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How Scientific Discoveries at Mars Are Bringing Us Closer to Detecting Alien Life · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Hi there. Thanks for joining us. This is
• 0:02
  Space Nuts, where we talk astronomy and space
• 0:05
  science and sometimes puppy dogs. Who knows?
• 0:08
  Uh, my name is Andrew Dunkley, uh, your host.
• 0:10
  It's great to have your company. Coming up on
• 0:13
  this episode, we are going to look into
• 0:16
  a discovery made through the Perseverance
• 0:19
  Rover on Mars. Uh, have they
• 0:22
  found what could have been life in Mars's
• 0:24
  history? Or is it another rock that's just
• 0:26
  got a stain on it? Uh, also, uh, we've
• 0:29
  got some news on the Hubble Tension and the
• 0:32
  Large Hadron Collider is no
• 0:35
  more. Well, it's going to be more,
• 0:37
  but it needs to be no more to be more.
• 0:40
  We'll tell you all about it on this episode
• 0:42
  of space nuts.
• 0:44
  Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
• 0:46
  10, 9. Ignition
• 0:49
  sequence start.
• 0:50
  Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
• 0:51
  Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
• 0:54
  5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
• 0:56
  Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
• 0:57
  Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts report it feels good.
• 1:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Joining us again to discuss all of those
• 1:03
  things and more is Professor Fred Watson
• 1:04
  Watson, astronomer at large. Hi, Fred Watson.
• 1:07
  Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. Good to see you.
• 1:09
  Andrew Dunkley: Good to see you too.
• 1:10
  Professor Fred Watson: Good to be back on Space Nuts. It
• 1:13
  is, it is.
• 1:14
  Andrew Dunkley: It's very good.
• 1:15
  Uh, we've got a lot to talk about, so we
• 1:17
  might as well dive right in because, um,
• 1:20
  it wasn't so long ago that we had a bit of a
• 1:22
  chat about a, A rock that they
• 1:25
  found that they said came from Mars and it
• 1:27
  showed, uh, there was life. And then it
• 1:29
  turned out to be nothing like that.
• 1:33
  Uh, and now we have a storey popping up.
• 1:36
  Uh, that suggests the Perseverance Rover may
• 1:38
  have detected complex carbon,
• 1:41
  uh, molecules in Martian rocks that
• 1:44
  may have been signatures for
• 1:47
  life. Um, yeah, you can't, uh,
• 1:50
  you can't say, look, I found formal life on
• 1:52
  Mars. It's all over. Red Rover. Boom, boom.
• 1:54
  That's a good joke, that. Think about it.
• 1:57
  Professor Fred Watson: And, um, I didn't need to think too
• 2:00
  hard.
• 2:01
  Andrew Dunkley: And, uh, look, you've just got to take
• 2:04
  this with a grain of, uh, Martian salt and
• 2:07
  hope that that's what they've actually found.
• 2:09
  That's what it's all about.
• 2:12
  Professor Fred Watson: You have to go back to that pink planet we
• 2:15
  were talking about a few episodes ago to get
• 2:17
  the grain of salt to.
• 2:18
  Andrew Dunkley: Pink Salt planet,
• 2:21
  Professor Fred Watson: indeed.
• 2:22
  So, um, yes, the storey is. It is, um,
• 2:25
  as you've hinted, um, a kind of
• 2:27
  extension of a storey that we covered a few
• 2:30
  weeks ago, which was this particular
• 2:33
  rock, um, which
• 2:36
  is, uh, from an outcrop called
• 2:38
  the Bright Angel Outcrop, uh, on, um,
• 2:42
  Mars. Uh, so this is the Perseverance Rover,
• 2:45
  which you'll Remember is working hard in
• 2:47
  Jezero Crater, where there is a
• 2:50
  river Delta from probably 3.5 billion
• 2:53
  years ago. So, um, the Bright
• 2:55
  angel outcrop and the particular rock
• 2:59
  that they found, um, I can't see whether
• 3:02
  it had a particular name, but it was a
• 3:04
  mudstone rock which had,
• 3:08
  uh, basically, as you said, stains on them.
• 3:12
  Uh, stains on the surface. Um, stains on
• 3:15
  Mars will be interesting because you'd wonder
• 3:16
  where they came from. But it's got
• 3:19
  surface spots and what have been called
• 3:21
  nodules. Uh, and the
• 3:24
  reason why it caused excitement was
• 3:27
  that some of those features superficially
• 3:30
  resemble the features that are
• 3:33
  produced on Earth by fossilised
• 3:36
  microbes. And that's what we covered
• 3:37
  actually, back in 2024. It seems like only
• 3:40
  yesterday, but we did talk about that.
• 3:43
  Or maybe. No, it was probably last year
• 3:45
  actually. Um, I think that's when the results
• 3:47
  came out. So last year, 2025.
• 3:50
  Uh, uh, and a quote, um,
• 3:54
  uh, there's a nice Guardian piece on this
• 3:56
  Storey, but there's a quote from Sean Duffy,
• 3:59
  who used to acting head of NASA,
• 4:01
  uh, who said of that discovery, this
• 4:04
  very well could be the clearest sign of life
• 4:07
  that we've ever found on Mars. Which is
• 4:10
  an interesting comment. And of course
• 4:12
  all astrobiologists and all scientists
• 4:15
  probably, and all, um, podcast presenters,
• 4:17
  uh, couch this sort of discovery in very,
• 4:20
  very, um, broad terms
• 4:23
  because, uh, with. There's
• 4:26
  certainly no. This is certainly not a
• 4:29
  definitive discovery of life
• 4:32
  on Mars, but it
• 4:35
  has basically gone
• 4:38
  further in the sense that the samples
• 4:41
  that, uh, Perseverance took
• 4:44
  from this mudstone, uh,
• 4:47
  showed that there was something called
• 4:49
  macromolecular carbon on its surface.
• 4:53
  And that's something. A
• 4:56
  carbon, you know, it's carbon compounds,
• 4:59
  probably. Excuse me. Sorry about that,
• 5:01
  Andrew, just bellowing into my microphone
• 5:03
  here. I do apologise. Um,
• 5:06
  um. Uh, it's probably several
• 5:09
  organic types of organic
• 5:12
  molecule and of course organic means
• 5:13
  containing carbon associated with life
• 5:16
  normally. Um, but, uh, the
• 5:18
  analysis of this shows,
• 5:21
  and the analysis by Perseverance
• 5:24
  shows that it is, uh,
• 5:27
  a possibility that
• 5:31
  this life, these organic, these
• 5:34
  macromolecules, carbon macromolecules,
• 5:37
  could have been the result of life
• 5:39
  processes, but they could also
• 5:43
  come from basically,
• 5:46
  uh, I mean essentially, um, geological
• 5:49
  processes, tectonic processes. And
• 5:51
  so that's where the
• 5:54
  thing stands at the moment. Uh,
• 5:58
  we know from,
• 6:01
  uh, work that's already been done by
• 6:04
  the Perseverance rover and Perseverance,
• 6:07
  uh, so Curiosity went to Mars to
• 6:10
  determine whether Mars was ever habitable.
• 6:12
  And we know that from Curiosity it found that
• 6:15
  out within the first two weeks of being
• 6:17
  there. Um, but we know now from
• 6:20
  perseverance that Jezero Crater was also
• 6:23
  a habitable, habitable environment
• 6:26
  at um, least for some sort of primitive level
• 6:29
  of life. Um, but of course uh, the
• 6:32
  issue is that we won't be able to do the
• 6:34
  proper tests on these samples until
• 6:37
  we get these samples back to Earth, uh,
• 6:40
  laboratories where there's far more refined
• 6:43
  equipment than you can carry on a little
• 6:45
  rover on Mars. And the problem is we
• 6:47
  don't currently have any way of doing that,
• 6:49
  of getting these samples back because the um,
• 6:53
  the mission uh, to do that, a uh,
• 6:55
  joint NASA European Space Agency mission
• 6:59
  fell foul of politics in the United States
• 7:01
  and was cancelled earlier in the year.
• 7:03
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh,
• 7:05
  Professor Fred Watson: we knew it was in trouble anyway because the
• 7:07
  cost had sort of blown out. So it's not a
• 7:10
  surprise that that happened. But at the
• 7:11
  moment there's nothing on the books to get
• 7:14
  them back. Few plans going on I think,
• 7:17
  but not to get them back.
• 7:20
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, and that's uh, frustrating but I
• 7:23
  suppose in the scheme of things it's, I mean
• 7:25
  we all want to know whether or not Mars
• 7:28
  had life but it's probably not one of the
• 7:31
  most urgent things to deal with. Um,
• 7:34
  we'll get around to it and chances
• 7:36
  are that those um,
• 7:40
  cylinders I think they are, that the deposits
• 7:42
  are in will be collected as a part of
• 7:45
  another major mission. That would be my
• 7:48
  thinking sometime in the future.
• 7:50
  Professor Fred Watson: You're probably right. Uh, although it's
• 7:53
  a very specific type of mission that's going
• 7:56
  to go and collect these samples
• 7:59
  and then send them back to Earth. That's the
• 8:01
  tricky bit. It is, it's
• 8:04
  probably a two step process where you've got
• 8:06
  an orbiter um, sent to
• 8:09
  Mars, goes into orbit around Mars, that drops
• 8:11
  a probe onto the surface. The probe picks up
• 8:14
  the uh, cache samples,
• 8:17
  not ah, cash but
• 8:20
  cache, uh, and um, brings them
• 8:23
  back up to the orbiter and then the orbiter
• 8:25
  sends off a probe to the Earth and that re
• 8:28
  enters. It's a very complex process which is
• 8:30
  why the cost blew out. But um, I
• 8:33
  do have my own view on what might prompt
• 8:36
  uh, some urgency with this and that is that
• 8:39
  the Chinese are planning to do a sample
• 8:42
  return mission to Mars uh, in
• 8:44
  the2030s. So um,
• 8:47
  if anything's going to stimulate some action
• 8:50
  on this, my guess is that that's what it
• 8:53
  would be. And you know, all praise to
• 8:56
  the China National Space Agency.
• 8:57
  Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely.
• 8:58
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, for aiming high. It's a great thing to
• 9:01
  do.
• 9:01
  Andrew Dunkley: It is.
• 9:02
  And um, the other interesting thing
• 9:05
  I suppose and you mentioned Curiosity. Uh,
• 9:08
  it's starting to build up evidence
• 9:10
  that, um, the potential for life
• 9:13
  on Mars was widespread across the
• 9:16
  planet.
• 9:17
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes, correct. That's right. So I meant
• 9:20
  to mention that. That's absolutely right.
• 9:21
  That you know, when you've got, um,
• 9:24
  uh, mudstones separated by 3,000
• 9:27
  kilometres or thereabouts, uh, and
• 9:30
  giving you the same sort of answer. Yeah,
• 9:33
  that I think is, um,
• 9:35
  it's a very, very strong evidence
• 9:38
  for there having been the possibility of life
• 9:41
  on Mars and that it might be findable, if I
• 9:44
  can put it that way, if the conditions are
• 9:46
  suitable for life everywhere, then there
• 9:49
  might be remnants, um, of living
• 9:52
  organisms everywhere on Mars which we have,
• 9:54
  uh, a good chance of finding. Because
• 9:57
  when NASA and other space agencies
• 10:00
  aim to send, uh, spacecraft to Mars,
• 10:03
  it's not quite just a tail on
• 10:06
  the donkey thing where you just poke it in
• 10:08
  willy nilly. You've got really good reasons
• 10:11
  for going to any specific place. And
• 10:13
  certainly Jezero Crater, um, it
• 10:15
  was a masterstroke. Sending it to a lake
• 10:18
  that, uh, had, um, a
• 10:20
  river delta in it.
• 10:22
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, they, they picked a good target. Uh,
• 10:24
  that was intentional. And yes, uh, it seems
• 10:27
  to be paying off. Fingers. Fingers crossed.
• 10:29
  But, um, yeah, too early to tell. But looking
• 10:32
  somewhat promising is, I think, the best way
• 10:35
  to describe it at the moment.
• 10:36
  Professor Fred Watson: That's right. It's not, it's not a kind of
• 10:39
  negative result. It's not saying, oh, no,
• 10:40
  there's no life on Mars. It's saying, hm,
• 10:43
  there might be. It might have been.
• 10:44
  Andrew Dunkley: Might, might have been. And still might be.
• 10:47
  Professor Fred Watson: It still might be. That's right, yeah.
• 10:50
  Andrew Dunkley: You can read all about that@theguardian.com
• 10:52
  or you can read the paper that's been
• 10:55
  published in Science Advances. This is Space
• 10:58
  Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor
• 11:00
  Fred Watson Watson.
• 11:03
  Space Nuts.
• 11:04
  Now, uh, one of our, um, semi
• 11:06
  regular topics is the Hubble
• 11:09
  Tension and it's back in the news again,
• 11:12
  uh, because of a, um,
• 11:15
  another detection involving the collision
• 11:18
  of neutron stars. Is that right?
• 11:20
  Professor Fred Watson: That's correct, yes. Um, yes.
• 11:23
  So, uh, the Hubble Tension is one
• 11:26
  of these irritating things that just won't
• 11:29
  go away.
• 11:31
  Andrew Dunkley: Well, it's being described as one of the
• 11:33
  biggest challenges in modern cosmology. So,
• 11:35
  yes, it won't go away.
• 11:36
  Professor Fred Watson: It won't go away. But it's a bit weird. I
• 11:39
  did a radio segment about it, um, with a
• 11:43
  Australian commercial radio station yesterday
• 11:45
  morning because of the headline storey. Uh,
• 11:48
  and I thought, how do you make this exciting?
• 11:53
  It was, first thing you know, it was a
• 11:55
  morning breakfast show and the guys who Were
• 11:57
  interviewing me, were clearly not impressed
• 11:59
  with it. Uh, normally I get lots of questions
• 12:02
  Andrew Dunkley: from them, but, um, it may well have just
• 12:05
  been something that goes
• 12:08
  into the too hard basket because it's not an
• 12:11
  easy thing to get your head around.
• 12:12
  Professor Fred Watson: It's not. That's right. It's not. Um,
• 12:15
  there's a lot of gobbledygook attached to it.
• 12:17
  Anyway, let's have a go. We have a very
• 12:19
  erudite audience on Space Nuts. Uh,
• 12:22
  and Space Nuts, uh, listeners
• 12:25
  will probably already be aware of all this
• 12:27
  anyway. Um, but, uh. Yes.
• 12:30
  So what's the Hubble tension? Uh, we have
• 12:33
  two measurements of the Hubble constant,
• 12:36
  which is the number that defines how fast
• 12:38
  the universe is expanding. Now,
• 12:42
  it's the expansion time or the
• 12:45
  expansion rate that we are seeing. Uh, as
• 12:48
  you and I have said many times before, it's
• 12:50
  measured in units of kilometres per second
• 12:52
  per megaparsec. Uh, and A
• 12:54
  megaparsec is 3.26 million light
• 12:57
  years. It's the units astronomers use because
• 12:59
  you can't measure light years, but you can
• 13:01
  measure parsecs. So, um,
• 13:04
  that number is, uh,
• 13:06
  the magic number. And we have,
• 13:11
  uh, two different ways of determining it,
• 13:13
  both of which now have achieved a really
• 13:16
  high level of precision. Um,
• 13:19
  there was a talk that I was at a couple of
• 13:22
  months ago in Germany where, uh, one of the
• 13:24
  experts was talking about this, uh, and
• 13:28
  the sort of uncertainty limits that are put
• 13:30
  on each of these two different methods of
• 13:33
  determining the Hubble constant. They were
• 13:35
  very small, uh, on the order of one
• 13:38
  kilometre per second. Very, very, uh,
• 13:40
  accurate measurements. Uh, but they
• 13:43
  disagree. So, uh, you can do it two ways.
• 13:46
  The first way is to
• 13:49
  look at the cosmic microwave background
• 13:52
  radiation, the good, uh, old background glow
• 13:55
  of the Big Bang that is everywhere in the
• 13:57
  sky. Uh, it has,
• 14:00
  um, undulations on it in temperature, uh,
• 14:02
  which we recognise as being
• 14:05
  differences in the temperature of the Big
• 14:07
  Bang fireball,
• 14:10
  uh, which are caused by acoustic
• 14:12
  oscillations. It's the bang of the Big Bang.
• 14:15
  But you can use those undulations to get a
• 14:17
  measurement of the Hubble constant. And the
• 14:20
  value that that technology gets or that
• 14:23
  method gets is 67 to 68 kilometres per
• 14:26
  second per megaparsec. The
• 14:29
  other way of, uh, measuring this
• 14:32
  is to look in the nearby universe. You look
• 14:34
  at galaxies whose distances are measured in,
• 14:37
  um, millions or hundreds of millions of light
• 14:40
  years. Uh, and that's very local compared
• 14:43
  with the 13.8 billion light years
• 14:45
  of the cosmic microwave background. Um,
• 14:48
  so you look locally and you look for the
• 14:51
  traditional methods of Finding, um,
• 14:54
  uh, the distances to galaxies, uh, which,
• 14:57
  uh, one of them is by what we call
• 14:59
  Cepheid variable stars. That was the way that
• 15:02
  galaxies were first established to be a long
• 15:04
  way off in 1923. Um, you
• 15:07
  can also do it with supernova explosions, all
• 15:09
  of that sort of stuff, uh, gives you another
• 15:12
  alternative value, uh, on the Hubble
• 15:15
  constant, and that gives you a higher answer.
• 15:18
  So the local universe gives
• 15:21
  you, uh, uh, an answer of about
• 15:24
  73 kilometres per second per
• 15:26
  megaparsec, sort of. So that's
• 15:29
  roughly 5. Higher. 5
• 15:32
  kilometres per second per megaparsec higher
• 15:35
  than the one you get from the Hubble
• 15:36
  constant. Now that's, you know, I suppose
• 15:39
  that's, uh, something like a 6 or
• 15:41
  7% difference between them. And
• 15:44
  I can tell you, 30 years ago, um, when I
• 15:47
  was an astronomer, kind of a
• 15:50
  bit more directly connected with all this 5%.
• 15:54
  We'd die for 5%. That was, um,
• 15:58
  6 or 7% or whatever the difference is 5
• 16:00
  kilometres per second per megaparsec, uh,
• 16:02
  because most of them differed by 50
• 16:04
  kilometres per second per megaparsec back
• 16:06
  then. Um, so, uh, and it was the Hubble
• 16:09
  telescope that actually nailed it down to be
• 16:11
  in the region of 70. But, yes, we have this
• 16:14
  discrepancy. Uh, um. What's the
• 16:17
  answer? So, um.
• 16:20
  Actually, I might just quote there's a very
• 16:21
  nice conversation piece by one of the
• 16:23
  astronomers involved, um, with this, who
• 16:26
  is a radio astronomer at csiro, the
• 16:29
  Australia's National Science Agency.
• 16:32
  Uh, Kelly Gurgi. Uh, and, uh,
• 16:35
  let me see if I can find this comment. Yes,
• 16:38
  that's that. So that Kelly says this is the
• 16:41
  Hubble tension. What does it mean? Could it
• 16:43
  be something. Could it be something has gone
• 16:45
  awry in one or both methods?
• 16:48
  Despite intense scrutiny, nobody has found
• 16:51
  any mistakes. Alternatively, our
• 16:54
  understanding of how the universe evolves may
• 16:56
  be missing something fundamental and we need
• 16:58
  new physics to resolve it.
• 17:00
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh,
• 17:02
  Professor Fred Watson: to settle this cosmic M debate, new and
• 17:05
  independent methods of measuring the Hubble
• 17:07
  constant are, uh, highly sought after.
• 17:09
  Which gets us to the storey. Yes, yes.
• 17:13
  Andrew Dunkley: We had to fill in all the blanks.
• 17:14
  Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Um,
• 17:17
  and as the article goes on, gravitational
• 17:20
  waves offer an entirely independent way to
• 17:22
  measure the expansion of the universe. And we
• 17:25
  know about gravitational waves. That's very
• 17:26
  much the stock in trade of what we talk about
• 17:29
  on Space Nuts. Uh, and
• 17:32
  so, uh, what they've done is gone back to one
• 17:34
  that was particularly interesting. Uh,
• 17:37
  and as you know, gravitational waves get
• 17:40
  their number from the date when they're
• 17:42
  discovered. This was
• 17:43
  GW170817.
• 17:47
  So, discovered on the 17th of August, uh,
• 17:49
  2017. Um,
• 17:52
  that's only two years after the first one was
• 17:55
  found. Actually, I think it's only a year
• 17:56
  after. I think, uh, it's two years, certainly
• 17:59
  two years after the first one was observed.
• 18:02
  Um, so, uh,
• 18:05
  and this was a neutron star collision, two
• 18:08
  neutron stars. And that has the
• 18:11
  property unlike a black hole neutron star
• 18:13
  collision or a black hole black hole
• 18:15
  collision. A neutron star neutron star
• 18:18
  collision, uh, actually produces
• 18:20
  radiation, electromagnetic radiation. It
• 18:23
  produces a flash or a glow.
• 18:26
  Um, and that is something you can
• 18:28
  detect. So for a start, that means you know
• 18:31
  where these gravitational waves have come
• 18:33
  from. With a high level of certainty. You can
• 18:35
  take test all kinds of things like the fact
• 18:38
  that gravitational waves, uh, travel at the
• 18:40
  speed of light. All of that sort of pops out
• 18:43
  of GW, uh,
• 18:45
  17 08, uh, 1 7. Uh,
• 18:48
  so it was a remarkable event.
• 18:51
  Uh, what has now happened though is
• 18:54
  that people have used the analysis of that
• 18:56
  signal to sort of tease out,
• 18:59
  um, the information about the
• 19:02
  Hubble constant. And they get an answer
• 19:06
  that is not as accurate as either of the
• 19:08
  other ones because they haven't got that
• 19:10
  precision yet for this method. But it's
• 19:13
  intriguingly like the,
• 19:15
  uh, measurement from the
• 19:18
  distant universe. Uh, that is the
• 19:21
  higher, uh, um, the lower
• 19:24
  value. Uh, that's the. Remember, the
• 19:27
  distant universe measurements have about 67
• 19:30
  to 68 kilometres per second per megaparsec.
• 19:32
  The other one was more like 73. Um, this
• 19:35
  new value is somewhere between
• 19:37
  61 and 70 kilometres per
• 19:40
  second per megaparsec, which kind of
• 19:43
  is outside the range of the near
• 19:46
  universe value. Uh,
• 19:49
  uh, um, so it agrees much more
• 19:52
  with the distant universe value.
• 19:55
  Even though
• 19:57
  GW170817
• 20:01
  came from a galaxy that is
• 20:04
  not that far away in cosmic terms,
• 20:07
  it's about 140 million light years from
• 20:09
  Earth and that's sort of on our doorstep in
• 20:12
  galactic terms. So here you've got an
• 20:15
  independent method,
• 20:18
  uh, that gives an answer more like the
• 20:20
  distant method did. Uh, but it's
• 20:23
  using, uh, nearby objects rather than
• 20:26
  distant objects. So I think what it's done
• 20:29
  is very neatly thrown the cat among the
• 20:31
  pigeons again.
• 20:32
  Andrew Dunkley: Sure has.
• 20:34
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, well, let me just read
• 20:36
  the article. Uh, the last paragraph is our
• 20:39
  result is still four times less precise than
• 20:42
  the leading nearby universe measurements. We
• 20:44
  will need to detect more neutron star
• 20:45
  collisions to definitively settle the Hubble
• 20:47
  tension using gravitational waves. Such
• 20:50
  events are rare, so it may be a while. But
• 20:52
  for now, our study provides an important new
• 20:55
  clue in one of Astronomy's biggest problems.
• 20:58
  And that's where they leave it.
• 21:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Where does that place the
• 21:03
  storey? We did a couple of years ago about,
• 21:05
  ah, a study into the Hubble tension,
• 21:08
  um, trying to understand the differentiation
• 21:11
  between the two existing methods where they
• 21:13
  said, look, the difference is not that big a
• 21:15
  deal. They're both right. So
• 21:18
  where does that stand now? Do you remember
• 21:19
  talking about that?
• 21:20
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I do remember. Yeah, we've covered it,
• 21:22
  certainly covered it before. Um,
• 21:25
  so if that's the case, if they're both right,
• 21:27
  and I think that was the outcome of that,
• 21:29
  then that's pushing you towards new physics
• 21:31
  because, um,
• 21:36
  to get two different results
• 21:39
  for the same thing by two different
• 21:42
  methods, both of which use general
• 21:44
  relativity as their basis, that is the firm
• 21:47
  basis of our understanding of the universe.
• 21:50
  Uh, what that suggests is there's something
• 21:52
  wrong with general relativity. Now we've
• 21:55
  believed that for a long time, but so far,
• 21:57
  all the tests, it comes out on top. It comes
• 22:00
  out with these incredible, uh,
• 22:03
  incredibly precise accuracy in
• 22:05
  describing the way the universe works.
• 22:09
  Andrew Dunkley: All right, um, watch this space, I suppose.
• 22:12
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 22:12
  Andrew Dunkley: Where we're at on that. More to come. It's
• 22:15
  um, one of those issues that just won't go
• 22:18
  away because, uh, well, being human beings we
• 22:21
  want to figure everything out so they won't
• 22:23
  give up on this. Uh, you can read about
• 22:26
  it at the Conversation website or you can
• 22:28
  read the paper which was published in the
• 22:30
  Astrophysical Journal. This is Space
• 22:33
  Nuts. Andrew Dunkley with Professor
• 22:35
  Fred Watson Watson.
• 22:38
  Professor Fred Watson: I believe that this nation should commit
• 22:40
  itself to achieving the goal
• 22:43
  before this decade is out of landing a
• 22:46
  man on the moon and returning him safely to
• 22:48
  the Earth.
• 22:49
  Andrew Dunkley: Face nuts.
• 22:51
  Now we got a question about the Large
• 22:53
  Hadron Collider. Recently they were asking
• 22:56
  about the, the speed of two particles hitting
• 22:59
  each other at the speed of light. Would that
• 23:00
  be twice the speed of light? And the answer
• 23:02
  was no. But the Large
• 23:05
  Hadron Collider is in the news for a
• 23:08
  different, uh, a different reason. They're
• 23:11
  shutting it down. It's bye bye
• 23:13
  Large Hadron Collider. But not forever. In
• 23:16
  fact, um, they're going to do some
• 23:19
  renovations. They're going to put a cubby
• 23:20
  house on top of it and a kid's playground.
• 23:23
  Professor Fred Watson: Grummy flower.
• 23:24
  Andrew Dunkley: Little coffee shop next next door.
• 23:29
  Professor Fred Watson: It's already got the coffee shop.
• 23:30
  Andrew Dunkley: Already got the coffee shop.
• 23:32
  Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
• 23:32
  Andrew Dunkley: They're going to do a bigger coffee shop.
• 23:34
  That's, that's really what this storey is
• 23:36
  about.
• 23:37
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. And the great thing from my point of
• 23:39
  view is that uh, in, uh, let
• 23:42
  me see, in Just over three weeks. I'll be
• 23:45
  there. Wow. Uh, so, yeah, so I
• 23:48
  love, I
• 23:48
  Andrew Dunkley: love the line in this storey on
• 23:50
  theuniversetoday.com. uh, see you later.
• 23:52
  Accelerator. Yes, I
• 23:55
  think that's very clever.
• 23:57
  Professor Fred Watson: It's a nice way to.
• 23:58
  Andrew Dunkley: I wish I'd thought of it.
• 23:59
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I do too. Um, yeah, actually,
• 24:02
  you've always got to be careful, especially
• 24:04
  when you write about this machine, because
• 24:06
  Marnie, in one of our earlier tours, when we
• 24:08
  visited the Large Hadron Collider,
• 24:11
  had a spelling mistake in the word
• 24:13
  hadron, uh, which you probably don't need to
• 24:16
  think too hard about to work out what it was.
• 24:19
  But somebody had to point it out.
• 24:22
  Is that what really meant
• 24:26
  Andrew Dunkley: Transpose two letters?
• 24:28
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes. You transposed two letters.
• 24:30
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
• 24:32
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, it would have got some laughs. I think it
• 24:34
  did. Yes, I think it did. I'm sure it's
• 24:37
  happened before, but, um, Marnie never made
• 24:39
  that mistake again. But, yes, we're going
• 24:41
  again. And the fact that it switched off
• 24:44
  actually makes us hope that we might, uh,
• 24:47
  once again get a trip down into,
• 24:49
  uh, the tunnel where the accelerator is,
• 24:52
  that 27 kilometre long circle of
• 24:55
  pipe work, uh, where the subatomic particles
• 24:58
  are accelerated, but also perhaps into one of
• 25:00
  the experimental, uh, caverns.
• 25:04
  Um, the last one we were at was the compact,
• 25:06
  uh, Muon Solenoid. This is
• 25:09
  this machine that's as big as a small factory
• 25:12
  in a giant chamber underground. And it's
• 25:15
  called the Compact Muon Solenoid. I love
• 25:17
  that. Uh, it's definitely not compact
• 25:20
  by our, uh, standards, but it was a fantastic
• 25:22
  thing to see. We're hoping we might see that
• 25:25
  again, but we'll see. Um, so, yeah, we're
• 25:27
  nothing to do with the large. Hunt and
• 25:29
  Collider were just, um, cheerleaders, uh,
• 25:32
  to bring people to cheer it on. Because one
• 25:34
  day we hope this machine might tell us what
• 25:37
  dark matter is. And that's actually what this
• 25:39
  upgrade's about. Uh, so what's happening? Uh,
• 25:42
  it's switched off at the moment. I, uh, think
• 25:44
  it is now switched off. Uh, see you later.
• 25:47
  Accelerator. It's, um, uh,
• 25:50
  due to reopen in 2030,
• 25:53
  which will be a new version. It's called the
• 25:56
  High Luminosity LHC Large
• 25:59
  Hadron Collider. And it's got 10 times
• 26:02
  the luminosity of the original machine.
• 26:06
  Um, and I think by luminosity,
• 26:09
  what particle physicists mean is the
• 26:12
  number of particles that you can, uh, sort
• 26:15
  of charge around, uh,
• 26:18
  the circuit, the 27
• 26:20
  kilometre, uh, ring that the
• 26:23
  particles charge around,
• 26:26
  uh, being accelerated and focused by
• 26:28
  superconducting magnets. And I think that's
• 26:30
  what's actually being, you know, I think
• 26:33
  that's what's being, uh, upgraded.
• 26:36
  Um, so I don't think the speed will be
• 26:38
  faster. Uh, and if I remember rightly, these
• 26:41
  protons are accelerated to
• 26:43
  99.99998% of
• 26:46
  the speed of light. I think that's the
• 26:47
  accurate thing. Uh, so it'll be
• 26:50
  probably the same speed but many, many more
• 26:52
  particles. And that gives you a much better,
• 26:56
  uh, chance of seeing some of the things that
• 26:58
  we've missed. We've missed by, uh,
• 27:01
  the current version of the lhc, which of
• 27:04
  course M is a, ah, triumph
• 27:06
  already. And in fact, uh, on the day we're
• 27:09
  recording, um, today, 2nd of July,
• 27:12
  yesterday was the 12th, sorry,
• 27:14
  the 14th anniversary of the discovery of the
• 27:17
  Higgs boson, which was done at the Large
• 27:20
  Hadron Collider. Wow. So a bit of an
• 27:22
  anniversary there.
• 27:23
  Andrew Dunkley: That's gone fast, hasn't it?
• 27:24
  Professor Fred Watson: Hasn't it gone fast? Yeah, and gosh, I think
• 27:27
  we've been talking about it that long as
• 27:28
  well, literally and figuratively. Yeah,
• 27:32
  that's right, that's right. So,
• 27:35
  and of course what we're, and this
• 27:38
  ties into our previous storey, what we're all
• 27:40
  hoping, uh, for is
• 27:43
  that the, uh, new
• 27:46
  analysis which will result from
• 27:49
  the high luminosity lhc,
• 27:52
  uh, will give us insights into everything,
• 27:54
  but perhaps in particular the Higgs boson,
• 27:57
  and maybe will point the way,
• 28:00
  uh, as the Conversation piece says, uh, will
• 28:03
  point the way to physics beyond the Standard
• 28:05
  model, perhaps including evidence for
• 28:07
  supersymmetry or the existence of exotic
• 28:10
  dark matter particles. And of course, along
• 28:13
  the way we hope they'll solve the Hubble
• 28:15
  Tension as well.
• 28:16
  Andrew Dunkley: Well, yes, let's hope so. Yeah,
• 28:19
  yeah, it's um. So how long does this work
• 28:22
  take, you reckon? I think it takes quite some
• 28:24
  time, yeah.
• 28:25
  Professor Fred Watson: Most of the time between now and 2030 when it
• 28:27
  comes back on. So, yeah, I mean
• 28:30
  it sounds as though, uh, it
• 28:33
  is, are going to involve
• 28:36
  replacing all the superconducting magnets all
• 28:38
  the way around the 27 kilometre ring
• 28:42
  and that. Yeah, that's quite a thing.
• 28:44
  Andrew Dunkley: The good news is, if you want a
• 28:46
  superconducting magnet, there'll be some for
• 28:48
  sale on the side of the road
• 28:52
  in a few years time, probably.
• 28:56
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, I beg your pardon, I quoted, uh, it as
• 28:59
  being from the Conversation, the article I
• 29:00
  was reading from, but it's actually Universe
• 29:02
  Today.
• 29:02
  Andrew Dunkley: Universe Today by Alan Boyle.
• 29:05
  Professor Fred Watson: Very good.
• 29:06
  Andrew Dunkley: All right, we'll watch with interest and
• 29:08
  hopefully an upgraded Cafe as well, which
• 29:11
  will, um, you know, bring the tourists in big
• 29:13
  time, for sure.
• 29:15
  I think that brings us to the end of the
• 29:17
  show, Fred Watson. Thank you so much.
• 29:19
  Professor Fred Watson: Ah, they go so quickly, don't they?
• 29:22
  Andrew Dunkley: They don't. They do. They do, yes.
• 29:25
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, but I'll see you next time, I hope.
• 29:27
  Andrew Dunkley: I hope so, too.
• 29:28
  Professor Fred Watson: Huh?
• 29:28
  Andrew Dunkley: Couldn't do this without you, Fred Watson.
• 29:31
  Professor Fred Watson: I don't think I could do it without you.
• 29:34
  Andrew Dunkley: At least you'd be able to talk about
• 29:35
  something. I'd sit here and go, um.
• 29:37
  Professor Fred Watson: No, you wouldn't.
• 29:38
  Professor Fred Watson: No, no, you wouldn't. No, you can talk.
• 29:40
  Andrew Dunkley: I can talk gibberish. I can do that a lot.
• 29:43
  Professor Fred Watson: The hind leg off a donkey.
• 29:44
  Andrew Dunkley: That's the time I could do that.
• 29:46
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 29:47
  Andrew Dunkley: I could talk the leg off an iron pot. That's
• 29:49
  another one.
• 29:50
  Professor Fred Watson: I like that.
• 29:51
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. All right. Thanks, Fred Watson. We'll
• 29:53
  see you soon.
• 29:54
  Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great. Thanks, Andrew.
• 29:56
  Andrew Dunkley: Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at
• 29:57
  large. Don't forget to visit our website
• 29:59
  between episodes. You can do that and, uh,
• 30:02
  maybe if you've got time, wherever you listen
• 30:04
  to us, leave review. Reviews are very helpful
• 30:07
  because they tell people what you think
• 30:09
  of us and that might inspire them to listen.
• 30:12
  It might not, depending on what you say. But,
• 30:15
  uh, yeah, reviews are very, very good. If you
• 30:18
  can, uh, spend a couple of minutes doing that
• 30:19
  from wherever you listen to us.
• 30:22
  Um, YouTube,
• 30:25
  um, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker. There's a.
• 30:28
  There's a whole bunch that we're on. And
• 30:30
  thanks to Huw in the studio, who couldn't be
• 30:33
  with us today because he's dealing with
• 30:35
  a dark matter. And from me, Andrew Dunkley.
• 30:38
  Professor Fred Watson: Thanks for your company.
• 30:40
  Andrew Dunkley: We'll see you in the next episode of Space
• 30:41
  Nuts.
• 30:42
  Professor Fred Watson: Bye. Bye.
• 30:44
  Andrew Dunkley: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
• 30:46
  podcast, available at
• 30:49
  Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
• 30:51
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• 30:54
  player. You can also stream on
• 30:55
  demand@bytes.um.com.
• 30:57
  Professor Fred Watson: this has been another quality podcast
• 30:59
  production from bytes.um com.