Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Artemis 2 Success, ESO Fallout & The Intriguing World of X-Ray Binaries

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Artemis 2 Success, ESO Fallout & The Intriguing World of X-Ray Binaries · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello again, thanks for joining us on this yet another
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: edition of Space Nuts where we talk astronomy and space science.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host's great to have
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: your company coming up on a fresh episode Arfamus two
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: making headlines for all the right reasons. What a sigh
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of relief that was. Did you watch the launch? I
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: sure did, But some bad news for the Australia ESO
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: deal which has got astronomer's upset one in particular, I
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: can think of what's his name again? And the discovery
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: of an X ray binary. That's all coming up in
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: this edition of Space Nuts fifteen, Channel ten nine Ignition, Squench,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Space Nuts NI or three two Space Notes as can
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I reported, Neil's good. I just wondering what an X
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: ray binary is. It sounds like something you could get
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: arrested for. And joining us to talk about all of
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: that is professor free. What's an astronomer at large?
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Hello friend, Hello Andrew, and I pick you up on
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: that because I nearly got arrested once for doing astronomy
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: with an old brass telescope in the front garden which
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the neighbors thought was a bazooka, and so I had
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: a visit from a very large policeman. I think I
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: was sixteen or seventeen at.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: The time, because these days you'd get accused of being
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a peeping tom or something, but back then they thought
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: it was a weapon. They do have weapon like you know,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: looks they don't.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they look like a gun, that's right. The reason
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: why I didn't I didn't get any complaints about being
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: a peeping tom was that our front garden overlooked the
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: cemetery and there wasn't anybody around to complain.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: That's yeah, okay, lots of things come to mind that
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I'll just I won't go there. I won't go there. Yes, yeah,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: when when was that?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: The early nineteen sixties, long after the Second World War,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: which is where where bazookas were on people's minds.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, everyone was still super sensitive. I guess Fred.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: It's been an exciting week. I know this is podcast,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: so some people will hear this well after the fact.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: But the other day Artemis two lifted off very successfully,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: which was very very exciting, and I watched it live
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: on NASA Live, which a lot of people did. There
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: were tens of thousands of people logged on and the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: system held up and I just watched the whole thing.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I had it on my computer. I sat there and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I just I watched the whole hour build up to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the launch and watched it all unfold, and it went something.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Like this ten nine E seven forres twenty five injuries
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: four three two one booster, ignition and lift off. The
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: crew of Artemis two now bound for the Moon. Humanity's
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: next great voyage begins.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: How cool is that? How cool? And those engines, the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: sound of those engines, even over the over the internet
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: on a shonky microphone because NASA can't really afford good stuff,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: it sounded you want to hear that again? That that
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: that that just the sound of the engines. All right, No,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: that was just me blowing into the microphone. But yeah,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: fantastic stuff. It was so exciting to watch. I really
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: got a big kick out of it. And you could
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: hear the crowd cheering. At one stage it was so
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: loud that the microphones picked up the crowd. And yeah,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: it was an amazing moment. And of course, as we
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: speak today, they have reached the Moon and done their lap.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: They went onto the dark side, and all that lo
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: O S talk was being spoken of with lots of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I will blocked that out by a big rock,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and they achieved so much I think. Yeah, it's been
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: a pretty exciting week, hasn't it for it?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: You can say that again, and that's that live broadcast
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: that you're talking about. I've still got it on in.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Afternoon.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're getting updates all the time. And you know,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: this is kind of NASA at his best, isn't it.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: It's just such a fantastic achievement for us to see
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: this mission going so profoundly well. As you said, the
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: traverse behind the Moon has taken place. Now, there was
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: a forty minute loss of signal, which you'd expect for
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: exactly the reason that you mentioned. The Moon is a
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: big rock and gets in the way of radio signals.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: But also what the astronauts on board artemists saw was
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: an eclipse of the Sun, so the Moon's disc actually
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: cover the Sun. Now, from our vantage point on Earth,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: the Sun and the Moon look to be the same size.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: It's one of the most curious cosmic coincidences that we've
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: got satellite and our star which have the same angular
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: size half a degree in the sky. But of course,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: from the vantage point of the Artemis astronauts, who are
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: roughly six thousand kilometers from the Moon's surface. At the moment,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: the Moon is a lot bigger, and so yes, they
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: did see an eclipse. And as the Moon covered the
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: disc of the Sun, they would see first of all,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: the inner atmosphere of the Sun, what we call the chromosphere,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: which often has pink, glowing hot clouds of hydrogen on it.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: But more especially they would have seen the corona, the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Sun's outer atmosphere, which is what captivates eclipse goes whenever
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: they go and see a total eclipse of the Sun.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And I can't resist. They're a plug for twenty second
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: of July twenty twenty eighth, when a total eclipse of
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the Sun will see the moon shadow passing over both
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: way you sitting at the moment in double and where
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting at the moment in Sydney. That's going to
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: be a huge event. Perhaps not quite as momentous as
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: seeing it from a spacecraft on the far side of
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: the Moon, but still pretty good. And you know, the
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: astronauts are indeed now on their way home. They in
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: a sense, they've been on their way home ever since
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: they left Earth orbit because the trajectory that the rocket
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: was inserted into, the translunar insertion move which took place
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: above the Earth's surface. That really placed them on a
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: path that inevitably would take them in a figure of
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: eight loop around the Moon and bring them back to Earth.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Now there are mid course connection. Sorry corrections. I think
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: there is one plan for later today, after which I
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: think the astronauts are going to be given some time
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: to themselves because they've been pretty hard at work in
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: the last twenty four hours with the lunar far side flyby.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, they've achieved so much. Today the four astronauts Reed Weisman,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Victor Glover, Christina Coke or Kosh depending on how you
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: want to pronounce it Jeremy Hansen, have become the first
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: humans to go beyond where Apollo thirteen set the record
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: for the first furthest distance for humans from Earth. So
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: they are now world record holders. Is it a world
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: record when you're not on the world. I don't know.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: It's a Solar system record. Yeah, yes. Indeed, the distance
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: four hundred and seven thousand kilometers from Earth, which and
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I think it was about four hundred thousand that the
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Apollo thirteen astronauts flew out, so it's a significant increase
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: from that more than six.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Thousand kill me. So the most isolated humans in history
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: in real terms, Yes, and that's.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Right sense, And they probably felt like that when they
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: were out of communication for that forty minutes when they
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: were in the Moon, shutdow from radio signals from Earth.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And while I was listening to the live broadcast
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: this afternoon our time, I heard them talking about seeing
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: meteorite flashes on the surface of the Moon. They spotted
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: three four impacts while they were rounding the Moon, which
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I find astounding, and it was really exciting for everybody,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: especially the science team that we're talking to at that moment.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't hear, So that's great, that's.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Great, quite incredible. Yeah, so you know, things are happening
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that you just you wouldn't And apparently they were. These
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: impacts happened people on Earth who were observing the Moon
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: at the time may well have seen them too. So
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's just a coincidence we just
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: happened to have a spaceship right there at the time,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: or this happens a lot.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I think it's happening a lot. I think that's the
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: bottom line. It's you know, these things have been observed
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: actually since the nineteen fifties, when they were called transient
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: lunar events, which we now know, as you said, meteorite impacts.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: I also noted that two relatively fresh and unnamed crators
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: have been given a name by the astronauts. One is Integrity,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: which is the name of the spacecraft, and the other
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: is Carol, which is the name of Reedweismann's late wife
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: who died a few years ago.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's lovely, lovely stuff. Yeah, and more to be written.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I suppose as this mission unfolds and so far, so good,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: and a whole new generation feeling the same excitement we
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: did back in the sixties and seventies when the Apollo
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: missions did exactly the same thing. This flyby is probably
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a replication, you know what, Apollo eight. I think very
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: much on this.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very similar to Apollo eight December nineteen sixty eight.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I remember it well. It was Yeah, that's right, Christmas Eve.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: I think it might have been, But it depends on
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: your time zone. It's sort of occurred to me a
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: couple of times. I'm kind of rambling a bit now,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: but in a perhaps a quaisised Trumpian manner, But I
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: think it's really interesting to me because my career in astronomy,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: my working career in astronomy, is kind of bookended by
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: lunar missions, because it was early in my career that
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: we were watching all the Apollo flights. And I don't
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: think anyone, even with the best will in the world
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: would deny that. I'm now late in my career and
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: we've got the Artemis excitement coming as well.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: It's just great stuff. It is fabulous stuff, and you
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: can read all about it or even watch it live
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: as it happens, which we really couldn't do back in
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, not like this. We had to
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: rely on television. But now you can just log onto
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: NASA Life and watch it all happen in real times.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Fantastic stuff. Yeah, so more to talk about down the track,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, but if you've been following it, you probably
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: know more than we do. This is Space Nuts with
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred What's a Let's take a
• 11:19
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• 12:51
  Speaker 3: The crew of Ortemis two now bound for the Moon,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Humanity's next great voyage begins space nuts.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Now, Fred, wee go from excitement to something quite upsetting
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: for Australian astronomers, including yourself, and that is an announcement
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: by the Australian government to discontinue the deal with the
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: European Southern Observatory. It's all over red River by the
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: sound of it.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, we still hope for something to come out
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: of all this. But the backstory here is that Australian
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: astronomers since twenty seventeen have had access to the best
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere, without question, the best optical
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: telescopes anywhere, visible light telescopes which are operated by the
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: European Southern Observatory, whose headquarters are in Munich and whose
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: telescopes are in northern Chile, and those principally the biggest
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: telescopes are the four eight point two meter components of
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: what's called the VLT, the very large telescope, which have
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: been you know, so which Australian astronomers have had access
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: to since twenty seventeen and has been a highly productive arrangement,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: not just for the astronomers but also because our instrument
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: builders here in Australia. The people who build the fancy
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: instruments that go on the back of telescopes are they
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: have have excelled themselves with what they've achieved because of
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: the you know, the opportunities to build a kit for
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: these giant telescopes. So and plus all the spin offs
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: in terms of education and STEM and outreach and all
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: the rest of it which we've tried to capitalize on.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: But that partnership was always going to be a ten
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: year deal, so twenty seventeen to twenty twenty seven. It
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: comes to an end in December next year, and we
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: in the astronomy community. I started worrying about this actually
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, what was going to happen next, and
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: to make a case for the next step, which would
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: have to be according to the rules of the European
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Southern Observatory, would have to be full membership. And that
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: is the stumbling block because whilst whilst ten years of
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: strategic partnership were valued at one hundred and twenty nine
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: million Australian dollars, ten years of full membership is four
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: hundred million dollars nearly half a billion, and that is
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: something that governments don't like big numbers. Like that, and
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: especially in times of financial stringency, which we understand. However,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: we do think that the government could have looked rather
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: more constructively at other possible opportunities before making this announcement,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: and there maybe still scope for that. You know, we've
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: discussed things like Australian astronomers making in kind contributions to
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: ESO European Southern Observatory by for example, building instruments, including
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: the possibility of a new telescope here in Australia that
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: could be actually installed in the site near the site
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: where the VLT very Large Telescope Unit instruments are situated,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: at a place called Sarah Paranal. Perhaps the most galling
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: thing about this, though, Andrew, is that we have our membership.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: If we were to become members of ESO, would give
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: us access to what is going to be the most
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: stupendous telescope in the world when it comes on stream
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: early in twenty twenty nine. That is the European Southern
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Observatory's ELT.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Or extremely the telescope.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Sorry what that's the one that's as good a title,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: because that's what it's going to be. Thirty nine meter
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: diameter mirror. That mirror diameter is ten times that of
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the biggest telescope in Australia, the Australian Telescope that I
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: used to be astronomery in charge of it. It's ten
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: times bigger, which gives you one hundred times the sensitivity
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: in terms of light gathering power and plus many other
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: benefits that will come on stream twenty twenty nine. It
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: is sure to generate Nobel prizes. Australian astronomers will be
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: barred from that. And the great pity of that is
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: that Australian astronomers have access to the square kilometer array
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: which will come online at about the same time. And
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: to have those two things together under the the auspices
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: of Australian astronomy would have given them a head start
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: over the whole world in terms of discoveries. Because the
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: two things are absolutely dovetail together, the SKA and the
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: EESOELT that is not now going to happen, and we
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: feel that's a wasted opportunity. And I might just add
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: one more thing if because this is this is a
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: you know, it is something very close to my heart.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I've worked very hard on this for the last almost decade.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: There is there was a report that came out last
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: month written by one of the country's senior economists, a
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: man named Professor Richard Holden, and he's at the University
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: of New South Wales here in Australia. He has done
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: an analysis of the economic benefits of astronomy, not just
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: about you know, the deals that you can do where
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: you get money to build instruments and things of that sort.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: It's about the value of ideas, the spin offs that
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: we have. All of those things are taken into account
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: in a report he wrote, and he makes the point
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: in conclusion in that report that Australian astronomy adds about
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: three hundred and thirty million dollars per year to the
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: country's economy, which makes forty million dollars a year for
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: the ESO deal seem really quite proportionate. There will be
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: a huge return on that forty million dollars in terms
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: of other benefits. I think the government's missing out on.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think when we talked about this a few
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: episodes ago, because we knew which is coming up, I
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: said something flippant like, you know, the left hand probably
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: won't know what the right hand's doing. So the cost
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: benefit versus cost the benefit versus cost analysis may not
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: get on the right desk and the decision could go
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: against you. And I was bringing a smarty pants. But
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: it kind of looks like that's what's happened.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't actually, I think it's different from that
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: because we made sure that the people who are making
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: the decisions and it's not Jordi by the way, but
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: he makes his own decisions. I don't know if you
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: heard that. The people, Yeah, the people who are making
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the decisions had access to that report. We made that
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: very clear as soon as it came out. Now I
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: suspect that the Minister and his science advisors would also
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: have had access to it. So what they've done is
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: they've turned their backs on that, and they've turned their
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: backs on something that is very exciting in relation to
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: our exploration of the universe at the very time when
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: everybody else is looking skyward because of Artemis. We had
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: this news on the day of the Artemis two launch.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Couldn't have been a bigger contrast between the two stories.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And where does this leave the likes of Australian Space Agency,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: for example, I mean the government's established that, or a
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: former government did, and they've been pouring money into it.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Now they've sort of shut the door in your face
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: in regard to the europe the words of an observatory,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Yes exactly. You know where does this put everything? And
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: we so kind of going back to the dark ages? Yeah,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: no pun intended, no.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Pun intended. No, we are going back probably several decades
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: for Australian optical astronomy. But the Space Agency has been
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: likewise chastised, if I can put it that way. They
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: had a large budget taken off them by the present
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: government about three two three years ago. And I actually
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: wonder if some of this is political because the Space
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Agency was initiated by a previous government and the ESO
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Strategic Partnership was initiated by a previous government of opposite
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: flavor to what we have now, so there might be
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: a political side to it. I'm sure the Minister would deny.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: That, of course you would. But I've seen politics in
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: action and I can tell you quite clearly. I'll give
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: you an example. We were going to get a big
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: sports hub in Dubbo and it was announced by our
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: local member who was also the leader of his party
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: at the time, and when they lost the next election,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the new premier of the opponent party took the money
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: away and said no, you can't have it. Yeah, and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: that was purely political, just basically just slap an opposition
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: leader in the face. And yes they would deny it,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: but it's absolutely that's just the way the game is
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: played all over the world. This is really sad, really
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: really sad that it's come to this. Any any hope,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: fred of some turnaround, some chance of hope. Maybe not
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: after what I just said, but you know, I'm not
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: an astronomer.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: No nobody listens to.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Look.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I am hopeful we have some discussions coming up that
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: I hope might emerge from which might emerge some perhaps
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: what you might call more affordable options, which might still
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: involve a So the problem is ESO has its own rules,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: and ESO is I think it's seventeen member countries, and
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: if you do a special deal for Australia, they're all
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: going to say, well, why don't we get a special
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: deal like that as well? And that's understandable. So ESO
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: has to tread very carefully in this kind of thing.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense, all right, Well, hopefully common sense
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: will prevail sometime in the next two years. And somebody
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: changes their mind and sees the benefits rather than just
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: looking at the dollar science looking at the dollars. That's right, Okay,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: this is space. That's Andrew Unkley with Professor Fred what's
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: an We've had a couple of cardiac or reth down
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: here too, be spice nuts, all right. Our final story
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: takes us quite a way away from the planet, a
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: little bit further than Artemis two has traveled. In fact,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the discovery of an X ray binary thread. Now I'm
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: not sure what this is, but yes, I know there's
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: all sorts of you know, radio wave type signals flying
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: around the universe, X rays, gamma rays, AC DC, you
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: name it. But it's all out there. What is an
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: X ray binary?
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: That's a great question because this is this is a
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: story about an X ray binary that isn't a binary.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: So just to complicate things further, so what's an X
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: ray binary? If you've got a star which has got
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: a star a bit like the Sun, actually these are
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: normal stars like the Sun, gets to the end of
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: its life and after usually something in the region of
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: ten billion years, what happens is it puffs off its
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: outer a layers because the nuclear reactions change in its interior,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: and eventually it's core collapses to become something we call
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: a white dwarf star. We've talked about them before. They're
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: about the size of the Earth with about the mass
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: of a star, and they've basically exhausted their fuel. They're
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: still shining because they're very hot. So that's a white
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: dwarf star.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Often that will happen in what's called a binary system,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: two stars orbiting around their common center of gravity, and
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: a binary is actually almost the most common form of
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: stars in the galaxy. Many many stars that we observe
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: almost fifty percent are actually part of a binary pair.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: They's part of a duo.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So if you've got.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: A star that's collapsed into a white dwarf star, which
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: has intense gravity, not quite as intense as a black hole,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: but pretty intense, and it's being orbited by another star
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: that hasn't got to that stage in its evolution, then
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: what you get is the white dwarf is sucking matter
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: off the other star and spiraling it inwards. A white
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: dwarf's eating it up, and eventually, if the white dwarf
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: has enough of that stuff, it becomes unstable and turns
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: into what we call a type one a super nova
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: and exploding star. But during that process, while your white
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: dwarf and your normal star in this dance around each
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: other with stuff being pulled off the normal star, that
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: stuff will be accelerated by the gravity of the white
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: dwarf and it will emit X rays because it is
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: being so highly excited by the energy that's basically being
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: imparted to it as it gets pulled in. It's a
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: bit like the accretion disc of a black hole of
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: calm down version of that. So the letter makes sense,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I'm glad it does. That's that's where the X ray
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: bit comes from. So an X ray binary, it's two stars.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: One's a normal star having its surface sucked away by
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: a white dwarf, and that sucking away of material causes
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: the X rays. So that's how you discover it. So
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: what has happened?
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: But this isn't what's happening now? Is it? No?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: No, But that's the that's the backstory, if I can
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: put it that way. What has happened now is there
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: are two of them, actually two stars that have been
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: discovered which show all the signs of being an X
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: ray binary in terms of the X rays that they emit.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: But there's no other star there. There's there's no you know,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: there's there's there's only the white dwarf. There's there's nothing else,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: And that means it's an X ray binary that isn't
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: a binary. And two of these things have been discovered
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: by a group of scientists who actually look for these things.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: They've got interesting names, perhaps a bit more imaginative than
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: the usual astronomical names. One it's called Gandalf and the
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: other it's called Moon sized. They were discovered at different times,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: but they're basically, you know, they are part of the
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: same survey. So they've got the signature of X rays
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: but no companion object that is basically telling you that
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: it's a normal bind X ray binary.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: So it's very Does that mean there's something else there
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: that it's feeding off on?
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: That's correct. It looks as though that what they have
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: is a half ring of material actually circulating around the
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: white world. So and that this is the debris from
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: basically a star being swallowed up another star being swallowed
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: up by the by the white dwarf. It's very very
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: odd and very unusual and quite hard to get your
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: head around this Uh, this this moving ring, which as
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: the white dwarf itself spins and generates a magnetic field,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: is not actually aligned with where we think the magnetic
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: field is.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: So it's it's.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: It's a puzzle. I'm going to quote one of the
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: authors of one of these papers who says to note
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: white dwarfs of similar age and evolutionary stage are typically
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: non magnetic, while highly magnetic white dwarf remnants are already
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: an exception. Gandolf is now only one one of only
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: two known merger remnants to feature a symmetric magnetization. That's
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: all gobbledegook for saying, this is a very very peculiar
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: pair of objects that we that we see, and there
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: are different parts of the universe. They're not related to
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: each other. There are different parts.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: So this is a really.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Interesting episode because it looks as though a completely new
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: class of stars has been discovered here, something that really
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: is not the norm stuff that we know about and
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: there familiar and love. It's just not part of that.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: It's something quite new.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: As you're explaining it, my thought just went to, could
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: this just be the end of the partnership, Like it's yeah,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the stars pretty well just you know, there's hardly anything left.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: You're still getting that X ray deal going on, but
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you knows there's hardly any material left. And see a
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: lad alligator and.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: What's what's there is spread into half a ring, which
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: seems to be the case. Yeah, I think that's I
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: think that is probably the the bottom line of this,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: which is figured.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Something out, perhaps figured something out. Yepm a Nobel prize.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I think I've got it here in this draw, so
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I put it away last week. Yes, it's Look, it's
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: great that we've got an entirely new category of highly
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: magnetized white dwarf, which is something that's not been seen before.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, very exciting. If you'd like to read about that,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: you can see it on one of the best websites
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: around when it comes to science and astronomy, and that's
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: fizz dot org. Not f I double z, it's p
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: h y s dot org. Fizz dot org. Great story.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: We had a bit of a sandwich. They're good news,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: bad news, good news, I think.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, that's right. We do our best. We aim
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: to please, don't we. I mean, we're we're only out
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: to quick, but we do aim to please at some level.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: We do. Yes, you know, it depends which part of
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: it you listening to us, So what there's using and
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't I think it was self evident. Yes, indeed we're
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: all done for it. Thank you very much, great pleasure.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Andrew always good to my grievances as well as talk
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: about the latest in science news.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: You see you next time. Yes, we will catch you
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: on the next episode of Q and a episode coming
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: your way very very soon. And while you're online, have
• 32:24
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• 32:27
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• 32:31
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• 32:39
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• 32:42
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• 32:50
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• 33:01
  Speaker 1: a few bigger than that, and thanks to Hue in
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: the studio. We've just come out of a long weekend
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: here in Australia and Hugh's been away and he was
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: running late because he was at a convention of White Dwarfs.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. We'll
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: see you on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Listening to the Space Nuts.
• 33:22
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• 33:29
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• 33:33
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• 33:34
  Speaker 3: This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.