Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Interstellar Intrigue: 3I Atlas, Cosmic Probes & the Quest for Extraterrestrial Life

Transcript

Interstellar Intrigue: 3I Atlas, Cosmic Probes & the Quest for Extraterrestrial Life · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another fun and exciting
0:03
episode of Space Nuts, the
0:05
podcast that is out of this world.
0:08
Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
0:11
10, 9. Ignition
0:13
sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
0:16
2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
0:19
3, 2, 1. Space nuts astronauts
0:22
report it feels good.
0:24
Heidi Campo: And I'm your host for this, uh, American
0:26
summer and Australian winter. My
0:29
name is Heidi Campo, filling in for Andrew
0:32
Dunkley. And joining us is the wonderful
0:35
Professor Fred Watson, astronomer at
0:38
large. How are you doing, Fred?
0:41
Professor Fred Watson: Very well, thank you, Heidi. I've been m
0:44
traveling since we last spoke and have
0:45
explored the great state of Western
0:47
Australia, uh, in great detail. If
0:50
I remember rightly, Western Australia would
0:52
encompass Texas three times. I think that's
0:55
the figure. Uh, it's very large. And
0:58
so we spent a lot of time,
1:01
uh, in coaches, but saw some incredible
1:03
sites, including, um, the Carnarvon
1:06
space ah, facility, which
1:09
was, uh, one of the places where radio, um,
1:11
signals were picked up and uh, beamed out
1:14
to the world during the Apollo era.
1:17
So lovely to visit some of the places
1:20
where history was made at a time when
1:22
I was, you know, um,
1:26
a young budding astronomer and very excited
1:28
by the whole thing. So it's great to see all
1:30
that old technology again.
1:32
Heidi Campo: Yeah, there's just something special about
1:33
the old technology. The way it looked and
1:36
felt and was packaged. And the new, sleek,
1:38
modern stuff is cool and great, but it just
1:41
doesn't feel the same.
1:43
Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Well, when they get fashion
1:45
designers to design their spacesuits, you
1:47
know that things have moved on quite a long
1:48
way since the Apollo era.
1:50
Heidi Campo: It really has changed. But one thing
1:53
that will never change until it does
1:56
is our fascination with extraterrestrials.
2:00
Which leads us into our first story
2:03
today.
2:04
So the three. I don't know if this is the
2:07
three I or the three lowercase l. Atlas.
2:10
Um, Harvard's thinking
2:13
maybe alien probe. What's going on
2:16
here, Fred? Give us some sanity.
2:19
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, so 3i.
2:22
It is 3i because it's the third
2:24
interstellar, um, visitor,
2:27
uh, that has been recorded. There are
2:28
probably many more that we haven't detected.
2:31
Uh, but this is an object which is flying
2:33
through the solar system. We have talked
2:35
about it before. Uh, we're going to talk
2:37
about it again just because of a couple of
2:40
things that have come up. Um, so
2:43
the bottom line, 3i. Atlas. Atlas was the
2:46
facility that discovered it. Uh, it's,
2:49
uh, an object which is whizzing through the
2:51
solar system at about 60 km per second
2:54
in an orbit that tells you immediately
2:57
that it has come from outside the solar
2:59
system. It's not, uh, in any sense
3:01
gravitationally bound to the Sun. So it's not
3:04
part of the Sun's family of planets. It's
3:06
from somewhere else. We don't know where it
3:08
came from. And, uh, is whizzing through the
3:10
solar system. If I remember rightly, it
3:12
passes closest to the Sun. I think it is
3:15
October. Uh, it's, um,
3:18
certainly, um, uh, down the track. Uh, yes,
3:21
it's the closest approach in October. Um,
3:24
so, uh, it's probably a comet.
3:27
Um, a comet is an object made
3:30
of ice, uh, with dust embedded in
3:33
it. Uh, it's, uh, it's
3:35
um. You know, the thing about comets is when
3:38
they get near the sun, the ice turns into a
3:40
gas. And we see the uh, result of
3:43
that, um, often stretched in a tail
3:46
across the sky, which makes them very bright
3:49
occasionally and also occasionally quite,
3:52
um, you know, quite, um, inspiring to
3:55
people who don't know what they're looking
3:56
at, which is why they were often regarded as
3:58
portents of doom, uh, down, uh,
4:01
uh, in historical times. So this one
4:04
however, is probably not going to do that. It
4:06
may be a comet. It's thought to be about 20
4:08
km across, which is actually quite large for
4:11
the nucleus of a comet. But the reason why
4:14
I wanted to bring it up again is
4:17
it's the headline that I almost could have
4:19
predicted. Uh, is Interstellar
4:22
Object 3I Atlas an alien probe.
4:25
Harvard Physicist sparks debate.
4:28
Uh, and that Harvard physicist is a very
4:30
eminent, uh, uh, astrophysicist.
4:33
Uh, I think he's still the director of the
4:35
Harvard Smithsonian Institute for Astronomy.
4:38
His name is Avi Loeb, and he
4:41
is famous for always putting,
4:44
uh, a slant which
4:47
could be interpreted as
4:50
uh, suggesting I'm, um, going a long way
4:53
around this because I want to be careful with
4:54
my words, uh, that things like this
4:57
could have an intelligent origin. Uh, we
5:00
had the same when the first of these
5:03
interstellar visitors came by back in
5:05
2017. Um, an object called
5:08
Oumuamua, named after, uh.
5:11
Uh, it's a Hawaiian name meaning first
5:14
visitor from afar, which is a lovely name. An
5:16
interesting object, only 100 meters or so
5:18
across. We didn't discover it until it was on
5:21
its way out of the solar system. It's
5:23
probably shaped a bit like a pancake from the
5:25
light curve, the way the light was reflected
5:27
off it. Uh, but I think Avi, um,
5:30
very quickly, uh, found what he thought was
5:33
evidence that this thing perhaps had an
5:36
extraterrestrial intelligence origin.
5:39
And exactly the same thing has happened, uh,
5:42
with the uh, three I atlas his
5:45
reasoning though I think is really
5:48
interesting, uh, and that is,
5:51
uh, the curious couple of
5:53
curious coincidences, uh, in
5:56
regard to the orbit of 3i
5:59
ATLAS. And remember, this is an open orbit.
6:01
It's just a pathway through the solar system.
6:03
It's not like an ellipse or a circle.
6:06
It's going almost in a straight line. In
6:08
fact, it's going so fast. But
6:10
uh, what Aviloeb has noted
6:13
is that, uh,
6:16
this object will actually pass close
6:20
to Mars, Venus and
6:23
Jupiter. Uh, and
6:26
so, uh, what Avi has done is a
6:28
statistical test on the likelihood of
6:31
that. And he estimates that the chance of
6:34
this path occurring naturally by chance
6:37
is 0.005%.
6:41
Uh, and another little feature of this,
6:44
as uh, I mentioned, uh, the object
6:47
actually passes closest to the sun in
6:48
October. It's actually the 29th of October.
6:51
And it turns out that when that is the case,
6:54
it will be, uh, on the other side of
6:57
the sun from the Earth. It'll be hidden from
6:59
the Earth. And so AVI goes
7:02
as far as to suggest that that is perhaps
7:05
so that it does not get detected to avoid
7:08
detection. Now I think that one's stretching
7:10
it a little bit too far. But I do think it's
7:12
interesting, uh, that the
7:15
interstellar comet, if that's what it is,
7:17
passes close by, uh, those three planets that
7:20
I just mentioned. Whether it is proof that
7:23
it's an alien visitor is another
7:26
story.
7:28
Heidi Campo: Well, I guess we'll find out.
7:30
Professor Fred Watson: Well, we might not. Although, um,
7:33
uh, so you know, what happens
7:35
when something like this goes by is that all
7:38
the world's telescopes concentrate uh, on
7:41
it because it's something that you've only
7:42
got a limited time frame to do. So
7:45
there's a big, um, interest
7:48
in bringing together lots of telescopes that
7:50
can observe this object,
7:53
uh, and uh, look at it in great detail,
7:56
uh, with our uh, spectrographs and things of
7:59
that sort, which analyze any gases that are
8:02
coming from it, perhaps give us an idea of
8:04
the sort of surface that it has. So those
8:06
things will be,
8:09
um, being looked at over the next month or
8:12
so, couple of months. Um, but whether we
8:15
will find enough evidence to demonstrate that
8:17
it has an intelligent origin
8:20
is a different story. Uh, because we could
8:22
learn all sorts of things about it and still
8:24
not have that answer. So, um, I think it's
8:27
one that Space Nuts will keep an eye on over
8:29
the next few months. Uh, and yes, if it
8:32
turns out to have windows or spikes, ah,
8:35
coming out of it or things like that, um, our
8:37
uh, Space Nuts audience will be the first to
8:39
know about it.
8:40
Heidi Campo: Absolutely. You'll you. You'll always hear it
8:43
here first.
8:47
Generic: Okay, we checked all four systems and.
8:49
Professor Fred Watson: Being with a go space nuts.
8:52
Heidi Campo: Um, well, our next story is I guess
8:55
a little bit less fringe alien
8:58
stuff, but still odd and still
9:02
so relevant to, you know, everything that
9:04
we're looking at with space. But we're
9:06
talking about how space
9:09
weather, like,
9:12
affects scientists here on Earth. So this is,
9:14
uh, the article is saying, um,
9:17
the weather has been influencing human
9:19
behavior on Earth since years and years and
9:22
years ago. But this one's a little bit
9:26
interesting.
9:29
Professor Fred Watson: It is. I think this is a lovely story.
9:33
I always relish stories that bring
9:36
together quite unrelated disciplines in
9:38
science, which this one certainly does, uh,
9:41
because it brings together, um,
9:43
geophysicists, people who study space
9:46
weather, um, uh, and uh,
9:49
also archaeologists, people who study
9:51
the uh, ancient history, uh, of our species.
9:55
Uh, and it's um, actually a conversation
9:58
article that sparked my interest on this, uh,
10:00
which is written by three authors from, uh,
10:03
um, the United States, two from the
10:05
University of Michigan, uh, one from the
10:08
Helmholtz center for
10:10
Geosciences that might actually be not in the
10:13
United States. But anyway, that's another
10:15
story. Um, so we've got, uh,
10:18
these, uh, scientists
10:20
who have looked at, um, the
10:23
evidence for the behavior of
10:26
the Earth's magnetic field, uh, in
10:29
geological time. Uh, now we know,
10:32
uh, from quite
10:34
reliable sources, namely,
10:38
uh, basically the magnetic
10:41
details of ancient rocks on the
10:43
ocean bed. We know that the Earth's magnetic
10:46
history has been very varied. And about three
10:48
or four times every million years, the
10:51
Earth's poles flip. And these are the
10:53
magnetic poles, not the rotation poles. The
10:56
Earth still rotates in the same axis, but
10:59
the magnetic poles flip. And we think that's
11:01
to do with the relationship between
11:04
the, uh, solid core of the Earth and its
11:07
liquid core. These two things mix together,
11:10
uh, and they produce, uh, a magnetic field
11:13
which, uh, occasionally basically
11:16
declines. Uh, and then when it returns
11:18
its pointing the other way, it's a different
11:20
magnetic, uh, pole. And it's been known,
11:24
uh, because of evidence like that from seabed
11:26
rocks, uh, and things of that sort, uh, that
11:29
there was a time about 41,000 years ago,
11:34
uh, when the magnetism of the
11:36
Earth basically dwindled
11:39
away to something like 10% of its
11:42
current, uh, intensity. Uh,
11:45
and um, so, you know,
11:48
we've got a magnetic field that is not
11:50
offering the same protection, uh, from the
11:53
solar wind as it does today. Uh,
11:56
and that would lead to a number of
11:59
things, one of which would be, um,
12:02
the occurrence of
12:04
aurorae, the northern and southern lights
12:07
a long way from the poles. Because
12:10
as the magnetic field dwindles, um,
12:13
you can, you know, these subatomic particles
12:15
are not funneled into the polar regions of
12:17
the Earth as they are now, but they go to
12:20
much lower latitudes. And so,
12:23
uh, I think they've asked the question,
12:26
what would that do to, uh, our
12:30
distant forebears? Um, if they are watching
12:32
the sky, um, they might
12:35
well see, uh, aurorae, northern and southern
12:38
lights, which, uh, had never been seen
12:41
before, uh, at their latitudes.
12:44
And so archaeologists have now looked at
12:47
this, uh, and
12:49
basically, uh,
12:53
they imagine, uh, people seeing a green
12:56
sky, a sky that's got really
12:59
bright aurora. Now, uh, in
13:02
archeology, um, a sort of response
13:05
to something like that is really
13:08
not easy to capture because there's nobody
13:10
writing and saying, oh, we saw a green sky
13:14
that we can still read today. It's not
13:17
that sort of, you know, not at that sort of
13:19
level. So you've got to look for, um,
13:22
perhaps, uh, more
13:25
circumstantial, uh, evidence for
13:27
the fact that the space weather was causing a
13:30
different sky from what they had before.
13:33
And the paper that's been written on this,
13:37
uh, is actually, um.
13:40
It pinpoints something that perhaps
13:43
otherwise would not be understood. And that
13:46
is that, um, the use
13:49
of ochre, uh, which is
13:52
a sort of powdery rock, um, very, very
13:55
well known in Australia. It's, uh, a reddish
13:57
rock because, um, our first nations people
14:00
used it and still do use ochre, uh, for
14:03
body markings. It washes off, of course, but
14:05
it's a way of decorating your body. Uh, and
14:08
it turns out that that period, 41,000 years
14:11
ago, coincides with an increased use
14:14
of ochre, uh, by the people who lived
14:17
at that time. And, um,
14:21
the way they interpret this is that
14:24
ochre actually is a kind
14:27
of natural sunscreen. It's.
14:30
I don't know what it's. You know, its SPF
14:32
factor is, but if you put ochre on,
14:35
you've got a sunscreen that will protect you
14:37
a little bit from the increased
14:40
ultraviolet radiation, which we would expect
14:43
to find hitting the Earth at a time when the
14:45
magnetic field was weak. Uh, so what they're
14:48
suggesting is that, um,
14:52
the risk of sunburnt, uh, eye
14:55
damage and other health issues, uh,
14:58
may have been mitigated by
15:01
people discovering that if you rub more
15:04
ochre on, you're actually more likely to be
15:07
protected from these phenomena. And
15:10
so it is interesting that at
15:13
the time when we know the magnetic field was
15:15
letting through much more radiation from the
15:17
sun, we see people using more
15:20
ochre on their Bodies perhaps for
15:23
protection. A, uh, really interesting,
15:25
you know, piece of research that brings
15:28
together two apparently completely unrelated
15:31
fields.
15:32
Heidi Campo: Well, that's why, you know, a word that I
15:34
throw around so often is interdisciplinary.
15:36
And I think it's so, so, so important
15:39
because, you know, nobody lives in a
15:42
vacuum. Even, you know, even something as
15:46
simple as mathematics
15:48
touches everything. Well, I guess math wasn't
15:50
a, ah, very good because it does touch
15:52
everything. But any, any field is going to be
15:55
related to every other field. And I was on
15:58
a call, I joined a, um, bioastronautics
16:00
journal club recently and we were talking
16:03
about um, some research
16:06
that had come out and it was brought up that
16:09
um, extreme conditions has
16:11
already been kind of defined and there's
16:13
already protocols in place with submarine
16:15
usage and people who summit high
16:18
mountains and that there's already so much
16:20
that we can learn from things that we already
16:23
do here on Earth. So it's just, it is
16:25
interesting and I think it is important for
16:27
us to not live in our little bubbles and our
16:29
little boxes, but we still have to go outside
16:31
and talk to other people. Funny, uh,
16:34
little, just anecdote, side tangent and then
16:36
we'll move on is there was
16:38
um, an ancient statue that
16:41
people couldn't. Archeologists couldn't
16:43
figure out what was going on with the hair.
16:45
It was of a woman and they're like, well, was
16:48
it artistic? Why does the hair look this way?
16:50
You know, they couldn't figure it out. And
16:52
then a modern day hairdresser was like, oh,
16:55
it was, it was sewn in the, it was
16:58
like, it was hair extensions that were sewn
16:59
in. You're seeing a marble statue of somebody
17:02
who had sewn hair extensions on. But
17:05
the archaeologist couldn't figure it out. But
17:07
the hairdresser looked at that immediately
17:09
and was like, well, of course, that's what
17:10
that is. So I just think that was kind of a
17:13
funny little example.
17:15
Professor Fred Watson: Um, that's a really interesting one
17:18
actually. Makes you wonder, um,
17:21
what, you know, what the person
17:24
of whom the statue was made was. Uh, like
17:27
whether they were somebody who was ah, vain
17:29
about their hairstyle or um,
17:32
whether it was something necessary because,
17:34
uh, other, you know, other, um, reasons would
17:37
make you keep your hair short. For example,
17:39
if you were doing military things and stuff
17:42
like that. Interesting stuff. Yeah, but
17:44
again, you're quite right. Uh,
17:45
interdisciplinary. It's a great word.
17:51
Generic: 0G. And I feel fine.
17:53
Heidi Campo: Space nuts. Well, speaking of. Well, I guess
17:56
this last one's not really so
17:57
interdisciplinary. It's dramatic and it is
18:00
very in its own little niche field. But
18:03
the title is A Cosmic Death Spiral.
18:06
Astronomers catch planet in its final
18:09
orbit before destruction. This is a
18:12
very dramatic story. But Fred, I know
18:15
that you always bring reason and
18:18
logic and peace to all of
18:21
these stories. So what's going on with this
18:23
dramatic death spiral?
18:25
Professor Fred Watson: Well, it's a death spiral. That's right.
18:28
Um, and I like this story because it's, um,
18:31
research that's been done by astronomers
18:34
in the university that I'm associated with
18:36
here in Australia, Macquarie University in
18:38
Sydney. Uh, and so what they've done is
18:41
looked at. It's actually a very well studied,
18:43
uh, exoplanet, uh, with the marvelous
18:46
name of Toi, uh,
18:48
2108B. It's
18:51
about 900 light years away.
18:54
Uh, it's, uh, extreme in the
18:57
sense that it is, um, an
18:59
object that orbits its parent star,
19:02
uh, closer than any other known
19:05
planet. Um, its year.
19:09
Uh, that is the time it takes to go around
19:11
its star is 16 hours.
19:14
So it whizzes around its parent star. It's
19:17
very close to it. So, um,
19:20
it's bathed in radiation, uh, from the
19:23
star. It's what we call a hot Jupiter. It's,
19:25
it's, um, actually bigger than Jupiter, uh,
19:28
and is, um, essentially,
19:32
um, you know, as I said, bathed in the
19:34
radiation of its parent star. It's very, very
19:36
hot. Um, so, um,
19:39
that situation
19:42
that you've got this object going around its
19:44
parent star once every 16 hours, uh,
19:47
is telling you that
19:50
that orbit is untenable in the long term.
19:53
Uh, the orbit is going to decay. Uh,
19:56
and what the scientists have studied is
20:00
basically the mechanics of that. How will the
20:03
orbit decay? Uh,
20:06
will this planet just get gobbled up by its
20:08
star? Will it get flung away in a
20:11
random direction? Uh, how's it going to
20:14
work? Uh, and so, um, what they've done
20:17
is they've looked at, uh, data that goes
20:19
back to 2010, um, to look for
20:22
changes in the orbit of this planet.
20:25
Uh, and there's um,
20:28
details that they've found
20:31
that can suggest that there might be three
20:33
different ways that it could, uh, reach the
20:36
end of its life. Uh, either,
20:39
number one, uh, it gets torn apart,
20:42
uh, as it gets closer to the star. Because,
20:45
um, what you have is this phenomenon called,
20:48
um, tidal disruption. It's where
20:51
part of the planet that's nearer to the star
20:53
feels a much bigger gravitational force on
20:55
the other side. And that tends to pull the
20:57
planet to pieces. So that's one scenario.
21:01
Uh, the other one is that it might just
21:03
disappear into the star. In other
21:06
words, just get sucked into the star. And we
21:09
know that happens because we've seen evidence
21:11
of it, uh, uh, in other
21:13
solar systems. We've seen brightening of a
21:16
star that seems to be caused by a
21:19
planet basically impacting on it.
21:22
And we can also find evidence in the
21:24
atmospheres of stars, uh, for the
21:27
sorts of chemicals that you would only find
21:29
in a planet, but not in the star itself. So
21:31
we know that happens. Uh, but the other one
21:33
is perhaps the most interesting one. The
21:35
third of their, um, uh, possible end
21:38
games for Toi, uh,
21:40
2109B, that it's
21:43
a gas giant like Jupiter and Saturn are.
21:46
Uh, and what they're suggesting is that
21:49
perhaps its gaseous envelope, its
21:52
atmosphere might just be blown
21:54
away by the radiation coming from the star
21:57
and just essentially leave a planet that's
21:59
still going around that parent star, but is
22:02
now just a rocky remnant.
22:04
Um, it's not, uh, a gas giant
22:07
anymore. So what, um,
22:10
people are going to look for, uh,
22:13
is to see exactly how this
22:16
behavior continues. The prediction
22:19
is that, um, the orbit of this
22:22
planet is shortening by, I think it's 10
22:25
seconds per year, the amount of orbital
22:28
shortening that's going on at the moment. As
22:30
time goes on, we will see the planet
22:33
pass some kind of, um, some kind of
22:35
trigger point, uh, you know, a tipping point,
22:39
uh, where one of these three scenarios might
22:41
become more obvious as to what's going to
22:43
happen to it. Once again, we'll keep an eye
22:45
on that with the space nuts. Eagle, uh, eye
22:48
on astrophysics and what's going on in the
22:50
universe.
22:51
Heidi Campo: That planet sounds like your average grad
22:54
student just circling in chaos and they're
22:56
either going to get flung out, never to enter
22:59
that field again, or they're just going to
23:00
get absorbed by it and become whatever
23:03
it is that they're studying.
23:05
Professor Fred Watson: Yep, that's right. That's what you do. You
23:07
become what you study.
23:10
Heidi Campo: Yeah. So I am, um, nicknaming this
23:13
planet the grad student.
23:16
Professor Fred Watson: I think it's a better name than toi, whatever
23:18
it was.
23:21
Toi, by the way, stands for, um, tess,
23:24
Object of Interest. TESS was a planet finding
23:26
satellite that was active a few years.
23:29
Heidi Campo: And if it gets flung out into the universe,
23:31
this could be our next alien, uh, spaceship.
23:34
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. Who knows?
23:36
Heidi Campo: What is this thing? It's just a planet that
23:39
got flung out of its orbit.
23:42
Well Fred, that uh, that uh, wraps up this
23:44
episode. That was kind of a fun, eclectic
23:46
group of articles. Thank you so much for
23:48
finding those and disseminating all of that
23:50
information for us. We definitely
23:53
appreciate you and thank you. This is,
23:56
uh, I guess that's uh, that's the end of
23:59
our tale today.
24:00
Professor Fred Watson: It's uh, a tale that's never ending really,
24:02
because there'll be other things to talk
24:04
about. But yes, I look forward to next time.
24:06
Heidi, thanks very much.
24:08
Heidi Campo: All right, catch you next time on our Q and A
24:11
episode. That's all for now.
24:12
Andrew Dunkley: Hi Fred. Hi Heidi. Hi Huw. In the studio.
24:15
Andrew again with another update on our world
24:18
tour. And we've uh, done a heck of a
24:21
lot since I spoke to you last year. Uh, we
24:24
went to uh, this was an amazing place,
24:26
but then again it wasn't and I'll tell you
24:29
why. But we were back in Morocco and
24:32
we docked in Tangier and then we did a couple
24:35
of hours drive to a place called the Blue
24:37
City where all the buildings are blue and
24:39
there's all sorts of reasons why they're blue
24:41
that come up when you do a Google search. But
24:43
the main reason that we were told was that
24:45
one day somebody painted his house blue and
24:48
everyone went, well, that's a good idea. And
24:50
so everyone else did. So that's why it's a
24:52
blue city and everything's blue. Blue doors,
24:54
blue buildings, blue fences, blue lights,
24:56
blue everything. Um, not those kinds of blue
24:59
lights, but uh, yeah, interesting place.
25:01
Downside over saturated with
25:04
hawkers and salespeople and high pressure
25:07
tactics. Uh, and, and it's a
25:10
pretty smelly place. Lots of mangy cats and
25:13
dog poo everywhere. Yeah,
25:15
um, nice place to visit. Wouldn't want to
25:17
live there. But uh, and then we got caught up
25:20
in a Palestinian protest that they were
25:22
having. So that was a bit um, intimidating, I
25:25
must say. Uh, then we moved on to our
25:28
next stop which was, um,
25:31
Seville. Uh, Seville, uh, was really
25:34
fantastic. We actually got to walk on a, um,
25:37
ah, a bullring where they still
25:40
have bull fighting today. Mixed, um,
25:43
opinions about the ethics of that. But uh,
25:45
getting to actually see it and stand on the
25:48
ground where they do that was, was
25:50
incredible. And uh, yeah, quite
25:53
a beautiful city. Really, uh, really
25:55
loved Seville. Uh, most enjoyable.
25:58
Our next stop took us to
26:01
um, a really amazing place, uh,
26:03
Lisbon in Portugal, where we
26:06
saw the monument to the explorers, uh, the
26:09
great names like Magellan and so on,
26:12
uh, and Henry the Explorer.
26:15
And uh, of course, uh, they've got a
26:18
bridge there that looks uncannily like the
26:21
Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. And
26:23
going under that on the ship as we left was
26:25
quite awe inspiring because you look like
26:28
you're going to hit it. Uh, not much
26:29
clearance between the Top of the ship. Ship
26:31
and the bottom of the bridge. Uh, they've got
26:33
a, um, a giant statue, uh,
26:36
of Jesus Christ there as well. Like the one
26:38
in, uh, Brazil. So we went up and
26:41
had a look at that and went around the city
26:43
and uh, enjoyed Portuguese tarts, which
26:46
are, uh, just so delectable. But we went to
26:48
the original place where they were first made
26:50
by the monks in 1837 or
26:53
something. Oh my gosh. And, and it's like
26:57
KFC. There's. They don't tell you what's in
26:59
them. Uh, uh, and uh, our next
27:02
stop, I mean we've done a lot of stops, was
27:04
uh, um, uh, the place,
27:08
uh, where they um,
27:11
found the location for uh, one of the. One
27:14
of the great scenes in Game, um, of
27:17
Thrones. Remember the castle Dragonstone?
27:20
Well, we, we saw it, but there's no
27:23
castle on top of the island. It's just a
27:24
church. But that windy little passage, uh,
27:27
up the stairs to the top, uh, is real.
27:30
And uh, I can't remember where,
27:34
where it was now that we've been to so many
27:36
places. Um, Jude, can you
27:39
remember where that was?
27:43
Professor Fred Watson: Bilbao.
27:43
Andrew Dunkley: Bilbao in Spain. That's right, yeah. Um,
27:46
lovely place as well. Really great city. And
27:50
they have the Guggenheim museum there as
27:51
well, which we visited. That's right. And
27:54
since then we've been to France and we did a
27:57
day trip in a Volkswagen, uh, Combi to a
27:59
vineyard. And uh, that was our
28:03
last stop. Uh, and just now, as
28:06
I speak, we've parked the boat,
28:09
uh, in Cork in Ireland. So we're going to
28:11
spend the day there. We're going to do the
28:13
Titanic museum and have a look around town.
28:16
We're here till 10 o' clock tonight, so we're
28:17
going to probably do a bit of a, uh, visit to
28:20
some Irish pubs and just sort of get into
28:22
the, uh, atmosphere of the Irish. So
28:25
we're looking forward to that. Should be
28:26
great fun. Hope all is well back home. Uh,
28:29
we've still got one third of our trip to go.
28:33
Uh, looking forward to getting home, but, uh,
28:35
having such a great time. We're not in a
28:37
hurry. All right, catch you soon. Take care.
28:40
Bye. Bye.
28:42
Generic: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
28:44
podcast, available at
28:47
Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
28:49
iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast
28:52
player. You can also stream on Demand at
28:54
bitesz.com This has been another quality
28:56
podcast production from Bytes. Com.