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Cosmic Questions & Stellar Insights: Diving into the Oort Cloud, Kuiper Belt, and Lunar Landers · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Hi there. Thanks for joining us on a Q and A
• 0:02
  edition of Space Nuts, where we talk
• 0:04
  astronomy and space science and we get all
• 0:07
  these questions from the audience and we
• 0:09
  laugh because we really don't know the
• 0:11
  answers. But we make it up as we go along and
• 0:13
  most people fall for it. Uh, on today's.
• 0:16
  Somebody's going to believe that.
• 0:17
  On today's episode, uh, we've got a question,
• 0:20
  a really well asked question, I might add,
• 0:23
  uh, about the Oort cloud and the Kuiper
• 0:26
  Belt. We're also going to talk dwarf
• 0:29
  planet theory. Somebody's got their own
• 0:31
  definition. Definition of a dwarf planet is
• 0:33
  really good. Uh, the design of landers. You
• 0:36
  know, when landers go on asteroids and the
• 0:38
  moon and other planets and sometimes they
• 0:40
  fall over. Well, um, one of our
• 0:43
  audience thinks they've got the solution to
• 0:45
  that and a room full
• 0:48
  of geniuses. We'll tell you all about that
• 0:51
  on this episode of space nuts.
• 0:53
  Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
• 0:56
  10, 9. Ignition
• 0:58
  sequence start.
• 0:59
  Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
• 1:00
  Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3. 2, 2, 3, 4, 5,
• 1:03
  5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
• 1:05
  Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
• 1:07
  Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts report it feels good.
• 1:10
  Andrew Dunkley: With us again to, uh, resolve all
• 1:12
  those issues is Professor Fred Watson Watson,
• 1:15
  astronomer at large. Hello, Fred Watson.
• 1:17
  Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. Good to be with you again.
• 1:20
  And good to see you too. Sorry,
• 1:24
  as the politicians always say.
• 1:26
  Andrew Dunkley: Yes, they do, don't they? Yeah, they've got
• 1:28
  all their catchphrases and they.
• 1:29
  Professor Fred Watson: What do they call them?
• 1:30
  Andrew Dunkley: A stump, Stump speech or something. They
• 1:33
  just run the same speech every time they go
• 1:36
  somewhere. New stump speech, I think is
• 1:39
  the term they use. Yes, um,
• 1:42
  well, you know, my introduction to Space
• 1:44
  Nuts is a stump intro.
• 1:46
  Basically. Say the same thing every time.
• 1:49
  Same, only different. Um, shall
• 1:52
  we tackle these questions?
• 1:54
  Professor Fred Watson: We should, yes.
• 1:55
  Andrew Dunkley: All right. Our first question comes from
• 1:58
  Wales.
• 1:59
  Gerwin: Hi, my name's Gerwin. I'm calling from Larne
• 2:02
  in West Wales township, known for
• 2:05
  Dylan Thomas, the poet question, um,
• 2:08
  about the Oort Cloud and, um, the
• 2:10
  Kuiper Belt.
• 2:15
  Not a lot known about the Oort cloud, but
• 2:19
  if all of the Oort cloud
• 2:22
  objects were to form a
• 2:25
  planet, how big would it be
• 2:28
  and what influence might it have on
• 2:31
  the rest of our planets? And similarly, you
• 2:34
  could ask the same question about the Kuiper
• 2:36
  Belt. Uh, what size
• 2:39
  planet would we suppose it
• 2:42
  might form? And again, what influence would
• 2:44
  it have on the rest of our planetary
• 2:47
  system? Thank you.
• 2:49
  Andrew Dunkley: Thank you. Galwin. I think he said his name
• 2:52
  was, uh, from Wales. I don't think we've had,
• 2:54
  um. Have we had a question from Wales before?
• 2:56
  And we probably have.
• 2:57
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes, we have. Yeah, we have and indeed, uh,
• 3:00
  where uh, Galwin lives.
• 3:03
  Uh, we were there three years ago in Larne.
• 3:07
  Beautiful, beautiful town. Uh,
• 3:10
  on the coast of Wales. Uh, some lovely
• 3:13
  walks there. Uh, um, we had a tour group
• 3:15
  there. Marnie and I took a tour group,
• 3:17
  including, uh, perhaps the most
• 3:20
  famous woman in astronomy in the uk,
• 3:23
  um, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who was with us for
• 3:25
  that trip. Uh, and she, and
• 3:28
  Marnie and I had a lovely walk on the beach,
• 3:30
  uh, uh, at Larne. So,
• 3:33
  um, nice to hear from. And more
• 3:36
  especially, this is such a good question
• 3:39
  and one that we definitely have not had
• 3:41
  before.
• 3:41
  Andrew Dunkley: No, we haven't.
• 3:43
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Um, uh, I was really
• 3:46
  impressed with the question, uh, and the
• 3:48
  answers, to be honest, have
• 3:50
  surprised me.
• 3:52
  Um, so
• 3:55
  basically, let's do the Trans
• 3:58
  Neptunian objects first, the Kuiper Belt,
• 4:01
  um, because, um, that was mentioned in the
• 4:04
  question as well. Uh, and this
• 4:07
  didn't surprise me. If you add
• 4:10
  all these objects, uh, together,
• 4:13
  all the Trans Neptunian objects. So not just
• 4:15
  the Kuiper Belt, but, uh, the resonance
• 4:18
  objects as they're called. The scattered
• 4:20
  discs object, they're called. There's a whole
• 4:22
  array of these things way out beyond the
• 4:25
  orbit of Neptune. Um, you add them all up
• 4:28
  and you get somewhere
• 4:31
  between 100th and
• 4:34
  1/10 of the mass of the Earth.
• 4:36
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh.
• 4:37
  Professor Fred Watson: Oh, really? Wow, I
• 4:39
  wasn't expecting that. Well, that's what
• 4:42
  I. That's kind of
• 4:45
  where I thought it was gonna go. Because when
• 4:47
  you add all the asteroids together, add
• 4:50
  all their mass together in the main belt,
• 4:52
  which is far more populated than the, uh, you
• 4:55
  know, the Trans Neptunian belts, um,
• 4:59
  you get. I can't remember what it is
• 5:00
  something like 20% of the mass of the Moon.
• 5:03
  It's tiny, all these asteroids. So it
• 5:05
  didn't surprise me that we were looking at a
• 5:08
  fraction of the Earth's mass. And of course
• 5:10
  that includes objects like Pluto, uh, like
• 5:12
  Sedna, Crayole, all these, uh,
• 5:15
  distant objects, uh, but they're small.
• 5:18
  They're very small. Um, and
• 5:21
  there are probably lots and lots of objects,
• 5:24
  uh, like Arrokoth, our old friend, the
• 5:26
  snowman asteroid, way out there
• 5:29
  that was passed by New Horizons. Uh, it did
• 5:31
  look like a snowman because it's a double
• 5:33
  load object, um, that's thrown
• 5:36
  in the mix as well. Um, so that didn't
• 5:39
  surprise me, but the other part of the
• 5:41
  question did, uh, because
• 5:44
  the Oort cloud. Yeah, so the Oort cloud,
• 5:47
  hypothetical cloud of,
• 5:50
  uh, cometary bodies, in other words, frozen
• 5:53
  objects. I see dusty objects,
• 5:56
  the things that when they get Tipped into the
• 5:59
  inner solar system they become very bright,
• 6:02
  very spectacular, uh, portents of doom.
• 6:05
  In historical times, uh, because of the
• 6:08
  effect of the sun on the ices and the dust it
• 6:10
  creates tails and causes uh,
• 6:13
  their nucleus to glow brightly and look much,
• 6:16
  much bigger than it is. Uh, I mean
• 6:18
  cometary objects are just a few kilometres
• 6:21
  across. Typically, um, sort of
• 6:23
  comparable with what you might find in the
• 6:27
  uh, in the Trans Neptunian objects. But
• 6:30
  the estimates that come from
• 6:33
  um, basically calculations
• 6:35
  to do with the early history of the solar
• 6:38
  system, uh, and also the number of
• 6:41
  comets that we see, um,
• 6:44
  the calculation of a possible total
• 6:47
  mass of the Oort cloud is somewhere between
• 6:50
  five and 100 times the mass of the
• 6:53
  Earth and that's much, much bigger. So
• 6:55
  remember that Jupiter is
• 6:58
  300 times the mass of the ah, Earth roughly.
• 7:01
  Uh, so you're talking, if you could put them
• 7:03
  all together to a planet, you're talking
• 7:05
  something really significant, you're talking
• 7:08
  something comparable with Saturn I
• 7:11
  guess. Um,
• 7:13
  so the question is a well
• 7:16
  founded one because that would have a
• 7:18
  profound effect on the solar system.
• 7:20
  An object of that size, uh, in the solar
• 7:23
  system rather than this distribution of these
• 7:25
  objects, uh, in a shell around the sun.
• 7:29
  So yeah, great question with uh, a
• 7:31
  few surprises in the answer.
• 7:33
  Andrew Dunkley: Yes, indeed. Um, of course my
• 7:36
  first thought was Planet nine. It's out
• 7:39
  there somewhere maybe, or
• 7:42
  there's something, there's something we don't
• 7:44
  know exactly what. Might not be a planet,
• 7:46
  might be a bunch of stuff.
• 7:48
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. So you're quite right.
• 7:51
  That's a good um, caveat to make that
• 7:55
  ignores any possible Planet Nine,
• 7:58
  uh, which would be uh.
• 8:01
  And if Planet nine exists, uh, what
• 8:04
  it's done is profoundly affected the orbits
• 8:07
  of some of these Trans Neptunian objects. But
• 8:10
  we're not yet sure that it does exist. So
• 8:12
  still hypothetical.
• 8:14
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah, but terrific question Galwin,
• 8:17
  thank you. Uh, no one's ever sort of
• 8:20
  come at us from that angle before and uh,
• 8:22
  yeah, I'm very surprised by the, the
• 8:25
  mass of objects in the Oort Cloud,
• 8:28
  um, and just as surprised that there's not
• 8:31
  that much in the um, Kuiper Belt and
• 8:34
  the asteroid belt and all that stuff.
• 8:37
  Yeah, they still throw rocks at us though
• 8:39
  Fred Watson.
• 8:40
  Professor Fred Watson: They do. Well a lot of those rocks
• 8:43
  probably originated in the Oort cloud, so
• 8:45
  it's not surprising perhaps. Yeah, rocks are
• 8:47
  nice.
• 8:48
  Andrew Dunkley: What did we ever do to them? Thanks
• 8:51
  Galvin, great to hear from you.
• 8:53
  Our uh, next question comes from Bob. Uh,
• 8:55
  Bob says Mike Brown says that Pluto
• 8:58
  isn't a planet I agree, but for a different
• 9:01
  reason. Its motion is not always concave to
• 9:04
  the sun. It sometimes moves backward with
• 9:06
  respect to the sun. In the Pluto Charon
• 9:09
  barycenter orbit, Earth's
• 9:12
  moon's motion is always
• 9:15
  concave to the sun. So it's Earth's moon that
• 9:18
  is the ninth planet. If we must have enough
• 9:21
  planets for a baseball team, uh, what are
• 9:23
  your thoughts on the redefinition. On my
• 9:26
  redefinition of planet, Uh,
• 9:29
  a dwarf human is still a human, and we
• 9:32
  deny that at our peril. A dwarf planet
• 9:34
  is still a planet, and we deny that at our
• 9:37
  peril. That comes from Bob Argyle in
• 9:40
  Ogden, Utah, in the United States.
• 9:42
  Thank you, Bob. I love this question. And,
• 9:45
  um. Well, first of all, Mike Brown,
• 9:48
  we should point, um, out that he has earned
• 9:50
  the nickname the man who killed Pluto.
• 9:53
  He was one of the astronomers that got
• 9:55
  behind, um, its reclassification back in
• 9:58
  2005.
• 9:59
  Gerwin: Ish.
• 10:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Uh, so, um, that's who he's referring
• 10:03
  to in the question. But I think you're on
• 10:05
  Mike's side in that regard, aren't you,
• 10:07
  Fred Watson?
• 10:09
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Actually, the man who really killed
• 10:11
  Pluto was Neil, um, Degrasse Tyson. Because
• 10:14
  he, uh, in the 90s, I think,
• 10:17
  left Pluto off an
• 10:20
  exhibition that he was responsible for. He'd
• 10:23
  already decided it was not a planet.
• 10:26
  That's very bold. Very bold. Yeah. He
• 10:28
  got hate mail. Hate man.
• 10:30
  Andrew Dunkley: I bet he did.
• 10:31
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. And I think Mike Brown's had it as
• 10:33
  well. You're right. Mike's also,
• 10:36
  uh, been a mover and shaker in that. And I
• 10:39
  guess on the other opposite side is Alan
• 10:41
  Stern, who was the, uh, project scientist for
• 10:44
  New Horizons for the spacecraft that flew by
• 10:47
  Pluto. When his spacecraft was launched at
• 10:49
  the beginning of 2006, it was going to a
• 10:51
  planet. Uh, when it got there, uh, it
• 10:54
  wasn't. It was a dwarf planet. Yeah.
• 10:57
  So, um, I.
• 10:59
  Andrew Dunkley: Timing is everything.
• 11:02
  Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely right. Um, and actually, thank
• 11:04
  you, Bob as well. Um, my heartfelt thanks
• 11:07
  to Bob, uh, for including where he comes
• 11:10
  from. Uh, because, um, I've got an old friend
• 11:12
  called Bob Argyle, and I always wondered when
• 11:14
  we saw Bob Argyle, whether that was who it
• 11:17
  was. Partly because I can imagine the
• 11:19
  questions that Bob from Ogun, Utah,
• 11:23
  uh, and including the one that we're just
• 11:24
  talking about, the questions he's raised are
• 11:26
  very similar to the kinds of things that Bob
• 11:28
  Argyle might have raised. Uh, my old friend.
• 11:31
  So it's not him. Uh, that's good. So thank
• 11:34
  you for that, Bob. Uh, now I
• 11:36
  believe that, um,
• 11:41
  if you look at
• 11:43
  most of the dwarf planets that
• 11:46
  we know about, they start with Ceres.
• 11:50
  That's the nearest one, uh, uh,
• 11:53
  in the asteroid belt.
• 11:55
  Professor Fred Watson: Ah.
• 11:55
  Professor Fred Watson: And then you go through all these SEDNA and
• 11:57
  all the ones we mentioned a few minutes ago,
• 12:00
  um, uh, they would also
• 12:03
  have, uh, orbits that are concave to the sun.
• 12:06
  And so I don't think your definition gets you
• 12:09
  any further forward. You end up with too
• 12:12
  many planets, basically. Uh,
• 12:15
  because your definition there, uh, says a
• 12:17
  planet has to have enough mass
• 12:20
  that it's differentiated. That means it's
• 12:23
  formed a spherical shape, uh, and it has to
• 12:26
  have an orbit that's always concave to the
• 12:27
  sun. I think that lets a whole lot of stuff
• 12:29
  in. Whereas the definition that
• 12:32
  we have arrived at by the International
• 12:34
  Astronomical Union in I think it was August
• 12:37
  2006, uh, which says it's
• 12:40
  also got to be the dominant body in its part
• 12:43
  of the solar system. Gravitationally
• 12:45
  dominant. That's the crucial thing. And that
• 12:48
  is the definition of a planet that we have
• 12:50
  now. And I think it's the right one.
• 12:52
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well, when they started discovering
• 12:54
  more of these things out in the
• 12:57
  Kuiper Belt region, I think they found that
• 13:00
  there was a similar dwarf
• 13:03
  planet to Pluto, except it was bigger. Wasn't
• 13:05
  that Sedna?
• 13:05
  Gerwin: It was.
• 13:06
  Andrew Dunkley: Sedna was bigger than Pluto.
• 13:07
  Professor Fred Watson: Was Sedna. That's right. It's more
• 13:09
  massive. It's about the same diameter, but
• 13:12
  significantly more massive, which suggests
• 13:15
  it's got a higher density. Yeah, that's
• 13:17
  right. Uh, and there are others that are of
• 13:20
  comparable size. Uh, so, um,
• 13:23
  yeah, it's a nice thought, though. I do like,
• 13:25
  uh, Bob's thinking on that. I think that's a
• 13:28
  very clever idea.
• 13:29
  Andrew Dunkley: Indeed it is. Um, thank you, Bob. Great to
• 13:31
  hear from you. Uh, thanks for sending the
• 13:33
  question in. This is Space Nuts with
• 13:36
  Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson
• 13:38
  Watson.
• 13:41
  Professor Fred Watson: Okay, we checked all four systems and being
• 13:44
  with a Go Space Nuts, and
• 13:46
  Andrew Dunkley: it's a Q and A edition. Our next question,
• 13:49
  Fred Watson, comes from Shumo, who is in
• 13:51
  Oxford in the uk. Thanks for many hours, uh,
• 13:54
  of pleasure, pleasurable listening. Uh,
• 13:56
  Fred Watson and Andrew, I heard a recent
• 13:58
  podcast where you describe lunar landers
• 14:01
  toppling over. Fred Watson, why do we design
• 14:04
  lunar landers like tables rather than
• 14:07
  like insects? Uh, recent landers
• 14:09
  have toppled after landing on, um, uneven
• 14:12
  terrain. Evolution solved this problem
• 14:15
  long ago. Insects have multiple articulated,
• 14:18
  compliant legs, uh, tolerate
• 14:21
  awkward landings and can often right
• 14:23
  themselves after falling over in the Moon's
• 14:26
  low gravity. Why not design small landers,
• 14:30
  uh, the same way, uh, with six
• 14:32
  articulated legs that can adapt to the
• 14:35
  terrain and crucially push the lander
• 14:38
  upright again if it topples. Has anyone
• 14:40
  seriously considered this kind of biometric
• 14:43
  approach that comes from Shumo in
• 14:46
  Oxford? It's a great question. Um,
• 14:49
  when you look at the lunar landers in the
• 14:52
  Apollo um, mission series,
• 14:55
  they had four legs, uh, they
• 14:58
  seemed rather stable. But um,
• 15:01
  we've seen a few mishaps over the years too,
• 15:03
  haven't we?
• 15:04
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. So um, it's a great
• 15:07
  question. I'm sure people have looked at six
• 15:09
  legged landers. It's
• 15:12
  uh, the kind of thing that um, anybody
• 15:14
  designing something to land on the moon would
• 15:17
  look at. Do, uh, you need more legs than just
• 15:20
  4? So clearly in the case of
• 15:23
  Apollo, the decision was made that no, you
• 15:24
  didn't, you didn't need more legs, uh, you
• 15:27
  needed four for the uh,
• 15:29
  lunar module. But as you've kind of
• 15:32
  hinted at, they were well spaced. These legs
• 15:35
  or the feet are well spaced out. So the legs
• 15:38
  extend a long way from the body of the lunar
• 15:41
  module. And it means that you do have
• 15:44
  some protection against
• 15:46
  uh, that instability that
• 15:50
  um, would caused something to fall over.
• 15:52
  And well, you're right to
• 15:55
  mention, um, uh, and indeed, um,
• 15:58
  it's part of the question, uh,
• 16:01
  Shumo mentions it as well. There have been
• 16:04
  spacecraft that have fallen over recently.
• 16:07
  Uh, and I'm thinking there's more than just
• 16:09
  this, but I'm thinking of the four
• 16:13
  spacecraft um, that have attempted to land on
• 16:15
  the moon in NASA's Commercial
• 16:17
  Lunar Payload Services mission. This
• 16:20
  is the idea of using commercial companies
• 16:23
  to send stuff to the moon, uh,
• 16:26
  that astronauts can then use. NASA
• 16:29
  sends the astronauts there, uh, the
• 16:31
  commercial world sends the other stuff there.
• 16:34
  Uh, there have been four of those
• 16:36
  Andrew Dunkley: to uh, Athena and
• 16:38
  Odysseus. And uh,
• 16:41
  during the um, mission In February of
• 16:43
  2024, the Odysseus Lander caught a
• 16:46
  landing leg on an uneven surface and fell
• 16:49
  sideways, uh, though it still operated for a
• 16:52
  week. And its successor
• 16:54
  Athena landed near the lunar South Pole in
• 16:57
  March 2025 and broke its leg
• 17:00
  and toppled into a small crater, depleting
• 17:03
  its batteries within 12 hours. I'm not
• 17:05
  um, it's not funny. Haha, I'm laughing with
• 17:08
  them. No I'm not. I think it's hilarious. But
• 17:10
  um, it's. Yeah,
• 17:13
  but it makes the question quite
• 17:16
  valid.
• 17:18
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, so, um, you're absolutely right.
• 17:20
  The Commercial Lunar Payload Services
• 17:23
  programme has so far attempted to land
• 17:25
  four spacecraft on the moon, of which only
• 17:28
  one has been successful. And that's the one
• 17:30
  you've just mentioned that worked for a week,
• 17:33
  uh, two of them tilted over, as you
• 17:36
  said. Um, and so, uh,
• 17:39
  it's an absolutely valid question. And
• 17:42
  to my mind it is even
• 17:45
  more pertinent when you look at the two
• 17:47
  alternative vehicles that,
• 17:50
  uh, NASA is looking at to bring
• 17:53
  astronauts down to the lunar surface.
• 17:56
  And, um, they haven't chosen
• 17:59
  which one yet. Uh, the two choices
• 18:02
  are Blue, ah, Moon, which is Blue
• 18:04
  Origin's hls, or Human Landing
• 18:07
  System, which looks rather like an
• 18:10
  overgrown lunar module. And it
• 18:12
  shares the wide, uh, footprint,
• 18:15
  if I can put it that way, the widely
• 18:17
  separated footprint of the old lunar
• 18:20
  module. It's much bigger. It's 16 metres
• 18:22
  tall, compared with 7 metres for the lunar
• 18:24
  module. But it's got the same morphology. The
• 18:27
  bottom half stays on the moon's surface. The
• 18:29
  top half is what brings, uh, astronauts back
• 18:32
  to the orbiting, um,
• 18:34
  Orion spacecraft. But the
• 18:37
  alternative is
• 18:39
  Starship, ah, which is
• 18:42
  52 metres tall, has
• 18:45
  actually got across. You know, the
• 18:48
  landing legs occupy a smaller
• 18:51
  square than they do on, um, Blue
• 18:53
  Origin, which is, you know, basically a
• 18:56
  third of the height,
• 18:59
  it seems like, given where
• 19:02
  they're waiting to happen. Absolutely,
• 19:05
  absolutely where they're going to land, which
• 19:07
  is in this very, very mountainous region
• 19:11
  around the South Pole. Um, I did a
• 19:14
  keynote talk on Saturday at M
• 19:17
  Macquarie University and so I prepared a talk
• 19:20
  about Artemis and where it's going.
• 19:23
  Uh, and included in that talk a, uh, video
• 19:27
  of the region around the South Pole.
• 19:30
  A flyover, effectively, which is based on
• 19:32
  Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data. And
• 19:34
  there's barely a level patch of surface
• 19:37
  anywhere. You're looking at slopes, you're
• 19:40
  looking at, um, terrain that's rough,
• 19:43
  it's probably got boulders as well. Uh, and
• 19:47
  it does seem like a very
• 19:50
  awkward misfit to have something that wasn't
• 19:53
  originally designed to be the lunar lander.
• 19:55
  It was kind of almost an
• 19:58
  afterthought. Starship is designed to take
• 20:00
  people to Mars, which it might do one
• 20:03
  day. Uh, but to land it on the
• 20:06
  Moon, I think is courting disaster.
• 20:09
  It's still an open question. It will not be
• 20:11
  resolved until after the Artemis 3 mission,
• 20:14
  which will be late next year, uh,
• 20:17
  when both those vehicles will fly in
• 20:20
  orbit along, uh, with the,
• 20:23
  um, Orion capsule containing astronauts. And
• 20:25
  they'll dock with both of them to see whether
• 20:27
  they can do the dock.
• 20:29
  Andrew Dunkley: At face value, you'd have to say Blue
• 20:32
  Origin's design makes more sense,
• 20:35
  but it too looks top heavy,
• 20:38
  really, compared
• 20:40
  Professor Fred Watson: with one of the, um, you know, the lams,
• 20:42
  the lunar Excursion modules, uh, from
• 20:45
  Apollo. Yes, it does. Uh, but it.
• 20:49
  Andrew Dunkley: But technologically probably much, much
• 20:52
  more Advanced.
• 20:53
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes, of course, of course it is. But um, will
• 20:56
  that stop it tipping over? Who knows?
• 20:59
  Andrew Dunkley: That's the 60 form billion dollar question,
• 21:01
  isn't it? Probably others that have fallen
• 21:03
  over, uh, JAXA Slim.
• 21:07
  Uh, okay, jaxa's smart lander for, uh,
• 21:09
  investigating. Um, the moon landed on its
• 21:12
  nose with its solar panels
• 21:15
  facing in the wrong direction. It's not
• 21:17
  funny. Uh, an engine thruster failed just
• 21:20
  above the surface during the point descent. I
• 21:23
  remember that it initially lacked power.
• 21:26
  The probe miraculously reawakened weeks
• 21:29
  later when the sun's angle shifted strike
• 21:32
  the panel. So, um, a successful failure
• 21:35
  maybe. And of course the Philate lander,
• 21:38
  uh, on Comet 67.
• 21:40
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right, yes. Didn't um,
• 21:43
  Wasn't there an Israeli spacecraft or
• 21:45
  did that, I think that just crashed? Actually
• 21:47
  it didn't tip over as one
• 21:50
  Andrew Dunkley: of the crash don't count as failed landings.
• 21:52
  Professor Fred Watson: No, that's right. No, they don't.
• 21:54
  Andrew Dunkley: Um,
• 21:57
  Professor Fred Watson: they're, um. What is it? Um, unscheduled,
• 22:00
  uh, I can't remember unscheduled disassembly
• 22:03
  or what it, whatever Elon's stock phrase
• 22:06
  is for that assembly. Yeah,
• 22:09
  I'm just looking up,
• 22:13
  Andrew Dunkley: looking up that Israeli one.
• 22:15
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 22:15
  Andrew Dunkley: Uh, Israel's first lunar probe. The um,
• 22:18
  Beresheet spacecraft crash on the
• 22:20
  moon, April of 2019.
• 22:24
  That was a crash. It didn't even get the fall
• 22:26
  over.
• 22:28
  Professor Fred Watson: No. So Schumer, it's been definitely been
• 22:30
  looked at the idea of six independently
• 22:33
  controlled legs. I'm sure that would have
• 22:36
  been part and parcel of some of the ideas
• 22:38
  that have been put forward. Uh, I think the
• 22:41
  lunar module, the Apollo era lunar module
• 22:43
  demonstrated that they got it right. Uh,
• 22:45
  because all of them were stable
• 22:48
  and one or two of them did land. Uh, the
• 22:51
  later ones in hilly regions of the moon, they
• 22:53
  played it safe with the early ones always
• 22:55
  landing in Maria, the very flattest areas of
• 22:58
  the moon. But now we going. Yep, we're going
• 23:00
  right to the most difficult
• 23:03
  part of the moon, uh, par
• 23:06
  excellence, as it were, uh, and
• 23:08
  hoping for the best to land things the right
• 23:10
  way up. And it's an interesting time.
• 23:14
  Andrew Dunkley: Yes, indeed. But you know, when you think
• 23:16
  about it, you're spending millions upon
• 23:17
  millions upon millions of dollars to send
• 23:20
  these spacecraft to these
• 23:22
  destinations in the hope that they won't fall
• 23:25
  over. I mean, couldn't you
• 23:27
  whip down to Bunnings or Home Depot
• 23:30
  or Home Base and just
• 23:33
  buy a couple of pieces of wood and just stick
• 23:35
  them on the side and if it does lose balance,
• 23:38
  at least it'll have something to Prop on.
• 23:40
  Come on, spend 10 bucks.
• 23:44
  M. It's simple.
• 23:46
  I'm sure it's that simple. Wood is good in
• 23:49
  space, it's been proven.
• 23:50
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, we've got. That's right. Wooden
• 23:52
  satellites.
• 23:54
  Thing of the future. Exactly.
• 23:55
  Gerwin: Yeah.
• 23:56
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Interesting. Really interesting topic,
• 23:59
  though. And we won't know. So Artemis iv, the
• 24:01
  first lunar landing in the Artemis programme
• 24:03
  is planned for early 2028.
• 24:06
  That might be when we find out. Uh, we'll
• 24:09
  know which of the two, uh, landing vehicles
• 24:11
  has been chosen for the first landing by
• 24:13
  then. Uh, and we'll find out whether they're
• 24:15
  going to stay vertical.
• 24:18
  Andrew Dunkley: Indeed. Or you could. In the uk, you could go
• 24:20
  to B and Q. Apparently that would be the
• 24:22
  place to
• 24:22
  Professor Fred Watson: go and get some Texas as well.
• 24:25
  Gerwin: Yes.
• 24:25
  Andrew Dunkley: There you are.
• 24:26
  Professor Fred Watson: Texas is the other. The other one. B and Q
• 24:29
  and Texas, they're the big ones in the UK
• 24:32
  and in
• 24:33
  Andrew Dunkley: Australia, um, it's Bunnings and Mitre 10.
• 24:36
  And I know about Home Depot.
• 24:39
  I'll say it the American way. And there's
• 24:41
  probably a couple of others over there too.
• 24:43
  Yeah, we went into a Home Depot once just to
• 24:45
  have a look because we heard about them
• 24:48
  all on TV and seen them and, and I thought,
• 24:50
  we've got to check one of these out. Yeah,
• 24:52
  they're pretty cool. You can pretty well buy
• 24:55
  a house that's already made in a place like
• 24:57
  that. Um, Shumo, thanks for the question.
• 25:00
  Absolutely love that question. And, uh, yeah,
• 25:03
  um, I think common sense will prevail one
• 25:06
  day, but maybe, maybe not in the near future.
• 25:11
  Professor Fred Watson: 3, 2, 1.
• 25:14
  Gerwin: Space nuts.
• 25:16
  Andrew Dunkley: 1 more question. Let's hear from Steve.
• 25:19
  Steve: Hey, Andrew. Hey, Fred Watson. Steve here
• 25:21
  from the UK questionnaire for you. Um,
• 25:24
  if we put all the past
• 25:27
  scientists from history, I,
• 25:29
  Einstein, Hawkins, Newton, da Vinci, Maxwell,
• 25:32
  you can name a list of others, put them in a
• 25:35
  room with current scientists. Do you think
• 25:38
  they'd be all collectively be able to answer
• 25:41
  some of the greatest mysteries we have today,
• 25:43
  I. E. Dark matter, dark energy, with
• 25:46
  that collective genius. Anyway, keep up the
• 25:49
  great work. Love your show. Love to
• 25:50
  understand what your, uh, answers might
• 25:53
  be.
• 25:55
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, thank you so much, Steve. I love this
• 25:57
  question. I love hypotheticals. And, um,
• 26:01
  he brings up a really good point. There have
• 26:02
  been some incredibly bright people in history
• 26:06
  who've come up with theories and concepts,
• 26:08
  and, um, some of them still challenge
• 26:11
  science today. What if you got them all
• 26:14
  together, dug them up out of their respective
• 26:16
  graves and hit them with a couple of volts of
• 26:18
  electricity and brought them back to life and
• 26:20
  said, okay, you're all here together. Sorry
• 26:22
  about the Smell. Um, what do you
• 26:25
  reckon about this? Could they solve it all?
• 26:30
  Professor Fred Watson: It is a great question. Um,
• 26:33
  Steve, uh, I love your thinking on this.
• 26:36
  Um, in a way, the
• 26:40
  genius of all these people is
• 26:43
  preserved in their writings. It's
• 26:46
  preserved in the papers that they
• 26:48
  authored. If you think about it in modern
• 26:51
  terms, uh, or the books that they wrote, the
• 26:54
  things that they wrote historically,
• 26:57
  that genius is all, in a way, still
• 27:00
  around, um, and
• 27:03
  maybe, um, individually,
• 27:07
  uh, if they'd been able to go on forever, uh,
• 27:10
  they might have
• 27:13
  thought through some breakthroughs. I'm
• 27:15
  thinking particularly of one person who was
• 27:18
  clearly a genius. He, uh, was contemporary
• 27:21
  with Newton, uh, and in fact, he
• 27:24
  was described as somebody whose, uh, depth
• 27:27
  and profundity of thought, particularly in
• 27:29
  mathematics. Uh, he made him the only person
• 27:32
  who could rival Newton at that time. And the
• 27:35
  reason why his name was, uh,
• 27:37
  James Gregory. He was a Scottish
• 27:40
  astronomer and mathematician. In fact, the
• 27:42
  university that I was educated, uh, at, at
• 27:45
  St. Andrews. Uh, but he died at the age
• 27:48
  of 36. And so, unlike Newton, who went on
• 27:51
  into his 80s, he, uh, died
• 27:54
  before, probably before his genius really had
• 27:57
  time to fully blossom. And so whether
• 28:00
  putting all these people together would,
• 28:03
  after you've flashed them with a few folds
• 28:06
  to bring them back to life, whether that
• 28:09
  would m. Be any different from any one of
• 28:11
  them having an extended
• 28:14
  lifetime that would have allowed their own
• 28:16
  genius to, um,
• 28:19
  arrive at different ideas, particularly on
• 28:21
  things like dark matter and dark energy. Uh,
• 28:24
  I don't know. I think that's a moot point.
• 28:25
  It's a good question. It is.
• 28:27
  Andrew Dunkley: Um, ChatGPT has some thoughts
• 28:30
  on this.
• 28:31
  Professor Fred Watson: Okay, that's interesting.
• 28:32
  Andrew Dunkley: Go for it. I said, if you could put all the
• 28:35
  geniuses in world history together in a room,
• 28:37
  could they collectively solve some of the
• 28:39
  riddles of the universe? Uh, it said
• 28:42
  absolutely, but probably not in the way we
• 28:44
  imagine. If you could somehow put Einstein,
• 28:47
  Newton, Darwin, Curie, and the list goes
• 28:50
  on. Turing, Hawking, et cetera, and
• 28:52
  dozens of other extraordinary minds in the
• 28:54
  same room, give them access to all the
• 28:56
  current scientific knowledge and somehow
• 28:58
  eliminate the practical constraints of time
• 29:01
  and communication. I think they could make
• 29:03
  enormous progress in some of the universe's
• 29:06
  deepest problems. But there is a fascinating
• 29:08
  catch. Intelligence alone doesn't
• 29:11
  guarantee an answer.
• 29:13
  Professor Fred Watson: No, that's right. Uh, some of those people
• 29:15
  were pretty difficult to get on with, like
• 29:17
  Newton. Um, the other thing.
• 29:20
  You know, I'm surprised, uh,
• 29:23
  GPT didn't just say, well, what about
• 29:25
  artificial intelligence? Because that, you
• 29:28
  know, that's where we're headed.
• 29:30
  Andrew Dunkley: I think chatgpt thinks it's human,
• 29:33
  the way it talks back to people. Um,
• 29:36
  it goes on to say some of the biggest
• 29:37
  mysteries may not be waiting for someone
• 29:40
  clever enough to solve them. They may require
• 29:43
  new concepts that humanity hasn't invented
• 29:45
  yet. So there's also why we
• 29:48
  can't figure things out.
• 29:50
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. And I mean I also,
• 29:54
  um, this is m perhaps
• 29:56
  controversial as a scientist, but there might
• 29:59
  be things that we can never understand
• 30:00
  because we simply don't have,
• 30:03
  um, the mental capacity to do that.
• 30:06
  Andrew Dunkley: Well, how do you explain,
• 30:09
  um, the tens of thousands of
• 30:12
  experiences of near death and people
• 30:15
  coming back with exactly the same stories
• 30:18
  and scenarios? How do you explain that?
• 30:21
  That's just beyond comprehension.
• 30:24
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, yes, it might be, but there might very
• 30:26
  well be physiological reasons why that
• 30:28
  happens.
• 30:28
  Andrew Dunkley: There could be. And that's one of the things
• 30:31
  that gets thrown up as a probability. Yeah,
• 30:34
  but it's interesting. It is interesting
• 30:36
  indeed.
• 30:36
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 30:37
  Andrew Dunkley: M. Indeed.
• 30:38
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, that's a joyous note to end on, isn't it?
• 30:41
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it is, but it's a great question,
• 30:43
  Steve, and, um, really worth looking
• 30:46
  into. But, uh, the AI
• 30:49
  platform I use says yeah, they probably would
• 30:52
  make inroads, but, um, maybe not in the way
• 30:55
  that you would expect. And as Fred Watson
• 30:57
  said, they didn't all like each other. Uh,
• 30:59
  and some of them were pretty prickly people
• 31:02
  in, you know, in their time.
• 31:05
  Um, and even today scientists
• 31:08
  still argue about the
• 31:11
  theories that Einstein came up with,
• 31:14
  um, relativity, et cetera. So, uh,
• 31:16
  the arguments and the analysis, they keep
• 31:19
  trying to break relativity and they can't,
• 31:23
  so.
• 31:24
  Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Yeah.
• 31:25
  Andrew Dunkley: M. It's fascinating. Really good
• 31:28
  question.
• 31:29
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I mean, trying to break relativity
• 31:32
  is trying to see, you know, to what,
• 31:35
  because relativity is as good as it gets, but
• 31:37
  to see where its limits are, uh, because
• 31:39
  those limits might illuminate new physics and
• 31:42
  things that, as chatgpt said, we haven't
• 31:44
  thought of yet.
• 31:45
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's got a lot to
• 31:47
  do with it. And uh, as you say, and
• 31:50
  it's probably true, there may be things we
• 31:52
  will never ever be able to figure out, like
• 31:57
  why the universe is expanding at an
• 31:59
  accelerating rate. Things like that.
• 32:01
  We may never know.
• 32:02
  Professor Fred Watson: Well, yeah, I do hope we can
• 32:05
  noble that one because that's such an
• 32:06
  intriguing question. Yeah, indeed.
• 32:09
  Andrew Dunkley: Thanks. Steve Schumo, Bob, uh, Galwin
• 32:11
  and everybody who sends in questions to us.
• 32:14
  You can do that too on our website spacenuts
• 32:18
  IO and just click, uh, on the Ask me
• 32:20
  anything button at the top it's labelled ama.
• 32:23
  And send your questions there in text or
• 32:25
  audio format. And don't forget to tell us who
• 32:27
  you are and where you're from and your, um,
• 32:30
  cousin's sister's brother's birthday date. We
• 32:33
  really need to know that and whatever, uh,
• 32:35
  else you want to tell us. And have a look
• 32:37
  around while you're there. And Fred Watson,
• 32:39
  thank you so much. It's been a great
• 32:40
  pleasure. Lots of fun too.
• 32:42
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, indeed it has. Thanks, Andrew. Um, uh,
• 32:44
  great to talk and we'll catch up next time.
• 32:46
  Andrew Dunkley: Time we will. Professor Fred Watson Watson,
• 32:48
  astronomer at large. And thanks to Huw in the
• 32:50
  studio, who wasn't invited
• 32:53
  to a room full of geniuses, which is why he's
• 32:55
  not with us today. Boom. Got him.
• 32:58
  And from me, Andrew Dunkley, Why m am I here?
• 33:02
  Thanks for listening. We'll catch you on the
• 33:04
  next episode of Space Nuts.
• 33:06
  Professor Fred Watson: Bye. Bye.
• 33:08
  Andrew Dunkley: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
• 33:10
  podcast, available
• 33:13
  at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
• 33:15
  iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast
• 33:18
  player. You can also stream on
• 33:20
  demand@bytes.com.
• 33:21
  Professor Fred Watson: um, this has been another quality podcast
• 33:24
  production from bytes.um com.