects in orbits, in independent orbits which are turning the
5:29
Speaker 3: energy of the star into electricity, so you're not harvesting
5:35
Speaker 3: all the light of the star. So Mikey's question is
5:39
Speaker 3: one that I hadn't really thought about before, but is
5:44
Speaker 3: almost directly answered by this, because you still have some
5:48
Speaker 3: of the radiation of the star that's leaking through coming
5:52
Speaker 3: between the swarming objects. It's not leaking, it's probably by
5:55
Speaker 3: far the bulk of that material. But you're adding to
5:58
Speaker 3: the light of the star this firing for a signature
6:00
Speaker 3: that tells you that there's object around the star that
6:03
Speaker 3: are artificial, and so you could probably put it wherever
6:08
Speaker 3: you want. I would guess the dysosphere around the Sun
6:11
Speaker 3: will be a swarm of objects, perhaps even inside the
6:14
Speaker 3: orbit of Mercury, and so there will be a slight
6:17
Speaker 3: reduction in the amount of energy going out to the
6:19
Speaker 3: rest of the Solar System. And it might be one
6:21
Speaker 3: of those things that would modify the climate of habitable
6:26
Speaker 3: planets like Earth. But it wouldn't shut down the light
6:30
Speaker 3: of the star altogether because you can't do that. It's
6:33
Speaker 3: mechanically impossible.
6:34
Speaker 1: It's dyce and so yeah, it certainly makes more sense
6:39
Speaker 1: when you explain it that way, and it's not dissimilar
6:41
Speaker 1: to what we're doing around the planet with communications satellites.
6:47
Speaker 1: I wonder if an alien species observing our planet from
6:51
Speaker 1: afar could detect that something's a little bit off because
6:55
Speaker 1: of all the satellites. Would that be possible? Do you
6:58
Speaker 1: think it would be?
6:59
Speaker 3: Well, this enough, you know, just straightforward radio radiation leaking
7:04
Speaker 3: from the Earth that will be detectable by certainly by
7:08
Speaker 3: a civilization having similar facilities to the square kilometer array
7:14
Speaker 3: which we have. The square kilmeter array claims that it
7:17
Speaker 3: will be able to detect an airport.
7:18
Speaker 4: Radar at fifty light years.
7:21
Speaker 3: So that's telling you that, you know, our airport radars
7:25
Speaker 3: will be detectable by as somebody at the other end
7:28
Speaker 3: having the same sort of equipment. Yeah, So it's so
7:32
Speaker 3: we're already we've already given away our presence in a
7:35
Speaker 3: cosmic sense. And I mean it's often quoted that the
7:40
Speaker 3: first high power radio broadcast that was made from Earth
7:43
Speaker 3: was the nineteen thirty six was it Munich Olympic Games
7:46
Speaker 3: that was broadcast around the world. And so there's a
7:50
Speaker 3: gentleman that wasn't really a gentleman, and that's saying a
7:53
Speaker 3: lot of things loudly and with force at that time
7:56
Speaker 3: in his speeches.
7:58
Speaker 4: His voice will be the.
7:59
Speaker 3: One that will go all around the local environment of
8:02
Speaker 3: the sun and make any alien.
8:06
Speaker 4: Not want to come here.
8:07
Speaker 1: I think, well, that was portrayed in the movie Contact
8:11
Speaker 1: with Jodie Foster, where the return signal from the alien
8:17
Speaker 1: species was images of the Nazis at the opening ceremony
8:23
Speaker 1: of the Olympic GA. Yeah, it was well used, very
8:27
Speaker 1: well used in that film. But in terms of a
8:29
Speaker 1: dison sphere around a star, yeah, not a solid object
8:33
Speaker 1: blocking light, but multiple objects collecting. What did you say
8:38
Speaker 1: on the infrared spectrum?
8:39
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, well really bilating it as far infra red.
8:43
Speaker 3: That's right, the collecting the visible light and re emitting
8:45
Speaker 3: it as far in for red. So it changes the
8:48
Speaker 3: spectrum signature of the star. And that's what Dyson's paper
8:51
Speaker 3: is about.
8:52
Speaker 1: All right, So nothing to worry about, Mikey, nothing to
8:55
Speaker 1: worry about. It's all good. Thanks, thanks for your question.
9:00
Speaker 1: Our next question comes from.
9:01
Speaker 5: Bill Hill, San Francisco Bay Area. I appreciate you guys
9:09
Speaker 5: answering my last question, which was can dark matter be
9:14
Speaker 5: thrown out of a galaxy and travel through space through
9:18
Speaker 5: some sort of gravitational event? So I'll give you an
9:24
Speaker 5: A plus plus and a cold star on that answer.
9:27
Speaker 6: Good job. And my next question has related if there
9:33
Speaker 6: was a glob of dark manner floating in space and
9:37
Speaker 6: I got too close to it in my spaceship with
9:41
Speaker 6: the dark matters gravity, pull me in and hold on.
9:45
Speaker 6: Jimmy and not let me go. So that's my question.
9:49
Speaker 6: Love the show.
9:50
Speaker 1: Thanks okay, thank you Bill. We'll be in San Francisco
9:54
Speaker 1: in a few months, Judy and know I. So we
9:59
Speaker 1: were going to once before, but we didn't. We regretted that,
10:02
Speaker 1: so we're going to go back. Yeah, the effect of
10:05
Speaker 1: dark matter. If you run, you're in your spaceship, in
10:08
Speaker 1: your yep, hit a glob of dark matter, or you're
10:13
Speaker 1: in its proximity. Are you stuck? I suspect not.
10:17
Speaker 3: No, I don't think you would be.
10:18
Speaker 4: Andrew.
10:19
Speaker 1: I think you're right.
10:21
Speaker 3: Because we've got We did some work on the Rave project,
10:29
Speaker 3: which I was involved with back in the early two thousands,
10:33
Speaker 3: which looked at the minimum size of a dark matter
10:38
Speaker 3: blob because we were measuring the velocities of stars, and
10:42
Speaker 3: if you've got blobs of dark matter, you would expect
10:46
Speaker 3: that to be revealed in anomalies in the velocities of stars.
10:50
Speaker 3: And we didn't see any anomalies. And I think that
10:54
Speaker 3: meant that you don't get dark matter blobs less. I'm
11:00
Speaker 3: trying to remember the number. I think it's about one
11:02
Speaker 3: hundred light years or thereabouts. Should go back and look
11:06
Speaker 3: through my stuff. But you're talking about very large lumps
11:10
Speaker 3: of stuff being the minimum quantity of dark matter, because
11:14
Speaker 3: we don't really know what it is. We don't know
11:16
Speaker 3: how it reacts with itself, but we believe that dark
11:19
Speaker 3: matter doesn't clump on those very small scales, and so
11:24
Speaker 3: you probably wouldn't notice it in your spaceship probably, you
11:27
Speaker 3: know the the It would be such a gradual change
11:30
Speaker 3: that your spacecraft would might deviate a tiny amount, but
11:34
Speaker 3: it certainly wouldn't be grabbed hold of so that you
11:36
Speaker 3: couldn't get away.
11:37
Speaker 1: So I think you said you wouldn't. You wouldn't have
11:40
Speaker 1: alarms going off, that's right. The claxons wouldn't be blaring
11:47
Speaker 1: or whatever it is they use on spaceships to tell
11:49
Speaker 1: you something strictfully.
11:50
Speaker 4: Wrong or something like that.
11:51
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so yeah, you probably wouldn't notice anything, Bill,
11:56
Speaker 1: You wouldn't even see it. It's just it's there. It's
12:00
Speaker 1: you know, we haven't even proven it, except we've proved it,
12:05
Speaker 1: we haven't found any is that right? No, I don't know.
12:08
Speaker 1: It's it's one of those mysteries we're still working on.
12:11
Speaker 4: We're looking for.
12:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's yes, there are many candidates for what it
12:15
Speaker 3: might be, but we haven't found any of them yet,
12:17
Speaker 3: so yeah, m hmmm, sort of telling about because of
12:21
Speaker 3: some sort that's the thing. Yes, that's it, that's what's
12:24
Speaker 3: the matter. All right, Thank you Bill.
12:28
Speaker 1: This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred.
12:31
Speaker 1: What'son space Nuts? Okay? Our next question, Fred comes from Sweden.
12:43
Speaker 1: Hi Fred and Andrew, O.
12:45
Speaker 7: You're from the west coast of Sweden. Here, I have
12:48
Speaker 7: yet another question about black holes. Is it true that
12:52
Speaker 7: space and time swhich rolls the moment you paused the
12:55
Speaker 7: event horizon? And if so, does that mean that space
13:00
Speaker 7: can go only in one direction, in one dimension towards
13:04
Speaker 7: the center, hence being the reason why nothing can get out?
13:09
Speaker 7: And does it also mean that time can go in
13:12
Speaker 7: any direction inside the event horizon?
13:15
Speaker 4: Thanks?
13:16
Speaker 1: Love the show. Thanks okay, lovely to hear from you
13:20
Speaker 1: west coast. Is there an east coast of Sweden for it?
13:23
Speaker 4: I need to look at a bed certainly is yeah?
13:26
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, it's mostly forgive my ignorance, but I've never
13:32
Speaker 1: been to that part of the world.
13:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh sorry, all right, So we'll be up there
13:36
Speaker 3: next month month after Lovely.
13:40
Speaker 1: All right, well, we'll be up around that way in
13:43
Speaker 1: July maybe July next year.
13:46
Speaker 4: I would think.
13:49
Speaker 1: I didn't you know, I've now forgotten this question.
13:52
Speaker 3: But it's about time and space in exchange on the
13:57
Speaker 3: advent horizon. And unfortunately I haven't had time to look
14:00
Speaker 3: at these questions in advance because I just had too.
14:04
Speaker 1: Much to do.
14:06
Speaker 3: And so that is one that I would need to
14:08
Speaker 3: follow up in.
14:10
Speaker 4: A bit more detail.
14:10
Speaker 3: I've heard the same thing, but I don't really know
14:17
Speaker 3: the physics of it. Just let me check something here, Andrew.
14:22
Speaker 1: I love it when we do this. I love it
14:24
Speaker 1: when we do this, just finding the answer on the fly.
14:28
Speaker 4: Well, it's good if we can.
14:30
Speaker 1: It doesn't always work.
14:35
Speaker 4: So here we are.
14:36
Speaker 3: There's a nice question on the physics stack exchange, which
14:40
Speaker 3: is our space and time interchangeable?
14:46
Speaker 1: Yeah?
14:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's.
14:48
Speaker 3: Quite hard to quiet tired to tease out what's fact
14:54
Speaker 3: from what's fiction. It is all about Are there similar questions?
14:59
Speaker 4: I recognize that lovely as a metric for special relativity.
15:03
Speaker 1: There I often recognize equations and I quickly turned the page.
15:10
Speaker 3: Well that's one, yeah, I used to I used to
15:12
Speaker 3: put that in talks, that particular one when C squared
15:15
Speaker 3: DT squared plus d x square plus y square plus
15:18
Speaker 3: D squared equals d square.
15:19
Speaker 4: There you go.
15:20
Speaker 3: And that's basically it's a special relativity way of interchanging
15:26
Speaker 3: space and time. It tells you that the time is
15:28
Speaker 3: a dimension just like space. But that's not what OKI's
15:32
Speaker 3: question is, which is specifically about how it behaves in
15:36
Speaker 3: the vicinity of a black call. And I wouldn't need
15:39
Speaker 3: to follow up a little bit more detail on that.
15:41
Speaker 3: So apologies for the fact that that there's been so
15:46
Speaker 3: much going on in the last few days that I
15:47
Speaker 3: haven't got managed to get to that one.
15:49
Speaker 1: That's okay, we'll put it. We'll put a pin in
15:51
Speaker 1: that one, and we will get back to ORKI in
15:55
Speaker 1: the new year.
15:56
Speaker 3: We'll have a we'll have an episode in early janet
16:00
Speaker 3: mid January, I think where we can perhaps discuss that.
16:02
Speaker 1: So I'll put a yes.
16:03
Speaker 4: As you said, I'll put a pin next to it.
16:05
Speaker 1: All right, and I'm going to use a Stabilo foss
16:08
Speaker 1: highlighter and marketers homework. There we go, done, all right.
16:13
Speaker 1: We won't forget to walkie, and if we do, just
16:16
Speaker 1: send us a note and say, hey, bof DS, you
16:19
Speaker 1: forgot my question. We will get back to it. We've
16:23
Speaker 1: got one final question, which is not unrelated, actually, Fred
16:28
Speaker 1: in terms of topic, this one comes from one of
16:32
Speaker 1: our regular sender Inderies. Here is Buddy, Hello Space.
16:37
Speaker 8: Answer is Buddy from Morgan. Haven't we've been thinking about
16:42
Speaker 8: time distortion and gravity if in our space or we'll
16:48
Speaker 8: say there was no gravity but there was a time distortion.
16:51
Speaker 2: Okay, well, what do you think that would be? Like?
16:55
Speaker 8: Seems like to me like there would be some kind
16:58
Speaker 8: of drag from the slower end of things, floor on
17:02
Speaker 8: the time time moving things. And I'm wondering if you
17:08
Speaker 8: work that out, that drag could actually be gravity. All right,
17:15
Speaker 8: Thanks guys, love the podcast.
17:18
Speaker 1: Thank you Buddy. He's always got a bit of a
17:22
Speaker 1: curveball for us. Has Buddy, time distortion without gravity ultimately
17:28
Speaker 1: being gravity, I think was what the gubts of his
17:32
Speaker 1: question was. And yeah, look at that.
17:37
Speaker 3: Well let me let me start because that's exactly what
17:42
Speaker 3: Einstein's thinking was where he when he formulated the special
17:49
Speaker 3: general relativity theory. But you've got to remember that there
17:53
Speaker 3: is time distortion in special relativity, which has nothing to
17:57
Speaker 3: do with gravity. Special relativity is the theory that says,
18:01
Speaker 3: as things move as they get nearer, the faster nearer,
18:04
Speaker 3: the speed of light. All kinds of weird things happen,
18:07
Speaker 3: and time distortion time dilation is one of them. Your
18:12
Speaker 3: time system changes from the observed person to the person
18:17
Speaker 3: being observed. They've got different time systems, and that's just
18:20
Speaker 3: because of movement. It doesn't have gravity in it at all.
18:24
Speaker 3: So but he's right in that regard. But what Einstein
18:29
Speaker 3: then thought about was how that idea impacts on the
18:37
Speaker 3: gravity that we experience.
18:38
Speaker 1: He didn't.
18:41
Speaker 3: He basically didn't think of it as a drag. But
18:44
Speaker 3: his thinking was what we call well, he dreamed up
18:51
Speaker 3: something that we now call the equivalence principle, which says
18:54
Speaker 3: that gravity and acceleration are the same thing.
18:58
Speaker 4: So, I know, Buddy is right.
19:00
Speaker 3: A drag which you might think covers a deceleration is gravity.
19:05
Speaker 3: Gravity and acceleration are the same thing. And that's what
19:08
Speaker 3: allowed him to arrive at the general theory of relativity
19:14
Speaker 3: because it turns gravity into a geometrical phenomenon which we
19:19
Speaker 3: can understand. We've got the mathematics to understand geometry, and
19:24
Speaker 3: something called Remannian algebra Riemannian manifold is the is the
19:30
Speaker 3: mathematical shape of space as affected by gravity. It twists
19:34
Speaker 3: and turns as you put matter into it. And so
19:38
Speaker 3: general relativity is a geometrical theory and acceleration is part
19:42
Speaker 3: of that geometry. So yeah, So basically, buddy, that's what
19:47
Speaker 3: Einstein worked out, and that's what gravity is. Now you are,
19:52
Speaker 3: but we don't really understand it. I mean, what you're
19:55
Speaker 3: saying is it can be. It is identical to acceleration,
19:59
Speaker 3: and that equivalent principle, by the way, has been demonstrated
20:02
Speaker 3: with an accuracy of something like one part in in
20:05
Speaker 3: eighteen billion or something like that. It's a hugely accurate
20:08
Speaker 3: equivalence gravity and acceleration. We are told by Einstein that
20:16
Speaker 3: he imagined himself when he published the Special Theory of Relativity.
20:20
Speaker 3: He was trying to think how it would affect gravity,
20:23
Speaker 3: and he imagined himself jumping off a building and realized
20:27
Speaker 3: that he would be weightless as he fell. That you know,
20:33
Speaker 3: if he had coins or keys in his hand, that'd
20:36
Speaker 3: float out of his hand, his pipe had float out
20:37
Speaker 3: of his mouth, all of that sort of thing, And
20:40
Speaker 3: that was what led him to the to the equivalence principle.
20:45
Speaker 3: He called it the what did he call it? The
20:47
Speaker 3: happiest thought of his life? That gravity and acceleration of
20:52
Speaker 3: the same thing.
20:54
Speaker 1: Incredible. Yeah, at the sudden stop at the bottom that
20:57
Speaker 1: made the big difference there.
20:58
Speaker 4: That well, yeah, you don't want to go there too far.
21:02
Speaker 1: And you didn't do it.
21:02
Speaker 4: It didn't try out in reality. But it's what I
21:05
Speaker 4: always tell people.
21:06
Speaker 3: When you're on a trampoline, when your feet are not
21:09
Speaker 3: touching the mats, when you're in the air, you are
21:12
Speaker 3: as weightless as you are in space. You can hanceld
21:14
Speaker 3: out gravity because the acceleration is counceling out with gravity perfectly.
21:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fleeting moment of joy, that's all.
21:22
Speaker 4: That's fine.
21:24
Speaker 1: Thank you, buddy. Great question, and I love where your
21:27
Speaker 1: brain goes. I mean, you've got a very sharp mind, buddy.
21:31
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's a delight to hear your questions. Okay,
21:37
Speaker 1: we'll take your.
21:39
Speaker 7: Space nuts.
21:42
Speaker 1: A question without notice, spread your moment of the year
21:45
Speaker 1: astronomically speaking, What do you reckon? What tickled your fancy?
21:50
Speaker 1: I'll give you time to think. But I just did
21:53
Speaker 1: a bit of a search on Google about the biggest
21:55
Speaker 1: astronomy stories of twenty twenty four. Artemus two is up there.
22:00
Speaker 1: The discovery of ultra massive galaxies there was a story
22:04
Speaker 1: about a white dwarf, and major events like the total
22:09
Speaker 1: solar eclipse in April and a few other things that
22:14
Speaker 1: popped up during the year. Those were probably the stories
22:17
Speaker 1: that got the most headlines. That doesn't necessarily make them
22:20
Speaker 1: the biggest stories of the year, they were probably the
22:23
Speaker 1: most published from what I've gleaned. Anything stand out.
22:27
Speaker 3: For you, Well, yeah, several things actually. On the I mean, yes,
22:31
Speaker 3: the eclipse was fantastic on the was it the I
22:37
Speaker 3: can't remember. It was in April sixth I.
22:38
Speaker 1: Think fourth fourth four let me check the from the
22:44
Speaker 1: eighth was.
22:45
Speaker 4: The eighth of April, so that was that was fantastic.
22:49
Speaker 3: But you know, eclipses every year or so, so you
22:54
Speaker 3: can see a good eclipse. This particular particular one was
22:58
Speaker 3: particularly good. It was a four minute eclipse, which is long.
23:02
Speaker 3: But a couple of months before that, the one in
23:05
Speaker 3: twenty year event was the auroral display on the twentieth
23:08
Speaker 3: of May. Was no ten to May. Ten to May
23:11
Speaker 3: a twenty four year event. And I saw the one
23:14
Speaker 3: twenty years ago because I could see that from the
23:16
Speaker 3: center of Edinburgh, but unfortunately the one this year I
23:19
Speaker 3: didn't see because, like you, we were under cloud for
23:22
Speaker 3: weeks out of time. The discovery of the year though,
23:26
Speaker 3: I think it could be something we talked about in
23:28
Speaker 3: the last episode, the fact that it's beginning to look
23:31
Speaker 3: as though dark energy is not constant. That could be
23:35
Speaker 3: a Nobel Prize winning discovery eventually. So yes, that's a big,
23:41
Speaker 3: big news story.
23:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's huge. It is a huge story, all right. Fred.
23:47
Speaker 1: That brings us to the end of the year. I'll
23:49
Speaker 1: just tell people what we're doing over the next few weeks.
23:52
Speaker 1: While we're away. We'll be digging up stories from the archives. Yes,
23:56
Speaker 1: we've been around long enough to have archives, so we'll
23:59
Speaker 1: be talking about the first James Web images, the first
24:03
Speaker 1: image of Sagittaris a star, those moon samples that they
24:08
Speaker 1: took fifty years to open, Remember that story, exoplanets, that
24:12
Speaker 1: rain gems. There's a story in there about dark energy,
24:16
Speaker 1: surprisingly enough, and NASA with its big warning about the
24:22
Speaker 1: rising sea levels and the effect the Moon will have
24:26
Speaker 1: in conjunction with that on tides. That was a massive
24:29
Speaker 1: story which we did well more than three years ago,
24:32
Speaker 1: but it still applies. So those stories, plus some updated
24:37
Speaker 1: news coming from one of our colleagues on the end
24:41
Speaker 1: of episodes over the Christmas New Year period, and we'll
24:43
Speaker 1: be getting back together mid January with fresh episodes and
24:47
Speaker 1: that little bit of homework for Orcie. In the meantime
24:51
Speaker 1: before we finish, I've got to say some thank you.
24:54
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you to you, Fred. You are amazing.
24:57
Speaker 1: We love you dearly, and it is such and honor
25:00
Speaker 1: to have you on Space Nuts and have been doing
25:03
Speaker 1: it for so long and you know, it's just terrific
25:07
Speaker 1: and people really appreciate it, especially me and Hugh.
25:11
Speaker 4: Thank you.
25:11
Speaker 3: Andrew likewise, your efforts and huge efforts behind the scenes.
25:16
Speaker 3: Often go and see.
25:17
Speaker 1: That he doesn't do anything. I know that, but you
25:20
Speaker 1: don't go there.
25:20
Speaker 3: But you are the consummate professional when it comes to
25:24
Speaker 3: interviews and broadcasting and it's a pleasure to work with
25:27
Speaker 3: you as always.
25:28
Speaker 1: Thanks Fred, And I know it's by the time this
25:31
Speaker 1: episode goes, you'll have already had your birthday, but many
25:35
Speaker 1: many happy returns for your birthday, which was sometime in
25:40
Speaker 1: December ish. Yeah. I would also like to say thank
25:48
Speaker 1: you to our audience because without you we'd be nothing,
25:50
Speaker 1: and you are one of the most dedicated audiences I've
25:54
Speaker 1: ever had the experience to work with or for and
25:58
Speaker 1: we really do appreciate and all your support, our patrons,
26:03
Speaker 1: we love you. Thank you for putting money in the kiddie.
26:08
Speaker 1: You don't have to do that. We've never asked for it,
26:10
Speaker 1: but you've done it anyway. All four or five hundred
26:14
Speaker 1: of you incredible. And our sponsors, of course, we love
26:19
Speaker 1: them because they keep Hughes Maserati going, which is that's
26:23
Speaker 1: what it's all about, yea, And from me, it has
26:27
Speaker 1: been a great pleasure this year looking forward to your
26:29
Speaker 1: company in twenty twenty five. Can you believe we've rich
26:33
Speaker 1: that year?
26:34
Speaker 4: Good?
26:34
Speaker 1: Great quarturally. Yeah, it's unbelievable, it is, it is. Thanks Fred, farewell.
26:40
Speaker 1: We'll have a great Christmas New Year. I know this
26:43
Speaker 1: is probably going to go to air after that, but whatever,
26:46
Speaker 1: and we will. No, I don't know, no, just before.
26:49
Speaker 1: It'll be just next week, next week Christmas. I had
26:52
Speaker 1: it all on a calendar. I've lost the calendar, but yeah,
26:56
Speaker 1: that proves I need a holiday. Take care, Fred, and
26:59
Speaker 1: love to Marni and everybody, and we'll see you soon.
27:02
Speaker 4: Sounds great, Andrew send to you.
27:03
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large, and
27:07
Speaker 1: thanks to Hu in the studio. For his tireless and
27:10
Speaker 1: invisible work getting this together, because he really does work very,
27:14
Speaker 1: very hard, and that is no joke. And from me
27:16
Speaker 1: Andrew Dunkley, thank you again for bearing with us for
27:20
Speaker 1: another year and we'll see you in twenty twenty twenty five,
27:24
Speaker 1: Take care, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and by for
27:28
Speaker 1: now you'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast, available
27:34
Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.
27:40
Speaker 1: You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.
27:43
Speaker 1: This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot
27:47
Speaker 1: com