Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Gravity Questions, Cosmic Energy & Hidden Galaxies
Transcript
- 0:00Andrew Dunkley: Hi there, this is Space Nuts. Q and A. My
- 0:02name is Andrew Dunkley. Great to have your
- 0:04company. Coming up on this episode, we'll
- 0:06answer questions from Steve, Gus and Nick.
- 0:08Uh, Steve and Gus are sort of focused on the
- 0:11same thing, gravity.
- 0:13Steve, uh, wants to know if it can exist
- 0:15without mass. Uh, and Gus is talking
- 0:18about gravity and energy and what's the
- 0:21relationship. And Nick is asking about
- 0:24galaxy, um, movements and are any moving
- 0:26towards us that we can't see yet?
- 0:29Well, we don't know we can't see them yet.
- 0:31Uh, but we'll see if we can tackle all of
- 0:33that on this episode of space
- 0:35nuts.
- 0:36Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
- 0:3910, 9. Ignition
- 0:41sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
- 0:452. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
- 0:473, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
- 0:50report it feels good.
- 0:52Andrew Dunkley: Here he is again, Professor Fred Watson.
- 0:55Hello, Fred.
- 0:56Professor Fred Watson: Hello Andrew. Hello. How are you doing now?
- 1:00Andrew Dunkley: I'm doing the same as I was before.
- 1:03How about you?
- 1:05Professor Fred Watson: Uh, well, I'm still doing the same as I was
- 1:07before. Yes, that's right. And I hope to be
- 1:10doing the same again very soon.
- 1:12Andrew Dunkley: Yes, indeed, yes. Uh, shall
- 1:15we just sort of muck in and get
- 1:18these questions sorted out?
- 1:21It was ah, like a couple of weeks ago we had
- 1:24um, gravity questions coming in thick and
- 1:27fast. Uh, no black hole questions. But today
- 1:29it's gravity questions.
- 1:30Professor Fred Watson: It is.
- 1:31Andrew Dunkley: And our first one comes from
- 1:34Steve.
- 1:35Steve: Hi guys, my name is Steve. I'm uh, from New
- 1:38Zealand. Um, really enjoy your show.
- 1:42Recently read a article
- 1:46implying that, uh, gravity
- 1:50could be possible without mass.
- 1:53And um, I'm wondering if that would
- 1:56be, uh, another alternative
- 1:58explanation to um,
- 2:02uh, dark matter and to
- 2:04Mond.
- 2:07Yeah, I don't know if that makes it very
- 2:09clear to you. Anyway, thanks.
- 2:11Andrew Dunkley: All right, uh, Steve, thanks for the
- 2:12question, gravity without mass.
- 2:15Well, I doubt that, uh, we can turn to the
- 2:18Catholic Church because they do have mass.
- 2:22Um, but,
- 2:26uh, terrible. Uh, it's an interesting
- 2:28question though.
- 2:30Professor Fred Watson: It is. And um, so
- 2:33yeah, my reading on this. Excuse me, is
- 2:36yes, um, that's correct.
- 2:39So, uh, actually there's a nice
- 2:42thread about this on Reddit if anybody looks
- 2:44at that website.
- 2:46Andrew Dunkley: I do.
- 2:47Professor Fred Watson: And um, well, I love Reddit. Yeah,
- 2:52really Well, I do remember my, uh, one of my
- 2:54sons was an absolute Reddit fiend at one
- 2:57time. He was very much, um,
- 3:00a Reddit fan. Uh, now, so
- 3:03that's how I was aware of it. But I haven't
- 3:05been a great user of Reddit. But the bottom
- 3:08line. Excuse me, is, um,
- 3:12and this is the way it's phrased in this
- 3:15Particular conversation. If you increase
- 3:18the temperature of
- 3:21an object and they take a planet, in this
- 3:24case, uh, and in fact I might just
- 3:27read it, uh, because this kind of is
- 3:30quite interesting.
- 3:31Um,
- 3:35take your Neptunian planet, something the
- 3:37size of Neptune, raise the temperature by 300
- 3:40degrees Kelvin instantly. Now, the mass
- 3:43of neptune is about 10 to the 26 kg.
- 3:46And if we roughly assume all its hydrogen,
- 3:48uh, corresponds uh, to about 6 times 10
- 3:51to the 52 particles of hydrogen. Uh,
- 3:54the thermal energy is roughly given by
- 3:58an uh, equation. There equals nkt, uh,
- 4:01uh, which leads to an increase in thermal
- 4:04energy, uh, of
- 4:07deh.
- 4:07Gus: Duh.
- 4:07Professor Fred Watson: Uh, and it's a large number of
- 4:10joules. Um, actually it's a small number
- 4:13of joules. It's k times 6
- 4:16times 10 to the minus 52 times 300
- 4:18Joules, which
- 4:21um, if you then convert that.
- 4:24So what this is saying is you warm up a
- 4:27planet, you get an increase, uh, in the
- 4:30thermal energy of that planet. You can then
- 4:33use E equals MC squared to convert that
- 4:35thermal energy into mass. And in this case it
- 4:38comes out to be something like 3 times 10 to
- 4:41the 15 kilogram is a lot,
- 4:44but, uh, is not
- 4:47very much in comparison with a planet. Uh,
- 4:50but that does mean that adding energy
- 4:53to something will increase its gravitational
- 4:55mass. Now, um,
- 4:59Steve's sort of, uh, you know,
- 5:03um, next step in the argument from that is
- 5:05whether that could be misleading us in the
- 5:08idea of dark matter and things of that sort
- 5:10of. Um. And uh,
- 5:13I can't really get my head around how
- 5:16that would work. Um, he mentioned MOND
- 5:18as well modified Newtonian dynamics.
- 5:21Um, because my understanding
- 5:24is that everybody who looks at these
- 5:28particular problems, what is dark matter?
- 5:30What is dark energy, they take into account
- 5:33everything. Uh, I've um, read some of the
- 5:35papers on this and so things like,
- 5:39um, uh,
- 5:41gravitational influence of
- 5:45pure energy. And in this case we're talking
- 5:47about heat energy. That
- 5:50uh, is likely to be something that would
- 5:53be already in the equations. Um, so I don't
- 5:55think it's the answer, but it's a really
- 5:57interesting suggestion and an interesting
- 6:00thing to think about. Uh, thank
- 6:03you very much, Steve.
- 6:04Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, indeed. Just, um, made me wonder. Are
- 6:07we increasing Earth's gravity because we're
- 6:09heating the planet up?
- 6:11Professor Fred Watson: Yep, that's probably right. Um,
- 6:14I mean the example that uh, I just read out
- 6:17was about
- 6:20300 degrees Kelvin, an instant increase, uh,
- 6:23in that we're talking about one or two
- 6:26degrees Kelvin, uh, uh,
- 6:29which makes a big difference to the Earth's
- 6:30atmosphere, but probably not that much
- 6:32difference to its uh, you know, gravitational
- 6:34potential.
- 6:36Andrew Dunkley: Okay, M. So the answer is yes. Gravity can
- 6:38exist without mass, but
- 6:41it's probably not a major factor. Is that
- 6:45fair enough?
- 6:46Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yes, that is right.
- 6:49Um, I've, uh, just been dragging through my
- 6:51memory, Andrew, something else that's sort
- 6:54of vaguely related to this.
- 6:56Um, which is the. Well, we haven't
- 6:59used this name, but we did talk about it a
- 7:01while ago. Kugelblitz.
- 7:04Do you know what a Kugelblitz is?
- 7:06Andrew Dunkley: Uh, look, I've heard this before.
- 7:09Uh, no, remind me.
- 7:11Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So it basically is,
- 7:14uh, a black hole made of light. Uh,
- 7:18and Wikipedia says it's a concentration of
- 7:20heat, light, or radiation so intense that its
- 7:22energy forms an event horizon and becomes
- 7:24self trapped. In other words, if enough
- 7:27radiation is aimed into a region of space,
- 7:29the concentration of energy can warp space
- 7:32time so much that it creates a black hole.
- 7:35It's a black hole as a black hole whose
- 7:38original mass energy was in the form of
- 7:40radiant energy rather than matter.
- 7:43Uh, now, um, there is a
- 7:46paper that was published in
- 7:482024 that concludes
- 7:52that a phenomenon like this cannot occur in
- 7:54any realistic scenario within our universe.
- 7:58So kugelblitzes, uh, are a theoretical
- 8:00entity that are not thought not
- 8:03to occur in nature. Uh, but it
- 8:06is a similar thing, isn't it? So it
- 8:08basically. It's a black hole made of energy.
- 8:11Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Wow, that's really interesting. I'll
- 8:14tell you something else that does exist is a
- 8:16Kugel scriber. So
- 8:19I've got one of those.
- 8:20Professor Fred Watson: Have you?
- 8:22Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. There it is.
- 8:23Professor Fred Watson: Mangle.
- 8:24Andrew Dunkley: It's a pen. It's German looking.
- 8:26Professor Fred Watson: Hold it up. Ah, okay.
- 8:28Andrew Dunkley: Google scriber.
- 8:29Professor Fred Watson: Kugel scriber, yes.
- 8:32Andrew Dunkley: You know what German is? Uh. You know what
- 8:33the German is for pencil?
- 8:35Professor Fred Watson: Uh, I probably did once, but I don't know.
- 8:41All right. Uh, it's probably.
- 8:44I only.
- 8:45Andrew Dunkley: I did languages at high school, and I was
- 8:47very good at them. And I should have probably
- 8:49pursued that somewhere along the line, but
- 8:51German stuck with me.
- 8:52Professor Fred Watson: I.
- 8:53Andrew Dunkley: Some of the references I still remember
- 8:56today. Someone's going to correct me now
- 8:57because I probably buggered up the, uh,
- 8:59pronunciation anyway.
- 9:02Professor Fred Watson: That's all right.
- 9:03Andrew Dunkley: I'm just showing off now.
- 9:04Professor Fred Watson: No, ah, it's a side of your character that I
- 9:07was unaware of, Andrew. Um,
- 9:10curiously, I, uh,
- 9:13never joined Lerman at school. I
- 9:16never learned Sherman at school. Um,
- 9:19but, uh, uh, when I was 14,
- 9:22uh, I went on a school exchange to
- 9:25Germany, which was Barbara, because I wasn't
- 9:27studying German. But that was my first
- 9:30overseas visit, of course, from the United
- 9:32Kingdom. Um, and so I've
- 9:34spent the. However many years it
- 9:37is, 60 odd years since then
- 9:40trying to learn German and.
- 9:44Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah, look, I'm so
- 9:47jealous of students in countries like the
- 9:49United States and the UK and Europe because
- 9:52they get to do excursions to other countries.
- 9:55In Australia, we got to do excursions to
- 9:57Sydney and Canberra. I mean, come on.
- 10:02That was it. Yeah, that was as good as it
- 10:05got for us. Yeah, I mean, these days they get
- 10:07to go to New Zealand once in a while. Um,
- 10:10but yeah, we're so far from everywhere. It's
- 10:13just not easy. Although my son did go to get
- 10:15to do a couple of weeks in Japan through high
- 10:18school.
- 10:18Professor Fred Watson: So there you go.
- 10:19Andrew Dunkley: There are a few options these days. This is
- 10:22Space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with
- 10:24Professor Fred Watson.
- 10:28Generic: Three, two, one.
- 10:31Andrew Dunkley: Space Nuts. Uh, we better keep moving. Uh,
- 10:34thank you, Steve.
- 10:35Let's get a question from Gus.
- 10:38Gus: Hello, Professor Fred and uh, Andrew.
- 10:41Uh, this is Gus Iverson from Issaquah,
- 10:44Washington. I sent in a question for you guys
- 10:46previously and you thought I was in Western
- 10:49Australia. Yes, I, I've been thinking about,
- 10:52um, gravity, uh,
- 10:55today. And it, it came to my mind that
- 10:58if, uh, energy and mass
- 11:00are equivalent, then essentially,
- 11:04uh, shouldn't energy also create
- 11:07gravity at some level?
- 11:11Um, I'm not sure if this is a related
- 11:13question or an extension or
- 11:16a separate question though. Um, uh,
- 11:19additionally, um, if a
- 11:22body of any size is
- 11:25generating or has mass
- 11:28and it is generating a
- 11:30gravitational field, does
- 11:33not that field itself
- 11:37have energy and mass?
- 11:40And would that field not
- 11:42create additional gravity
- 11:46by its simple existence?
- 11:48So if that's the case,
- 11:51or even kind of the case, my question is,
- 11:55where does the energy and mass go? If,
- 11:58um, or, um.
- 12:02I have no idea where to go with this.
- 12:04Professor Fred Watson: Thank you.
- 12:05Gus: Uh, I love the show and, uh, appreciate being
- 12:07able to ask questions.
- 12:09Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Gus. Uh, that sounded very much
- 12:11like something from catch 22.
- 12:14Was it apples or tomatoes? They were trying
- 12:16to. I don't know. Um,
- 12:19but, uh, yeah, it sounded a bit like that.
- 12:21Um, gravity plus energy, body plus
- 12:24mass plus gravity equals energy. But
- 12:27then does that add mass which adds to
- 12:30gravity? I think that's what he was trying
- 12:32to.
- 12:32Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. So, so you've got a. You
- 12:35know, the whole thing gets completely out of
- 12:37hand because everything's got gravity. Um,
- 12:40I think, uh, so the first part of what Gus
- 12:43was saying is what we've just been talking
- 12:45about. You know, if you have energy and
- 12:47mass, um, and
- 12:52gravitation, you probably have to
- 12:55be careful with the words.
- 12:58Gravitation is a Potential.
- 13:01Uh, an object in a gravitational field has
- 13:04potential energy, so it does have energy.
- 13:07Uh, but
- 13:10I kind of need to take this one and notice.
- 13:12Actually, you did give me notice, Andrew, but
- 13:14I didn't have time to really look further
- 13:16into it.
- 13:17Andrew Dunkley: But.
- 13:19Professor Fred Watson: I think there's a stumbling block somewhere
- 13:21in that argument, uh, which is probably that
- 13:24gravitational energy isn't energy. That's
- 13:26convertible to mass. Um, but I
- 13:29need to get my thoughts clearer on that,
- 13:32which they aren't at the moment. So, Gus,
- 13:34thank you for a very, uh, tricky question,
- 13:38uh, which, um, I might think a little bit
- 13:40more about. Uh, and,
- 13:43uh, perhaps we will revisit it in a future
- 13:46episode of Spacenuts. Q and A.
- 13:50Andrew Dunkley: Um, I put a, uh, homework marker next to it.
- 13:53Professor Fred Watson: That's what I. I'm just doing that. I'm doing
- 13:55it. You're doing it in your, uh, kugel.
- 13:59Andrew Dunkley: I'm using a red Kugel scriber.
- 14:01Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
- 14:03Andrew Dunkley: I don't know what the German word for red is,
- 14:05though.
- 14:06Professor Fred Watson: Oh.
- 14:06Andrew Dunkley: Probably do it on translator.
- 14:08Professor Fred Watson: Uh.
- 14:09Andrew Dunkley: Ah, there you are.
- 14:10Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, there you are.
- 14:12Andrew Dunkley: I don't have to look it up.
- 14:13Professor Fred Watson: You do.
- 14:15Andrew Dunkley: So, Gus, um, dunno. We don't know.
- 14:19Maybe. Possibly. Could be.
- 14:21Professor Fred Watson: Don't know. Yeah, but we'll. How's
- 14:24that?
- 14:25Andrew Dunkley: Don't yet know.
- 14:28I like that.
- 14:29Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
- 14:29Andrew Dunkley: Uh, let's, um, get to the final question.
- 14:32We'll get back to you, Gus. At some stage in
- 14:35Western Australia, or it could be the United
- 14:37States.
- 14:37Uh, now we've got a question from. Oh,
- 14:41um, just by coincidence, from New Zealand
- 14:43again. Um, hi, Tim. Amazing
- 14:46podcast. Which one are you talking about now?
- 14:48Uh, I have been listening since your early
- 14:51days and have always, uh, looked forward to
- 14:53new, uh, uploads. My question is around the
- 14:55discovery of early galaxies from the James
- 14:58Webb Space Telescope. Is it possible for
- 15:00earlier galaxies to be traveling towards us
- 15:03that are currently out of reach? Uh, filling
- 15:06with potentially, uh, nothing. Uh,
- 15:10filling where potentially nothing was in view
- 15:12before. Uh, if possible, would the light be
- 15:15compressed? How would the instruments deal
- 15:18with that? Hope that makes sense. Cheers.
- 15:20Nick from Auckland, New Zealand.
- 15:25My brain just went, well, I suppose it's
- 15:27possible, but how do we prove it until it
- 15:29happens?
- 15:30Professor Fred Watson: Yes. So, a. Ah, couple of things in here. Um,
- 15:33thanks, Nick. Great question. The last bit
- 15:36about light being compressed, um,
- 15:39and in a way, that's, um, quite
- 15:42a nice way of putting it. So anything that
- 15:44comes towards you that's emitting light,
- 15:46its light will be blue shifted. In other
- 15:48words, its wavelength will get
- 15:51shorter. And that's saying
- 15:54it's compressed is pretty well you know,
- 15:56that's pretty well what happens. It's like,
- 15:58uh, um, you know, the good old
- 16:01ambulance, uh, siren or fire engine siren or
- 16:04whatever it is coming towards you, uh, which
- 16:06compresses the sound waves. And the
- 16:09result is an increase in pitch. Which
- 16:11corresponds to a shortening of wavelength. So
- 16:13that's standard physics. We can detect,
- 16:16uh, by the Doppler shift, anything coming
- 16:19towards us. Uh, by the fact that its light is
- 16:22shifted towards the blue end of the spectrum.
- 16:25Um, but, um, the
- 16:28first bit of the question about galaxies,
- 16:32earlier galaxies traveling towards us.
- 16:34Andrew Dunkley: Um.
- 16:39Professor Fred Watson: When we think about galaxies, we have
- 16:42two different velocities involved. One
- 16:45is the velocity of a galaxy as it's
- 16:48carried along by the expansion of the
- 16:50universe. Uh, and that is
- 16:53what we measure as a redshift. Uh,
- 16:56the expansion of the universe is carrying
- 16:58galaxies away from us. And so their light is
- 17:00being redshifted. Uh, and by the
- 17:03time you get to these really early galaxies
- 17:06where you're looking back, uh, almost the
- 17:08whole edge of the universe, the redshift is
- 17:11very considerable. It's a factor of 13 or 14,
- 17:14something like that. We're giving the name Z.
- 17:16Uh, the redshift is about 14. So,
- 17:19um. I beg your pardon. No, that's not true.
- 17:21Uh, that's me confusing the age
- 17:24with the redshift. Forget that bit. But
- 17:27the number's quite high. The redshifts are
- 17:29probably five or six or something like that.
- 17:31But, uh, it's still a high level of
- 17:35the light being stretched out by the
- 17:36expansion of the universe. So that's one
- 17:39velocity. But galaxies can have
- 17:42superimposed on that a velocity which we call
- 17:45a peculiar motion. Its own velocity, uh,
- 17:48caused by local eddies in
- 17:51space or whatever. Uh, that. That might,
- 17:54um, move a galaxy towards us. It's the
- 17:56gravitational field that it's exposed
- 17:59to. Very much like the
- 18:02analog is always a river carrying you along.
- 18:05Uh, and if you're in a rowboat, you can move
- 18:06relative to the river. But the river's always
- 18:08carrying you along. That's exactly what's
- 18:10happening with the Hubble flow, the expansion
- 18:13of the universe. And these peculiar motions
- 18:15are superimposed on that. But they're much,
- 18:17much less than the motion,
- 18:20uh, those distances, uh, or look
- 18:22back times. It's much, much less than the
- 18:26expansion flow of the universe. So no, there
- 18:28won't be anything hidden from us that's
- 18:30coming towards us. I don't think it's an
- 18:32interesting suggestion. But, uh, uh,
- 18:34everything's moving away from us at this very
- 18:36high velocity. At those distances, M
- 18:39of Course.
- 18:40Andrew Dunkley: Um, Nick, if you want to check with us, uh,
- 18:42in a million years or so, we might have an
- 18:44alternative answer.
- 18:45Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's true. Uh, put that in your diary
- 18:47and, uh, I'll mark it with an
- 18:50asterisk, knowing that it's work for a
- 18:52million years time. Yes,
- 18:55it's good.
- 18:56Andrew Dunkley: Um, I'm really disappointed that the people
- 18:59who make diaries haven't gone ahead that far
- 19:01yet.
- 19:06Thanks, Nick. Um, probably not, I think, is
- 19:08the answer. Um, but thanks for the
- 19:11question. Thanks to everyone who sent in
- 19:13questions. Keep them coming. You can do that
- 19:14via our, ah, website spacenutspodcast.com
- 19:17spacenuts IO which, uh, has two
- 19:20options. The AMA tab at the top where you can
- 19:23send us text audio or the send us your
- 19:25questions, um, button on the right hand side
- 19:28of our home screen. Don't forget to tell us
- 19:30who you are and where you're from. And you
- 19:32can probably upload your audio questions on
- 19:35any device as long as you've got a
- 19:36microphone. Mobile phones are perfect for
- 19:39this. Um, but, um, a lot of people have home
- 19:42computers with mics built in, et cetera, et
- 19:44cetera, et cetera. Always happy to hear from
- 19:46you. Um, Fred, thanks so much. We're done
- 19:49with another episode. Geez. We're wrapping
- 19:51them up.
- 19:52Professor Fred Watson: We are racking him up. Good to talk to you,
- 19:53Andrew. And we'll speak again soon.
- 19:56Andrew Dunkley: Indeed we will. Professor Fred Watson,
- 19:58astronomer at large. And thanks to Huw in the
- 20:00studio for collating.
- 20:04Not much, but, uh, we thank him anyway. And
- 20:06from me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your
- 20:07company. See you on the very next episode of
- 20:10Space Nuts. Bye bye.
- 20:12Generic: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
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