Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Japan’s Phobos Mission & Martian Quakes: Exploring Mars’ Moons, Canyons, and the Search for ET

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Japan’s Phobos Mission & Martian Quakes: Exploring Mars’ Moons, Canyons, and the Search for ET · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Hi there. Thanks for joining us again on
• 0:02
  Space Nuts, uh, where we talk astronomy and
• 0:05
  space science. My name is Andrew Dunkley.
• 0:08
  Good to have your company. On this episode.
• 0:11
  We will be looking at Mars a couple
• 0:13
  of times from, from a couple of different
• 0:16
  angles. Uh, and the first story
• 0:18
  will be Japan's mission to Mars.
• 0:22
  But they're not landing on the planet.
• 0:23
  They're going to drop a bomb. Well,
• 0:26
  actually, it won't be. Uh, they're going to
• 0:28
  drop something onto Phobos. Uh, why,
• 0:31
  we'll tell you. And, uh, in
• 0:34
  the past, we've talked about, uh, these
• 0:36
  mysterious Mars quakes. Well,
• 0:39
  they think they might have figured out part
• 0:42
  of the reason. The largest canyon,
• 0:45
  uh, on Mars, or we should probably say in
• 0:48
  Mars, uh, seems to still be having an effect
• 0:51
  on the red planet all these years later.
• 0:55
  And who's started looking for, et cetera,
• 0:58
  Saudi Arabia. We'll tell you all about it on
• 1:01
  this episode of space nuts.
• 1:03
  Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
• 1:05
  10, 9. Ignition
• 1:08
  sequence time.
• 1:09
  Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
• 1:10
  Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 3, 3, 4,
• 1:13
  5, 5, 4, 3, 2', 1.
• 1:15
  Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
• 1:16
  Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts report it feels good.
• 1:19
  Andrew Dunkley: And joining us as always, is Professor
• 1:22
  Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at large.
• 1:24
  Hello, Fred Watson.
• 1:25
  Professor Fred Watson: Hello. Hello, Andrew. It seems like only
• 1:27
  yesterday, but it wasn't.
• 1:29
  Andrew Dunkley: No, it's been. It's been about four weeks
• 1:32
  or something like three or four weeks
• 1:33
  because, um, Judy and I have, um, been
• 1:36
  gallivanting again. Uh, we
• 1:39
  visited the former Yugoslavia, um,
• 1:42
  now known as the Balkans. Uh, but they're
• 1:45
  all independent nations now post the,
• 1:48
  um. I, um, don't know what you call it. The
• 1:50
  communist regime. I
• 1:53
  hate that word. But anyway, um, so we. We
• 1:56
  visited, uh, Croatia, Slovenia,
• 1:59
  Montenegro, Bosnia and
• 2:02
  Herzegovina,
• 2:05
  North Macedonia,
• 2:07
  Albania and Bulgaria. Hey, I got them
• 2:10
  all seven countries. And, uh,
• 2:13
  it's, um.
• 2:16
  It's obviously formally,
• 2:18
  um, a communist state. When you look at the.
• 2:21
  The real estate, um,
• 2:24
  those big blocky Eastern
• 2:27
  communist apartments,
• 2:30
  um, in some parts of the world. But
• 2:33
  just beautiful countryside, beautiful lakes
• 2:36
  and. And river systems. Um, saw one
• 2:39
  of the most famous bridges in the world,
• 2:41
  which, uh, Red Bull uses for part of its
• 2:44
  world championship diving competitions. Um,
• 2:47
  that was in a little town in
• 2:50
  Montenegro, I think. Or was it Bosnia? I
• 2:53
  can't remember. Um, and,
• 2:55
  um. But we also saw abject
• 2:58
  poverty, um, beggars on the
• 3:00
  streets, filth everywhere. Uh, Albania's got
• 3:03
  a lot of catching up to do with the rest of
• 3:05
  the world, very sadly. But, um, I'm
• 3:08
  glad we went. I don't know if I'd
• 3:11
  go back. Um, did you
• 3:14
  go.
• 3:14
  Professor Fred Watson: Did you go up to Bled?
• 3:16
  Andrew Dunkley: Yes. Yes.
• 3:17
  Professor Fred Watson: You Did. Yeah. So that's,
• 3:19
  um, very different from the
• 3:21
  scenario you've described down, uh, in the
• 3:23
  south.
• 3:24
  Andrew Dunkley: Oh, absolutely. And that's the thing. It's.
• 3:26
  It's like a few countries we've been to in
• 3:28
  recent years. In the north, it's completely
• 3:31
  different. To the south.
• 3:32
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Andrew Dunkley: Although in the former Yugoslavia, it's the
• 3:35
  other way up the. The good stuff's up the
• 3:37
  north.
• 3:37
  Professor Fred Watson: It is. That's right. With
• 3:40
  Ljubljana and, um. And
• 3:43
  Slovenia. So, um, one of my claims to
• 3:46
  fame is that I bled in. Bled.
• 3:49
  And it's because, uh, on the shoreline
• 3:52
  of Lake Bled is the former
• 3:55
  residence of President Tito when he was
• 3:58
  the head of the Yugoslav,
• 4:00
  um, consortium, I suppose, collaboration.
• 4:03
  Uh, and my colleague in Ljubljana,
• 4:06
  a really good friend, Thomas Witter,
• 4:09
  um, dropped me off at the top of the property
• 4:11
  that. This. That Tito used to
• 4:14
  have and said, you can walk down through the
• 4:17
  property. I think it's a sort of museum now.
• 4:20
  And he said, there'll be a gate at the bottom
• 4:22
  and that'll bring you out onto the lake, and
• 4:24
  I'll be parked nearby. So, um, me and
• 4:27
  a colleague walked down this long, long hill
• 4:30
  through a forest. It was. Beautiful place.
• 4:32
  Andrew Dunkley: It is stunning.
• 4:33
  Professor Fred Watson: No sign of a gate at the bottom, but there
• 4:35
  was this fence, an iron fence,
• 4:38
  and, um, I forgot that I was then
• 4:41
  probably 30 years older than my colleague.
• 4:44
  And I said, oh, yeah, I can shin over that.
• 4:45
  That's fine. Uh, yes, I did.
• 4:48
  Andrew Dunkley: Um.
• 4:48
  Professor Fred Watson: But, um, my foot slipped and I
• 4:51
  basically impaled myself on the spikes at the
• 4:54
  top of this thing. It was only a
• 4:57
  flesh wound, I have to say, but,
• 5:00
  um, I had blood all over my shirt.
• 5:02
  And, um, Thomas was mortified when he picked
• 5:05
  us up. We did get over the fence and got
• 5:07
  picked up, but I was getting on the plane to
• 5:08
  Sydney that night, and I thought, I can't
• 5:11
  really fly back to Sydney with looking as
• 5:14
  though somebody just shot me. Um, so I had to
• 5:17
  try and find somewhere to change, which I
• 5:18
  did, but then the flight was cancelled. I
• 5:20
  don't think I went. There were, um, French
• 5:22
  traffic controllers were on strike. Uh,
• 5:25
  anyway, it was, um. Yeah. So every
• 5:27
  time I think of Blade, I think of bleeding
• 5:30
  there. But as you will have seen, it's
• 5:32
  straight out of a Disney cartoon with that
• 5:35
  astonishing castle on the lakeside, the
• 5:37
  island in the middle and beautiful place,
• 5:40
  Andrew Dunkley: and some amazing caves we went to as
• 5:42
  well.
• 5:43
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
• 5:43
  Andrew Dunkley: Um, at one stage. And you get in by
• 5:46
  train, get on a tiny little train to go into
• 5:49
  the. Is it just. Yes.
• 5:52
  Um. But, uh, what I did learn about Albania
• 5:54
  was, um, that they were under the tyrannical
• 5:57
  rule of a dictator for 50 years who ban
• 6:00
  religion and was so paranoid about
• 6:03
  the country being invaded he was planning to
• 6:06
  build 800,000 military bunkers around its
• 6:08
  border. He didn't get that job done before
• 6:11
  he passed away, but, um, they built 300,000
• 6:14
  of them and you can see them dotted all over
• 6:16
  the place. Just these, these igloo
• 6:19
  like bunkers ready to defend the country from
• 6:22
  invisible invaders. Strange.
• 6:24
  And they're still trying to recover from
• 6:26
  those 50 years. That's, that's, that's a
• 6:28
  tragedy of it all. I could talk forever and I
• 6:31
  probably will. But, uh, let's, let's, let's
• 6:34
  get down to business, Fred Watson. And what
• 6:37
  was it again?
• 6:38
  Professor Fred Watson: I can't remember.
• 6:38
  Andrew Dunkley: That was so long ago. Our first story takes
• 6:41
  us to the Mars,
• 6:45
  um, system, uh, in our own solar system,
• 6:48
  but more specifically Phobos. The Japanese
• 6:51
  have launched a massive mission to get
• 6:54
  there. It's costing them a fortune, a couple
• 6:56
  of, uh, quadrillion yen, I
• 6:59
  imagine. But this, this is already, uh,
• 7:02
  lifted off as far as I can tell.
• 7:04
  Professor Fred Watson: Um.
• 7:04
  Professor Fred Watson: This week, was it this last week?
• 7:06
  Andrew Dunkley: Last week. Last week. And yeah, it's on
• 7:09
  its way. And, and they're, they're looking
• 7:11
  specifically at um, the Martian moon
• 7:14
  Phobos.
• 7:16
  Professor Fred Watson: So, um, you're absolutely right. Uh,
• 7:19
  it's called the MMX Mission, the
• 7:22
  Martian Moons Explorer. It's the
• 7:24
  Japanese, uh,
• 7:27
  Aerospace Exploration Agency,
• 7:30
  uh, who are running this, um, very,
• 7:33
  very capable organisation. Um,
• 7:37
  uh, and launched um, actually a week ago last
• 7:40
  Monday, as we speak today. Um,
• 7:43
  and yeah, it's going to both, uh, in a sense
• 7:46
  it's going to both Martian moons. So the two
• 7:48
  moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos,
• 7:50
  Greek for fear and dread.
• 7:53
  Um, perfect. That's how they were named
• 7:56
  because they were named in the. I think it
• 7:57
  was the 1870s when they were found. And Mars,
• 7:59
  of course, the God of war. So fear and dread
• 8:01
  were very appropriate as their, as
• 8:04
  their, um, as their moon names. But they're
• 8:07
  tiny moons. They're 23
• 8:10
  kilometres across and 14
• 8:12
  kilometres across, respectively. Phobos being
• 8:15
  the biggest. But they're both puzzles, uh,
• 8:18
  Andrew, because we, we don't really know
• 8:21
  how they formed. And their
• 8:23
  formation might well give us more
• 8:26
  clues to the way the solar system
• 8:29
  evolved.
• 8:30
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, one strong theory is that they
• 8:33
  Professor Fred Watson: were actually captured, yeah, possibly
• 8:36
  captured asteroids, given that, you know,
• 8:38
  Mars is on the inner edge of the asteroid
• 8:39
  belt, the main asteroid belt. So that's
• 8:42
  possible. But you need, um, you need,
• 8:45
  you do need some special
• 8:48
  conditions to capture an asteroid. Uh,
• 8:51
  it's quite hard to do with just the gravity
• 8:54
  of the planet alone. Unless it really sort of
• 8:56
  swooped in very low and was decelerated by
• 8:59
  the atmosphere or something and then, you
• 9:01
  know, captured in that way. Another way that
• 9:04
  you could do it is if, uh,
• 9:06
  Phobos, for example, had originally been
• 9:09
  part of a binary asteroid. So two
• 9:12
  small asteroids in orbit around one another.
• 9:15
  And we know there are plenty of examples of
• 9:17
  those. We've talked about them. Asteroids
• 9:18
  with moons. And then what could happen is
• 9:20
  that, um, one of them could get ejected and
• 9:23
  the other get sucked into the orbit of, uh,
• 9:26
  being in orbit around Mars. That would have
• 9:28
  been another way. But yes, some people think
• 9:30
  that they perhaps might have been formed or
• 9:33
  some people think it's another suggestion as
• 9:36
  to the origin of these two worlds, that they
• 9:38
  were actually formed along with Mars,
• 9:41
  um, when Mars was formed just, um, as
• 9:44
  part of debris, leftover debris from the
• 9:46
  formation of the planet. And I guess the
• 9:48
  third theory is that they have an origin
• 9:51
  similar to our moon in that something big
• 9:53
  collided with Mars. And this is the debris of
• 9:56
  that coalesced into a single object. And
• 9:59
  in some ways that's quite an attractive
• 10:01
  theory because, um, we know that these
• 10:04
  moons are very. They're not very dense.
• 10:07
  Andrew Dunkley: They're, uh.
• 10:07
  Professor Fred Watson: They're, you know, they're quite lightweight.
• 10:10
  Think, um, of a piece of pumice or something
• 10:12
  like that. Um, which suggests that
• 10:15
  they are. That they've got a lot of empty
• 10:17
  space in between rocks and things.
• 10:21
  It might mean that they're actually
• 10:23
  rubble piles. And we know there are many
• 10:25
  examples of rubble piles in the asteroid
• 10:28
  world.
• 10:29
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
• 10:29
  Professor Fred Watson: So great interest in it. And, uh, you and I,
• 10:32
  I'm sure, covered it back in 2011,
• 10:36
  uh, when it was launched. And that was the
• 10:38
  original Russian mission to
• 10:41
  Phobos, uh, which was called
• 10:43
  Phobos Grant. Do you remember that? Yes,
• 10:45
  that's right. Uh, grunt being the word for
• 10:48
  ground or Earth, uh, or. Well, basically
• 10:50
  soil. Uh, and Phobos grunt didn't get
• 10:53
  beyond Earth orbit. It was a. I think it was
• 10:55
  carried aloft on a Chinese Long March
• 10:58
  rocket, if I remember right. They can't
• 11:00
  remember exactly the details, but yeah, it
• 11:02
  never left Earth, uh, orbit and eventually
• 11:04
  was deorbited and. And um, basically burned
• 11:07
  up.
• 11:08
  Uh, I think there was two earlier Soviet
• 11:10
  missions as well to try and send things to
• 11:11
  Phobos. But so it's been a. It's been very
• 11:14
  much on people's bucket list for a long time.
• 11:16
  And maybe now we are see, seeing,
• 11:19
  um, this, uh, wish of
• 11:22
  humankind to get Near Phobos, ah,
• 11:25
  actually unfold in reality with a, with
• 11:27
  a complex suite of,
• 11:31
  of vehicles. I guess there's a, there's a
• 11:33
  main spacecraft uh, which is fitted
• 11:36
  with solar panels, um, that will
• 11:39
  initially go into, into orbit
• 11:41
  around Mars. Not Phobos. Phobos is
• 11:44
  too, it has too little gravity to
• 11:47
  put anything in a stable orbit around. It
• 11:49
  would just get sucked away by Mars.
• 11:51
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
• 11:51
  Professor Fred Watson: So they'll be in an orbit around Mars, but
• 11:53
  one that brings them close to both Phobos and
• 11:56
  Deimos. So we can get lots of close up images
• 11:58
  and things of that sort. Uh, so it's going to
• 12:01
  take about 10 months to get there. Uh, and
• 12:03
  then something like three years of this
• 12:05
  orbiting, um,
• 12:07
  um, uh, characteristic,
• 12:10
  lots of imagery, looking for landing sites,
• 12:12
  things of that sort because uh, this
• 12:15
  thing will actually land. There are two
• 12:16
  landers. There's a little shoebox sized
• 12:19
  French rover, I think it might be French and
• 12:21
  German I think, uh, space agencies who have
• 12:24
  collaborated on that. This is a rover that
• 12:26
  will, it's got wheels and it'll try
• 12:29
  and rover around Phobos. But if it is really
• 12:31
  just a rubble pile, I think it's going to
• 12:33
  struggle with that. Um, and the other thing
• 12:35
  about Phobos of course is it's got negligible
• 12:38
  gravity. Gravity is a thousandth of what it
• 12:40
  is here on Earth. Wow. And so the trick
• 12:43
  in getting anything onto the surface is to
• 12:45
  stop it bouncing off so it just disappears
• 12:47
  into space.
• 12:48
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Um, you wouldn't want to fart, would
• 12:50
  you?
• 12:51
  Professor Fred Watson: No, you wouldn't. That would almost do it,
• 12:54
  Andrew. Um, this, the average escape
• 12:57
  velocity on Phobos is 40
• 12:59
  kilometres an hour. So you could almost do it
• 13:01
  on your bike, you know.
• 13:03
  Andrew Dunkley: That's the fastest I ever rode a bike as a
• 13:05
  kid.
• 13:06
  Professor Fred Watson: Is it 40? Actually, yeah. I ride mine
• 13:09
  at more than 40. There's a bit of a hill
• 13:10
  here.
• 13:10
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, but mine was an old clunker. Uh, it
• 13:13
  wasn't a, it wasn't a racing bike.
• 13:16
  Professor Fred Watson: Neither's mine.
• 13:16
  Anyway, never mind that. That's all right.
• 13:18
  Andrew Dunkley: You get a tailwind too.
• 13:19
  Professor Fred Watson: We could, both of us could escape
• 13:22
  the, the clutches of Phobos's uh,
• 13:25
  gravity. Um, and then the, the sort of
• 13:28
  grand, sort of grand finale, if I can
• 13:31
  put it that way, of the mission is that the,
• 13:33
  the spacecraft itself will land on
• 13:35
  Phobos with um, two sample
• 13:39
  pickup mechanisms. One is a drill. They'll,
• 13:41
  they'll actually do a um, core sample if
• 13:44
  there's enough solid stuff to drill a core
• 13:47
  into or out of. Uh, and a
• 13:50
  thing that um, will blast nitrogen
• 13:53
  onto the surface so it'll raise a cloud of
• 13:56
  dust and the spacecraft will collect the
• 13:59
  dust and then a capsule will return to Earth,
• 14:01
  uh, and it will re. Enter the Earth's
• 14:04
  atmosphere and land in Australia.
• 14:06
  Uh, so we're going to be the um,
• 14:09
  nation that picks it up. The Australian Space
• 14:11
  Agency is liaising with jaxa, ah, on that
• 14:14
  issue. And of course that builds on. And in a
• 14:17
  sense the whole mission builds on expert
• 14:19
  experience that, um, the
• 14:22
  Japan Space Agency has gathered with their
• 14:25
  two missions to asteroids
• 14:27
  Hayabusa1 and Hayabusa2, which brought back
• 14:30
  samples. Both of them successfully returned
• 14:32
  samples of, uh. Was it
• 14:35
  Itokawa and Ryugu? I think were the two,
• 14:39
  uh, asteroids. Um, and so we've got samples
• 14:42
  from those asteroids now in, uh, Earth
• 14:44
  Laboratories. And they too, uh, landed
• 14:47
  those sample capsules in Western Australia.
• 14:49
  Andrew Dunkley: That's right.
• 14:50
  Professor Fred Watson: Sorry, I beg your pardon. South Australia.
• 14:51
  Andrew Dunkley: They love dropping their junk on our, on our.
• 14:54
  Professor Fred Watson: I think it's a bit more precious than junk
• 14:56
  though. We could snaffle it and become world
• 14:58
  famous by analysing all their data.
• 15:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, that's a possibility.
• 15:01
  I'm fascinated by the spacecraft itself.
• 15:04
  It's about nine, nine hundred pounds or four
• 15:07
  and a half metric tons, two thirds
• 15:10
  of which is propellant.
• 15:11
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's about astonishing. Typical.
• 15:14
  Yeah, it's fairly typical.
• 15:15
  Andrew Dunkley: Is it really? Uh, gosh, I've never
• 15:18
  seen the breakdowns
• 15:19
  Professor Fred Watson: really, but usually, um, there's more
• 15:22
  propellant than anything. Oh, I mean just
• 15:24
  think of the, um, of the Saturn 5.
• 15:27
  Of course, not much of. Not much of it was
• 15:29
  not propellant.
• 15:30
  Andrew Dunkley: No. Uh, just the, the nose.
• 15:32
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's basically.
• 15:33
  Andrew Dunkley: And the command module.
• 15:36
  Yes.
• 15:36
  Professor Fred Watson: All right.
• 15:37
  Andrew Dunkley: Uh, it's going to be a fascinating journey
• 15:39
  and we will be able to keep you up to
• 15:42
  date with, um, what happens in about 10
• 15:45
  months time when they finally get there. It's
• 15:48
  a long, long trip.
• 15:50
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, I think. Yeah. Sorry, Andrew.
• 15:52
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I was going to say, I can't believe
• 15:53
  they're thinking of sending people there with
• 15:54
  that. Like I did 30 hours to Zagreb
• 15:57
  and yeah, I couldn't stand it
• 16:01
  being put in a tinier, tinier module
• 16:04
  to travel for, you know, six months.
• 16:08
  Horrifying.
• 16:09
  Professor Fred Watson: We're a long way from that. I think despite
• 16:11
  what, um, some enthusiastic people think,
• 16:15
  um, uh, just to tie up the loose
• 16:17
  end, uh, we expect the sample return to be
• 16:20
  in 2031. So in five years time
• 16:23
  we hopefully we'll still be going strong by
• 16:25
  then. You never know.
• 16:26
  Andrew Dunkley: I hope so.
• 16:27
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, the other point could
• 16:30
  answer some
• 16:30
  Andrew Dunkley: of those really interesting Questions about
• 16:32
  Mars and the origin of the. Of the moons
• 16:35
  and maybe, maybe even the planet. I don't
• 16:37
  know if it depends what they're made of.
• 16:41
  Professor Fred Watson: That's correct.
• 16:42
  Um, uh, it might also.
• 16:45
  So people have talked about the first human
• 16:48
  mission to Mars actually being to land on
• 16:50
  Phobos. Uh, and the reason for that is, of
• 16:53
  course, it's much easier to land on a small
• 16:55
  body and take off again from it than it is on
• 16:57
  a big one like Mars. Uh, whether that's still
• 17:00
  considered a realistic possibility, I don't
• 17:02
  know. I think we're still a long way from
• 17:04
  sending people into the, um,
• 17:07
  orbital sphere of Mars.
• 17:09
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. But, yeah, I consider logic in that.
• 17:12
  Land on Phobos or demos and then just drop a
• 17:15
  rope. Cheaper way to
• 17:18
  get down.
• 17:18
  Professor Fred Watson: I think if you tried to. I think if you tried
• 17:21
  to land on demos, you'd just knock it out of
• 17:23
  the way. Yeah, you might
• 17:26
  even the softest touch to get bring it down
• 17:28
  and you. Oh, damn it. It's gone.
• 17:32
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, scary stuff. Um, if you want to read
• 17:34
  about it, uh, there's a great article on the
• 17:37
  arstechnica. Um.com
• 17:39
  website. Um. Yeah, that's right.
• 17:43
  This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
• 17:45
  Professor Fred Watson Watson.
• 17:51
  Space Nuts to our next story,
• 17:54
  Fred Watson, uh, which, uh,
• 17:57
  continues. Our look at Mars and
• 18:00
  the. The geography of Mars astounds me. It's
• 18:03
  a smaller planet than Earth, but it's got
• 18:05
  bigger stuff. It's like it's saying, okay,
• 18:07
  yeah, yeah, you're bigger, but I've got
• 18:10
  bigger stuff than you.
• 18:11
  Your Grand Canyon.
• 18:14
  Yeah, I can fit that into my little finger.
• 18:17
  Uh, and it's got the, the biggest mountain in
• 18:20
  the solar system, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah,
• 18:22
  yeah. Puffing its chest up. And I'm red
• 18:25
  and you're not. Uh, it's
• 18:28
  going to. It's made the news again now
• 18:30
  because they have, um. We've talked about in
• 18:32
  the past how, um, Mars has been
• 18:36
  kind of making noise. There's been
• 18:39
  Mars quakes, and they've been trying to
• 18:41
  figure out why this could be a
• 18:44
  contributing factor. And it all comes down to
• 18:46
  that massive canyon.
• 18:48
  Professor Fred Watson: Indeed. That's right. So, uh, you're right.
• 18:51
  We have talked about earthquakes. And
• 18:54
  the reason we know that they exist is because
• 18:57
  there was a lander. It's probably still
• 19:00
  there, but it's now defunct. Uh, a NASA
• 19:03
  lander called Insight, uh, which,
• 19:05
  um, basically was
• 19:08
  around in the early, sort of
• 19:11
  M, mid, uh, 2010s to
• 19:14
  early 2020s
• 19:16
  M. And insight
• 19:19
  was, uh, basically looking at the interior of
• 19:21
  Mars. So it had a very accurate seismometer.
• 19:24
  And actually um, I think we covered this
• 19:27
  in detail. It had a thermometer
• 19:30
  to try and measure the amount of heat
• 19:32
  radiation coming from the interior of Mars.
• 19:34
  But they couldn't, they never managed to dig
• 19:36
  the hole, drill a hole deep enough for it
• 19:39
  to be used in. So I think that part of it
• 19:42
  was never successful, but the seismometer
• 19:45
  was very successful. And so,
• 19:48
  um, what's happened now is that. So the
• 19:50
  INSIGHT is no longer operational, but it
• 19:52
  collected all these data on temperature
• 19:55
  and the seismic records,
• 19:59
  basically recording Marsquakes. And
• 20:02
  of course with earthquakes the
• 20:04
  seismometry is the same on Earth. Uh, the
• 20:07
  devil is in the detail. It's the detail of
• 20:09
  these disturbances that you uh,
• 20:12
  can, um, use to sort of pick out the,
• 20:15
  all the, the fine details of what's, where
• 20:18
  this has come from, uh, what it's passed
• 20:20
  through on its journey through the interior
• 20:22
  of Mars and other issues.
• 20:25
  So, um, what.
• 20:28
  That's a complicated way of saying that
• 20:30
  people are still studying these seismic
• 20:32
  records from InSight. Yeah. Uh, and in fact
• 20:35
  one in particular, one seismic event.
• 20:38
  And I love the fact that these things have
• 20:40
  names. It's called
• 20:41
  S0976A. Uh,
• 20:44
  that's a seismic event which was recorded on
• 20:46
  the 25th of August 2021.
• 20:49
  Um, and it
• 20:52
  basically was, uh, unique
• 20:55
  in that the characteristics of the
• 20:58
  seismic wave tells you that this
• 21:01
  thing came from the other side of Mars and
• 21:04
  it's the only one that did, the only
• 21:06
  Marsquake detected during the whole INSIGHT
• 21:08
  mission that you could locate to the
• 21:11
  western hemisphere of the planet.
• 21:13
  Um, so it now turns
• 21:16
  out that it came from, as you said,
• 21:19
  the biggest canyon in the solar system.
• 21:21
  Valleys Marineris. Uh, Mariner, the
• 21:24
  Mariner Valley. It's 3,900
• 21:27
  kilometres long.
• 21:29
  Andrew Dunkley: Ten, two times, four times longer than the
• 21:32
  Grand Canyon.
• 21:33
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Um, that's extraordinary.
• 21:35
  Andrew Dunkley: 20 times wider.
• 21:37
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 21:37
  Andrew Dunkley: And just to throw salt into our wounds, um,
• 21:40
  twice as deep, nine kilometres deep.
• 21:43
  Yeah.
• 21:44
  Professor Fred Watson: Yep. Isn't it fantastic?
• 21:45
  Andrew Dunkley: Extraordinary place. Yeah, I'd love to go
• 21:48
  there and have a look.
• 21:49
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yes, well, if
• 21:52
  Elon Musk has his way, you might get the
• 21:55
  opportunity to do that. But I think you might
• 21:57
  be long gone by then. Never mind. That's
• 21:59
  another story. Yes, um, it is the
• 22:02
  largest canyon and so, um, that
• 22:05
  it's pinpointed onto that. And the evidence
• 22:07
  that comes from the details of this seismic
• 22:10
  wave is something called
• 22:13
  a strike slip Mars quake. And
• 22:16
  so you've got blocks of the crust
• 22:19
  of Mars sliding
• 22:21
  horizontally past each other, um,
• 22:25
  basically along a Very steep, um,
• 22:28
  and probably very deep fault line.
• 22:31
  Uh, now, um, we
• 22:34
  know because we've talked about it before,
• 22:36
  Mars does not have plate tectonics. So you're
• 22:38
  not getting plate tectonic type
• 22:41
  Marsquakes all the time. Um, Mars
• 22:44
  crust is more like an orange peel than
• 22:46
  something broken up into segments. It's
• 22:49
  a solid crust. Uh, and we
• 22:52
  think that's how in fact the biggest volcano,
• 22:55
  volcanic peak in the solar system got
• 22:58
  so big, um, because it was above a hotspot
• 23:00
  and never moved because there's no plate
• 23:02
  tectonics. So it just kept on churning up.
• 23:04
  That's um, Olympus Mons, which you referred
• 23:07
  to earlier. So. Yeah. So um,
• 23:09
  that's interesting. So what it's saying,
• 23:13
  uh, and I guess this is the kind of headline
• 23:15
  that Mars is still tectonically active
• 23:19
  even um, though it's, it's not got
• 23:22
  plate tectonics. Plate tectonics, remember,
• 23:25
  are driven by convection currents in the,
• 23:28
  in the mantle of the uh, Earth, the bit below
• 23:30
  the sort of softish plasticky rock that's
• 23:33
  below the, the, the crust.
• 23:36
  Uh, Mars has a mantle, but it's not one
• 23:38
  that's driving plate tectonic mechanisms.
• 23:41
  Although, you know,
• 23:44
  maybe, maybe it is. Maybe there's
• 23:46
  um, there's these convection currents in that
• 23:49
  that can sort of slip and
• 23:51
  slide the blocks of the crust itself,
• 23:54
  uh, in that horizontal fault line that we
• 23:57
  just talked about. Interesting stuff. I think
• 24:00
  it's um, rather, uh,
• 24:02
  rather you know,
• 24:05
  compelling evidence that Mars is not as dead
• 24:08
  as we thought it was.
• 24:10
  That there's stuff going on, uh, and
• 24:13
  maybe some of these faults are quite
• 24:15
  geologically active.
• 24:17
  Andrew Dunkley: Yes. And
• 24:20
  uh, I'm thrilled because as you know, I'm
• 24:23
  a big fan of the planet. I think it's
• 24:25
  probably one of the most interesting places
• 24:27
  in the solar system, aside from
• 24:29
  Earth. I mean we've got so much more going on
• 24:32
  here than anywhere else I suppose with all
• 24:34
  the proliferation of life.
• 24:37
  But Mars, Mars is.
• 24:40
  Yeah, it's in a category all
• 24:43
  on its own really as a rocky planet, I think.
• 24:46
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 24:47
  Andrew Dunkley: And um, deserves a lot of attention
• 24:49
  and you know, that we just keep learning.
• 24:52
  That's the thing. Um, it's,
• 24:55
  it always seems to throw up something new
• 24:57
  every time we take a look at it. Yeah. What I
• 25:00
  love about it, uh, if you want to read about
• 25:03
  that, you can go to the
• 25:03
  phys.orgphys.org
• 25:07
  article or you can read the entire
• 25:09
  5,000 page, uh, study.
• 25:12
  I don't think it's that long. Well
• 25:15
  it's two pages long but if you add the
• 25:17
  authors. It's 5,000. Yes, uh, they've
• 25:20
  published that in Nature Communications. This
• 25:23
  is Space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with
• 25:25
  Professor Fred Watson Watson.
• 25:31
  Space Nuts. Now this made,
• 25:34
  um, me do a double take. Fred Watson, this
• 25:36
  story. Uh, the Kingdom of Saudi
• 25:39
  Arabia is joining in the
• 25:42
  search for et,
• 25:43
  um, working with SETI by the look of
• 25:46
  it. What's this about?
• 25:49
  Professor Fred Watson: Well, it's actually about really the stories,
• 25:52
  um, in some ways more interesting than that.
• 25:54
  Um, because, uh, the Saudis
• 25:57
  are uh, setting up a fairly
• 26:00
  major observatory. Uh,
• 26:03
  and that's. So the
• 26:06
  seti, you know, the SETI facility is going to
• 26:08
  be a part of that.
• 26:11
  Andrew Dunkley: Well, this is, this explains why the live
• 26:13
  golf concept is going under. Yes, I've got to
• 26:16
  pay for the search for extraterrestrials.
• 26:19
  Professor Fred Watson: All the money is going into seti. Uh,
• 26:21
  yeah. So, um, it's,
• 26:25
  it's basically, um, the
• 26:28
  Saudi government is
• 26:32
  setting uh, up an observatory that I think
• 26:34
  will include a, uh, 4 metre class
• 26:37
  telescope, which
• 26:39
  is the same as our Anglo Australian telescope
• 26:42
  here in, here in uh, New South Wales and of
• 26:45
  course the same as The Kitt Peak 4 metre
• 26:47
  telescope, uh, in Arizona.
• 26:50
  Um, so what they're planning is, um, an
• 26:52
  observatory. They're planning a dark sky
• 26:54
  park, uh, to make it, um, you know,
• 26:57
  a place where people can go and
• 27:00
  look at the stars. It's uh, if I
• 27:03
  can try and pronounce it correctly, Alula
• 27:05
  Manara. I think that might be giving, giving
• 27:08
  it a Hawaiian pronunciation rather than a
• 27:11
  Saudi one, rather than an Arabic one. I mean.
• 27:14
  But um, anyway, that's the place. It's
• 27:17
  Saudi Arabia's first major astronomical
• 27:19
  observatory. And um,
• 27:22
  there's a World Heritage Site there with, and
• 27:24
  that's partly because of ancient
• 27:27
  civilizations going right back to the
• 27:29
  Neolithic. It's, you know, it makes our
• 27:31
  archaeology, even our archaeology here, uh,
• 27:33
  look a little bit, um, recent.
• 27:37
  Um, but uh, it's also going
• 27:39
  to have a dark sky park and as I said,
• 27:41
  eventually will host large telescopes, a 4
• 27:44
  metre and a pair of 2 metre class telescopes
• 27:46
  if everything goes according to plan.
• 27:49
  Um, so the SETI detectors
• 27:52
  are basically just part of that.
• 27:54
  And these are, they're a little bit different
• 27:57
  from the normal seti,
• 28:00
  uh, instrumentation. So seti, the Search for
• 28:03
  Extraterrestrial Intelligence. There is a
• 28:05
  SETI Institute, um, and they
• 28:07
  operate the Allen Telescope Array, which is
• 28:10
  an array of radio telescopes which has been
• 28:13
  dedicated to looking for alien signals for
• 28:16
  what, 20 years or something like that. But
• 28:19
  Laser SETI is a network of
• 28:22
  optical detectors, in other words, ones that
• 28:24
  detect visible light. Um, it's been under
• 28:26
  development for the last couple of years. And
• 28:30
  uh, I think this site in Saudi
• 28:32
  Arabia will lays, will be laser set. His
• 28:35
  fifth site, the first one actually
• 28:38
  Andrew Dunkley: looking at their website right now,
• 28:40
  laserseti.net and you can, you
• 28:43
  can look at all the data as it comes in.
• 28:46
  Professor Fred Watson: Excellent.
• 28:46
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah. Oh, look, they found something.
• 28:48
  No, I'm kidding.
• 28:50
  Professor Fred Watson: Well, um, I haven't, uh. You've got further
• 28:52
  than me because I didn't have time to look up
• 28:54
  laser seti. But um, yeah, good to see that
• 28:57
  they've, you know, I suppose it's a bit like,
• 28:59
  um, SETI at home with the, uh,
• 29:02
  you know, people using their own computers to
• 29:04
  do the analysis. There'll be a lot of AI
• 29:07
  presumably brought to bear on the laser SETI
• 29:10
  analysis to see if they can pick out
• 29:14
  a laser communication signal from outer
• 29:16
  space amongst all the optical noise that
• 29:19
  there is, uh, going through our skies.
• 29:22
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I mean the day will come with the
• 29:24
  aliens turn up and say, oh, hi, we're here.
• 29:26
  We've been trying to talk to you. Oh yeah,
• 29:28
  well, we were, we were looking for you on the
• 29:31
  laser spectrum. Yeah, we don't use that.
• 29:35
  Professor Fred Watson: No, we don't use radio waves either.
• 29:37
  I wonder what they will use. Who knows?
• 29:40
  Andrew Dunkley: Um, it's hard to know, isn't it? It could be
• 29:42
  something out there that we don't know about
• 29:44
  that could be that everyone else is using and
• 29:47
  we're just using the old, you know,
• 29:50
  prehistoric stuff.
• 29:52
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Um, or alternatively, we could
• 29:55
  be as good as it gets and there isn't anybody
• 29:57
  else out there.
• 29:58
  Andrew Dunkley: That's more likely though, isn't it?
• 30:00
  Professor Fred Watson: I think it might be, yes.
• 30:02
  Andrew Dunkley: Which would be pretty sad. But, um, there are
• 30:05
  a lot of people that think we are just a
• 30:08
  freak of nature and
• 30:10
  um, everything was just right to,
• 30:13
  to make us develop as we are and
• 30:16
  nowhere else will ever achieve that. And
• 30:19
  even, even if they do or have,
• 30:23
  chances are we'll never find each other.
• 30:25
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Because the tyranny is the
• 30:28
  tyranny of distance. That's correct.
• 30:30
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 30:31
  Andrew Dunkley: Fascinating. Uh, so when are they
• 30:34
  going to start building this thing or have
• 30:37
  they started?
• 30:37
  Professor Fred Watson: Well, I think it's already, um, the hardware
• 30:40
  is, uh, already there. Uh,
• 30:42
  and I, I'm not sure whether it's online in
• 30:45
  the, in the laser setting network yet, but
• 30:48
  it's certainly pretty, uh, well advanced.
• 30:50
  There are some nice photographs on the side
• 30:52
  that I'm looking at.
• 30:54
  Andrew Dunkley: So the Robert Ferguson Observatory in
• 30:56
  California.
• 30:58
  Professor Fred Watson: Yep.
• 30:58
  Andrew Dunkley: Is operational. The Haleakala
• 31:01
  Observatory, uh, in Maui. You'd
• 31:04
  know that one.
• 31:04
  Professor Fred Watson: Well, I do.
• 31:05
  Andrew Dunkley: Um, what else have we got. Oh,
• 31:08
  that's a busy one in Arizona.
• 31:11
  And was there another one?
• 31:15
  Professor Fred Watson: There is, yes.
• 31:16
  Andrew Dunkley: Alula, uh, Marinara Observatory in Saudi
• 31:19
  Arabia.
• 31:19
  Professor Fred Watson: That's right. There's one in Puerto Rico, I
• 31:22
  think, as well.
• 31:23
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it's not on the list. Probably broken.
• 31:27
  Professor Fred Watson: Maybe Feldo.
• 31:31
  Andrew Dunkley: There it is. Uh, you can check all that out,
• 31:34
  uh, @universetoday.com they've
• 31:37
  got the article. Or you can go to
• 31:40
  laserseti.net and take a look at what they're
• 31:43
  doing and, um, learn more there. Uh, you can
• 31:46
  even. I think you can sign up and get live
• 31:48
  updates and all sorts of things.
• 31:49
  So you might be the first to know that
• 31:52
  they've found ET and you can tell us.
• 31:55
  Professor Fred Watson: Well, that would be something, wouldn't it?
• 31:57
  Andrew Dunkley: Wouldn't it just. All
• 31:59
  right. Uh, that's just about it, Fred Watson.
• 32:02
  Gosh, um, good to be back. Even though
• 32:05
  it doesn't sound like we were ever apart, but
• 32:08
  we know the truth.
• 32:09
  Professor Fred Watson: It's an optical illusion.
• 32:11
  Andrew Dunkley: It is, yes. Thanks, uh, Fred Watson,
• 32:13
  we'll talk to you real soon.
• 32:15
  Professor Fred Watson: I hope so. Thanks, Andrew.
• 32:17
  Andrew Dunkley: And, um, between episodes, please Visit our
• 32:20
  website, spacenatspodcast.com or
• 32:22
  spacenuts IO and check everything
• 32:25
  out the shop the. You, uh, could sign up for
• 32:28
  the AstroDailyPod News feed. There are videos
• 32:31
  you can send us, messages through the Ask Me
• 32:33
  Anything tab at the top, and so on. And maybe
• 32:36
  become a supporter. And don't forget to leave
• 32:39
  reviews wherever you listen to our podcast,
• 32:42
  or watch it, for that matter, on YouTube.
• 32:44
  Normally, uh, I'd play a terrible joke on
• 32:46
  Huw, um, but I just wanted to say
• 32:49
  that, uh, Huw has, um, got himself
• 32:52
  back home after a stint in hospital and
• 32:54
  recovering well. So we're very, very pleased
• 32:57
  to hear that news. Good on you, Huw.
• 32:59
  Uh, I'll be back to insult uh, you next week.
• 33:02
  And, uh, from me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for
• 33:05
  your company. We'll catch you on the next
• 33:06
  episode of Space Nuts.
• 33:08
  Professor Fred Watson: Bye. Bye.
• 33:10
  Andrew Dunkley: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
• 33:12
  podcast, available at
• 33:15
  Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartra
• 33:18
  Radio or your favourite podcast player. You
• 33:21
  can also stream on demand@bytes.com.
• 33:24
  Professor Fred Watson: this has been another quality podcast
• 33:26
  production from bytes.com.