Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Apollo Secrets, Cosmic Questions & Martian Mysteries: #484

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Apollo Secrets, Cosmic Questions & Martian Mysteries: #484 · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

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Speaker 1: Space Nuts. Fifteen second Channel ten nine Big ones, Space Nuts.
1:03
Speaker 2: Or three two.
1:07
Speaker 3: Spaces as when I report it nels good.
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Speaker 1: It does indeed feel good to be here and thank
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Speaker 1: you for your company. As I said, my name is
1:16
Speaker 1: Andrew Dunkley, I am your host and joining me as
1:19
Speaker 1: he always does, without question, without claiming any money, without
1:24
Speaker 1: really thinking about it, is Professor Fred Wat's an astronomer
1:28
Speaker 1: at large. Hello for red Australia's Living fossil, Australia's living fossil. Yes,
1:35
Speaker 1: congratulations again on your honorary doctorate. And I've told a
1:39
Speaker 1: few people and they pass on that congratulations.
1:42
Speaker 4: Thank you, very good for you.
1:44
Speaker 1: And I know I said it sort of off stage,
1:46
Speaker 1: but loving the goaty oh good good blood here Andrew.
1:50
Speaker 1: If you watch us on YouTube, you'll be able to
1:52
Speaker 1: pick that up.
1:53
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, it suits you.
1:54
Speaker 1: That's very sporting.
1:56
Speaker 2: My son, who is sill Amanda the gradulation, he's told
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Speaker 2: me it makes me look exactly like my brother was
2:03
Speaker 2: on the fifty years or something.
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Speaker 1: Well, it takes seconds off your age, all right. But Fred,
2:14
Speaker 1: let's start off with this situation with Apollo samples, and
2:19
Speaker 1: they brought back quite a lot of stuff and some
2:22
Speaker 1: of it just sort of sat there for fifty years, sealed,
2:26
Speaker 1: and I assume forgotten or just we'll get to that
2:31
Speaker 1: at some stage. Fifty years.
2:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, at first sight it does seem weird. I agree
2:37
Speaker 2: with you, but there is a very very good explanation
2:41
Speaker 2: and I think you know, it's a brilliant reasoning.
2:45
Speaker 4: So I can't remember the number.
2:46
Speaker 2: I think it's about three hundred and eighty kilograms altogether
2:50
Speaker 2: of rock and soil that the Apollo astronauts brought back
2:53
Speaker 2: with them in the nineteen sixties and seventies. I do know,
2:56
Speaker 2: because I've got the number in front of me here
2:58
Speaker 2: that it was a total of two thousand, one hundred
3:00
Speaker 2: and ninety six samples. Oh wow, Yeah, so it's you know,
3:04
Speaker 2: they had a fair number, and it wasn't that wasn't
3:07
Speaker 2: really the reason why they've waited fifty years for some
3:11
Speaker 2: of them. The real reason, and it's really cunning stuff,
3:16
Speaker 2: you know, it's forward thinking of the first order. The
3:20
Speaker 2: scientists who were interested in these moon rock samples fifty
3:24
Speaker 2: years ago knew that in fifty years time, the technology
3:29
Speaker 2: to analyze them would have would have advanced out of
3:33
Speaker 2: sight compared with what there was in the nineteen sixties
3:37
Speaker 2: and seventies. So yeah, they so they reserved I think
3:43
Speaker 2: probably three.
3:47
Speaker 4: It's of which I think it's I think it's three.
3:51
Speaker 2: There might be more actually, but one of them has
3:54
Speaker 2: now been opened, and that's why, you know, that's why
3:56
Speaker 2: the news is big. It was actually Lori Grays Blaze
4:02
Speaker 2: of the Director of Director of the Planetary Science Division
4:07
Speaker 2: at NASA Headquarters, who wrote in a statement that NASA
4:11
Speaker 2: knew that science and technology would evolve and allow scientists
4:14
Speaker 2: to study the material in new ways to address new
4:17
Speaker 2: questions in the future. Brilliant, isn't it. That's exactly what's happened.
4:21
Speaker 2: I'm not sure to what extent I mean. I think
4:24
Speaker 2: things were pretty well advanced in the nineteen sixties and seventies,
4:28
Speaker 2: so that's when I was beginning my career as a
4:30
Speaker 2: working scientist. But you know, things have moved on just
4:35
Speaker 2: out of sight since then. If it's anything like the
4:38
Speaker 2: way we do astrophysics, planetary science has come on by
4:42
Speaker 2: leaps and bounds. So a tube of material thirty five
4:48
Speaker 2: centimeters long for centimeters wide, which was hammered into the
4:53
Speaker 2: ground actually on the Apollo seventeen mission, the last of
4:58
Speaker 2: the Apollo missions in December nineteen seventy two. Jeans Sonon
5:04
Speaker 2: and Harrison Schmidt were the two astronauts who walked.
5:07
Speaker 1: On was wasn't Harrison Schmidt a geologist?
5:11
Speaker 4: I think you're right, Yeah, I think you're right.
5:16
Speaker 1: I think he kept getting into trouble because he got
5:18
Speaker 1: so excited about this running out of oxygen, and they
5:20
Speaker 1: were saying, hurry up, hurry up.
5:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that's right. Yes, a mistake to
5:29
Speaker 2: send a geologist to them, I would think. So it's
5:33
Speaker 2: just going to be like a kid in a lolly shop. Anyway,
5:36
Speaker 2: they kind of hammered the tube into the ground, pulled
5:40
Speaker 2: out the tube with rocks in it, and sucking, basically
5:44
Speaker 2: sealed it on the and that is the way it's
5:47
Speaker 2: been kept for fifty years. So not only does it
5:51
Speaker 2: have rock in it, Andrew, but the volatiles that might
5:55
Speaker 2: be you know, locked up in these rock surfaces, sort
5:59
Speaker 2: of things that are gaseous like carbon dioxide at normal
6:04
Speaker 2: temperature here on Earth, and things that are liquid like
6:07
Speaker 2: water normal temperature.
6:09
Speaker 4: Here on Earth.
6:10
Speaker 2: So the you know the existence of these gases kind
6:14
Speaker 2: of locked up within the rocks that there wouldn't be
6:18
Speaker 2: much because of course the lunar surface is essentially a vacuum.
6:22
Speaker 2: But the idea is to and I don't think this
6:27
Speaker 2: has been done yet, the idea.
6:32
Speaker 4: Actually know the extraction has taken place, sorry Andrew.
6:35
Speaker 2: Anyway, the idea is to extract them the minute quantities
6:40
Speaker 2: that are there and analyze them with the technology that
6:46
Speaker 2: it's really about the precision rather than the you know,
6:49
Speaker 2: the ability to do it.
6:50
Speaker 4: This is spectrometry, so you're looking.
6:52
Speaker 2: At the absolute fine details of what's going on in
6:55
Speaker 2: these atoms.
6:57
Speaker 4: Let me just check that.
7:00
Speaker 1: And I did look at you. You mentioned the weight
7:03
Speaker 1: of the material they brought back, which I think we
7:05
Speaker 1: talked about not so long ago, eight hundred and forty
7:08
Speaker 1: two pounds of stuff they brought back from the Moon,
7:11
Speaker 1: which equates to three hundred and eighty two kilograms.
7:15
Speaker 4: So I was out by two kilograms.
7:17
Speaker 1: Oh close enough, round down, Yeah, yeah, three hundred and
7:21
Speaker 1: eighty two.
7:21
Speaker 2: And I had a feeling that was three hundred and
7:24
Speaker 2: eighty thereabout anyway. So the processes started back in fact
7:33
Speaker 2: last month, February the twenty third, as the venerable phiz
7:40
Speaker 2: dot org website tells us, because that's one of the
7:44
Speaker 2: places where this story has been carried, Scientists began a
7:48
Speaker 2: week's long process aimed up piercing the main tube and
7:50
Speaker 2: harvesting the gaps contained inside, and then as over the
7:54
Speaker 2: coming weeks, they'll take the rock out as well, and
7:57
Speaker 2: they'll break it up so that it can be studied
8:00
Speaker 2: by several different different teams. But what I really like
8:07
Speaker 2: about this sample is that it's not just any old sample, Andrew,
8:12
Speaker 2: because where it came from is where there was a landslide.
8:18
Speaker 2: And Julian Gross Gross, perhaps deputy Apollo curator, is quoted
8:25
Speaker 2: as saying, now we don't have rain on the moon
8:27
Speaker 2: and so we don't quite understand how landslides happen on
8:30
Speaker 2: the Moon. So that's a good point. And so some
8:35
Speaker 2: of the research is, you know, it's aimed at trying
8:39
Speaker 2: to understand how these rocks enable landslide landslides to take place,
8:45
Speaker 2: what causes them.
8:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
8:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, well moonquakes do exist, as we know. I guess
8:54
Speaker 2: that is a possibility. And so actually I was wrong there.
8:58
Speaker 2: I think there are there are three lunar samples still
9:02
Speaker 2: left after this one has been opened, which by the way,
9:05
Speaker 2: is known as seven three zero zero.
9:06
Speaker 4: One, that's its name.
9:08
Speaker 2: And there are still three sealed lunar samples. So you know,
9:13
Speaker 2: the question is, Andrew, which I'm sure you and I
9:15
Speaker 2: would ask if we were there, what will they be opened?
9:19
Speaker 2: It's going to be another fifty years. And we've got
9:23
Speaker 2: a quote, a nice quote from another senior curator, Ryan Ziegler.
9:27
Speaker 2: I doubt we'll wait another fifty years, particularly once they
9:30
Speaker 2: get the Artemis samples back, it might be nice to
9:32
Speaker 2: do a direct comparison in real time between whatever's coming
9:35
Speaker 2: back from Artemis and with one of these remaining unopened sealed.
9:39
Speaker 4: Cause now, well.
9:42
Speaker 1: The Moon is once again drawing a lot of attention
9:46
Speaker 1: with well the Chinese pottering around up there at the moment,
9:49
Speaker 1: and the Americans want to send in the next few
9:54
Speaker 1: months an Artemis rocket around the Moon. That's the one
9:59
Speaker 1: we talked about last week where you can put your
10:01
Speaker 1: name on a flash drive if you want to, And
10:05
Speaker 1: that's with a view to going back there with a
10:07
Speaker 1: manned mission or a human mission, let's be politically correct.
10:11
Speaker 1: And they're talking about putting the first woman on the Moon,
10:16
Speaker 1: they're talking about putting the first black person on the Moon,
10:20
Speaker 1: and you know, this is all great. I think it's
10:22
Speaker 1: all fantastic stuff. And the Moon being our closest neighbor
10:28
Speaker 1: in terms of what's out there is yeah, we should
10:33
Speaker 1: be giving it much more attention. There's so many possibilities,
10:36
Speaker 1: and of course it will potentially be a great launch
10:40
Speaker 1: pad for missions beyond Earth and the Moon going forward.
10:45
Speaker 1: So yeah, learning everything about it right down to the geology.
10:49
Speaker 1: Not a bad idea, not a bad it's.
10:52
Speaker 4: Going to be.
10:53
Speaker 2: I mean, the next decade is going to see our
10:55
Speaker 2: knowledge of the Moon totally revolutionized, which is brilliant.
10:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, just wondering though. This is a sort of one
11:01
Speaker 1: of my stupid brain questions. Would a landslide on the
11:04
Speaker 1: Moon happen in slow motion compared to Earth?
11:09
Speaker 2: Yeah it would, given that you know, walking hams in
11:12
Speaker 2: slow motion, it would it would.
11:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.
11:15
Speaker 2: The the the acceleration due to gravity is lower on
11:19
Speaker 2: the Moon.
11:19
Speaker 1: Of course, because they did that experiment. I don't know
11:22
Speaker 1: which mission it was where they dropped it was it
11:25
Speaker 1: a hammer.
11:25
Speaker 4: And a feather? It is.
11:26
Speaker 2: You know there's a movie that both fell at the
11:28
Speaker 2: same that's which is Gulli Leos.
11:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I wondered if a landslide would Yeah.
11:35
Speaker 4: It would.
11:36
Speaker 2: Well, if you watch the clip of that of the
11:38
Speaker 2: hummer and the fella, sorry, the feather, they kind of
11:41
Speaker 2: drift down, they don't, they don't drop like they would
11:44
Speaker 2: on Earth.
11:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's.
11:47
Speaker 1: Interesting, very interesting.
11:48
Speaker 4: Is great stuff.
11:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, more to learn from the Moon and lots of
11:51
Speaker 1: exciting things happening on and around the Moon in the
11:56
Speaker 1: not too distant future, and that Artemis one mission is
11:59
Speaker 1: SLAGH to launch sometime in the next few months. And
12:05
Speaker 1: as we mentioned last week, if you want to get
12:07
Speaker 1: your name on the flash drive that they're going to
12:09
Speaker 1: put on the Atoms one rocket so that you at
12:12
Speaker 1: least your name gets to do a lap of the moon,
12:15
Speaker 1: you can jump on the NASA website and register. I've
12:18
Speaker 1: got my boarding paths. I'll send you a boarding path.
12:20
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Speaker 1: That's very important us. Some questions spread and the first
14:03
Speaker 1: one comes from Simon.
14:06
Speaker 5: High Team Simon from Newcastle, thanks for the great podcast,
14:10
Speaker 5: really joy. My question is around the formation of life,
14:16
Speaker 5: the formation of elements and the thermi paradox. So my
14:21
Speaker 5: understanding is that in a normal star, star will only
14:25
Speaker 5: form elements up to iron, and that after that we
14:31
Speaker 5: need other processes to form elements above iron in the
14:36
Speaker 5: periodic table, and that I believe, I'm not sure that
14:41
Speaker 5: that might be when it goes super nova.
14:44
Speaker 4: So then.
14:45
Speaker 5: Paradox states, you know, where is everyone? Well, I was
14:49
Speaker 5: thinking maybe an answer to that could be that life
14:53
Speaker 5: itself might require elements that are higher up the periodic
14:59
Speaker 5: table and a normally produced standard star cycles. Perhaps we
15:06
Speaker 5: actually need super neighbors, and that that in itself would
15:10
Speaker 5: then lead itself down to the conclusion that perhaps we
15:14
Speaker 5: are one of the first even though it's only fourteen
15:19
Speaker 5: years old, you know, it's just thirteen million years old,
15:22
Speaker 5: maybe we did actually need that period of time to
15:24
Speaker 5: get to this point. Anyway, would just like to know
15:28
Speaker 5: if that actually adds up to makes sense.
15:31
Speaker 4: Thanks for your tom.
15:32
Speaker 1: Thank you, Simon, very astute and a really interesting question.
15:38
Speaker 1: Can you elaborate a bit just to start with on
15:40
Speaker 1: the thermi paradox? He did refer to what it, Yes,
15:44
Speaker 1: it is, but.
15:46
Speaker 2: Enrico Fermi's famous postulate from I think nineteen sixty or thereabouts,
15:50
Speaker 2: where is everybody? Yeah, because the you know, it's for
15:55
Speaker 2: really applying the Copernicum, the Copernican principle to us as
16:01
Speaker 2: living organisms, and the Copernicum principle is that there's nothing
16:04
Speaker 2: special about where we are in space and who we are.
16:07
Speaker 2: And it's named after Copernicus, because he took me from
16:11
Speaker 2: the center of the you know, the Solar System, which
16:13
Speaker 2: people thought it was before, and said, no, it's just
16:16
Speaker 2: just a planet.
16:18
Speaker 1: Just a rock, and it's a rock, third rock from
16:21
Speaker 1: the Sun.
16:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
16:23
Speaker 1: Didn't we talk some time ago about how our part
16:26
Speaker 1: of the universe is actually really boring?
16:29
Speaker 2: Well that could be, yeah, that could be part of
16:32
Speaker 2: the you know, the reason why we're here, because boring
16:35
Speaker 2: is good when trying to evolve living organisms. But yeah,
16:39
Speaker 2: so Fermi's argument was, if you know, if there's nothing
16:42
Speaker 2: special about us and the universe is thirteen point eight
16:45
Speaker 2: billion years old, they didn't know that back then, but
16:49
Speaker 2: that's the sort of I still knew it was pretty old.
16:53
Speaker 2: Why haven't species formed earlier than ours? And that why
16:58
Speaker 2: haven't they colonized the whole galaxy? Basically because even you know,
17:01
Speaker 2: even if it takes sixty thousand years to get from
17:05
Speaker 2: one star to another, as it would in our case,
17:07
Speaker 2: to get from here to proxima centaury, over a long
17:11
Speaker 2: enough time span, you could do that. And you know,
17:13
Speaker 2: even if even if it was colonized by robots so
17:16
Speaker 2: called from Nyman machines, that could self replicate, we should
17:22
Speaker 2: have evidence that there is intelligent life elsewhere.
17:25
Speaker 4: That's that's the family paradox, and.
17:27
Speaker 2: We haven't, and we still haven't, you know, sixty two
17:31
Speaker 2: years later, we still haven't.
17:32
Speaker 1: We're still looking for it on Earth.
17:35
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right now. Simon's arguments a good one. But
17:42
Speaker 2: the issue though is that supernov which he's absolutely right,
17:49
Speaker 2: they're this source of many of the heavier elements than iron.
17:53
Speaker 2: That and things like neutron star mergers and things of
17:56
Speaker 2: that sort, which which creates some of the heaviest selling gold,
18:00
Speaker 2: for example, comes from them. They started happening with probably
18:06
Speaker 2: within the first one hundred million years of the universe's existence.
18:10
Speaker 4: So for almost the whole.
18:12
Speaker 2: Age of the universe, the you know, what you might
18:15
Speaker 2: call the interstellar medium, the space between stars, has been
18:19
Speaker 2: enriched with these heavier elements. And in fact that's how
18:24
Speaker 2: we age we date stars in terms of how old
18:27
Speaker 2: they are, it's by the number of chemical how much
18:31
Speaker 2: of the chemical elements is in their atmospheres.
18:35
Speaker 4: So a star like the Sun, its.
18:39
Speaker 2: Atmosphere is rich in all the you know, I can't
18:42
Speaker 2: remember the number, it's sixty or seventy different elements which
18:45
Speaker 2: are in the Sun's atmosphere might even be more than that,
18:50
Speaker 2: and it's essentially a highly enriched cloud of gas that
18:57
Speaker 2: the Sun formed from. But if you look at stars
19:01
Speaker 2: which are very very old, and there are some they've
19:03
Speaker 2: only got hydrogen and you know, a little bit of
19:06
Speaker 2: iron in their spectrum, not much at all. But the
19:09
Speaker 2: bottom but the bottom line is that over right, since
19:12
Speaker 2: the beginning, the enrichment of the raw materials of life
19:18
Speaker 2: has been taking place. So it doesn't actually explain the
19:21
Speaker 2: Fermi paradox. In fact, that's part of the family paradox
19:24
Speaker 2: that we know. This has been going on for a
19:25
Speaker 2: long time. So you know, with the ingredients of life
19:29
Speaker 2: have been there for a long time, why aren't we
19:32
Speaker 2: seeing it? And you've had my answer to this many
19:37
Speaker 2: times before that the likelihood seems to be that that
19:40
Speaker 2: step what we think microbial life might be might be common,
19:44
Speaker 2: might be reasonably something. We might even know that within
19:49
Speaker 2: the next decade.
19:50
Speaker 4: Andrew, I hope we do.
19:51
Speaker 2: But higher life forms, even plants, may not exist anywhere
19:57
Speaker 2: else except here on Earth, or at least in our galaxy.
20:00
Speaker 2: You know, given the number of galaxies in the universe
20:04
Speaker 2: two hundred billion, it's probably it seems likely that there
20:12
Speaker 2: might be something, you know, the galaxies, but the possibility
20:15
Speaker 2: is that we are it in our own galaxy, which
20:16
Speaker 2: is a phenomenon.
20:17
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's hard to comprehend given the size and
20:21
Speaker 1: scope of the universe and all the situations that exist,
20:24
Speaker 1: that life couldn't exist somewhere else. You just got to
20:29
Speaker 1: look how life grabs hole in the most hostile environments
20:32
Speaker 1: on Earth. So it stands to reason that there's got
20:35
Speaker 1: to be some form of life beyond our planet, possibly
20:38
Speaker 1: even in our Solar system. But yeah, as you say,
20:44
Speaker 1: going from microbial to plant life is a giant leap,
20:48
Speaker 1: and then going from microbial to intelligent life is a
20:54
Speaker 1: massive leap. And I think.
21:00
Speaker 4: You could put it.
21:01
Speaker 1: Down to the fact that the formula has to be right,
21:04
Speaker 1: the circumstances have to be right, the environment has to
21:07
Speaker 1: be right, all the things that created us have to
21:11
Speaker 1: exist somewhere else in some capacity for intelligent life to spawn.
21:17
Speaker 1: And again you probably would say, given the size of
21:22
Speaker 1: the universe, it's got to exist somewhere, but no evidence
21:28
Speaker 1: of it, and even if it does exist, we may
21:31
Speaker 1: never know about it because.
21:32
Speaker 4: Of the distances.
21:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, a big step with this
21:36
Speaker 2: will come with the germs webspace telescope. Yeah, all the
21:39
Speaker 2: things that they're going to be doing is analyzing to
21:42
Speaker 2: death the atmospheres of extra planets. And yeah, as soon
21:46
Speaker 2: as something you know, CFCs or something like that turned
21:49
Speaker 2: up in one of those and you've suddenly changed the
21:51
Speaker 2: whole name of the game, unless it's some.
21:54
Speaker 1: Life form that's been created in a completely different.
21:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, no circumstances. I think astrobology is a pretty open
22:01
Speaker 2: minded about that. They look at all kinds of different
22:04
Speaker 2: chemical possibilities for creating life. Once they don't involve water
22:08
Speaker 2: at all. I mean, all life on Earth is water based.
22:11
Speaker 2: But no, great question, A great question.
22:16
Speaker 1: Thank you, Simon. Let's go to our next question, and
22:20
Speaker 1: this comes from Liz.
22:23
Speaker 6: Hello, Lord, not Lee and Professor Watson. This is Liz
22:27
Speaker 6: from Florida and I have a question about Mars. Now,
22:30
Speaker 6: this may be more of a sci fi question, but nonetheless,
22:35
Speaker 6: we know that the core is dead on planet Mars,
22:39
Speaker 6: and as we know, without an act of core, there
22:42
Speaker 6: is a lack of magnetic field which will essentially not
22:46
Speaker 6: be able to sustain an atmosphere. Now, we can tear
22:50
Speaker 6: a form an atmosphere all we want, but over time
22:52
Speaker 6: that will essentially seep out through the cracks and there
22:57
Speaker 6: will be no more atmosphere. Now, is it possible to
23:01
Speaker 6: harvest the Sun's energy? As we know the plannet gets
23:05
Speaker 6: radiated quite a bit. Is it possible to harvest that
23:09
Speaker 6: energy in let's say some kind of towers or something
23:13
Speaker 6: that can then send the shot down through the planet,
23:16
Speaker 6: down to the core and recharge the core. So kind
23:20
Speaker 6: of act as a planetary defabulator. Thank you for your time.
23:26
Speaker 4: Wow.
23:26
Speaker 1: I like the question. I like the concept, very sci fi.
23:29
Speaker 1: In fact, they did make a movie called The Core
23:31
Speaker 1: because the core of the Earth was slowing down and
23:34
Speaker 1: threatening life on Earth as we know it, so they
23:38
Speaker 1: sent a crew down on a special drill ship to
23:42
Speaker 1: get to the core and fire nuclear charges into it
23:45
Speaker 1: to reignite it. So, yeah, that's been done in sci fi.
23:49
Speaker 4: What happened Andrew? What was the home?
23:52
Speaker 1: They fixed it?
23:53
Speaker 4: How they fix the Earth course?
23:55
Speaker 2: Spoiler alert, yes alert, Yeah, the planetary defibrillator.
24:04
Speaker 4: I love the idea, or pack.
24:07
Speaker 1: A whacker as we call them in Australia. I should
24:09
Speaker 1: probably now explain that Kerry Packer was a media magnate
24:15
Speaker 1: in Australia, very powerful, very rich man, Australia's richest man
24:18
Speaker 1: for a long time, didn't take care of himself health
24:21
Speaker 1: wise very well, and had a heart attack one day
24:24
Speaker 1: and the ambulance used a defibrillator to save his life.
24:30
Speaker 1: And he found out that there just weren't many of those,
24:34
Speaker 1: so he paid for every ambulance in New South Wales
24:37
Speaker 1: to have a defibrillator so that they could save people's
24:41
Speaker 1: lives like they saved him, which was a great, great thing.
24:45
Speaker 1: And we affectionately referred them to them as packerwhackers, as
24:49
Speaker 1: we do in this country. We give everything a nickname,
24:52
Speaker 1: so packa whackers are what I rebelled.
24:54
Speaker 2: That is, that's fantastic. I think I knew about the
24:58
Speaker 2: principle and that's what the were called. It's very Yeah,
25:03
Speaker 2: well that's probably the most interesting part of the answer
25:07
Speaker 2: to this question. Look, it is, yeah, terraforming Mars is
25:15
Speaker 2: it's not possible because it's not just the atmosphere' sorry,
25:20
Speaker 2: the lack of a magnetic field that stops you holding
25:23
Speaker 2: onto an atmosphere. It's the fact that the planet's too small.
25:28
Speaker 2: It's once again, it's it's it's connected with the just
25:33
Speaker 2: simply the gravitational pool that is needed to hold onto
25:37
Speaker 2: an atmosphere like ours, which Miles doesn't have. It clearly,
25:43
Speaker 2: at an early stage in its life did have an atmosphere,
25:46
Speaker 2: because we see evidence of water and that sort of thing.
25:49
Speaker 2: And it may well be that the magnetism then was
25:52
Speaker 2: high enough to certainly to stop it being eroded away
25:55
Speaker 2: by by the solar wind and things of that sort.
25:58
Speaker 2: But it's always going to be, you know, it's always
26:05
Speaker 2: going to be a negative answer to a long lasting
26:08
Speaker 2: atmosphere like the Earth's, because it just drifts off, it's
26:12
Speaker 2: not not heavy enough. In fact, we see it happening.
26:15
Speaker 2: There's it's the Marvin spacecraft, a NASA spacecraft that can
26:20
Speaker 2: actually that actually watches atoms leaving Mars' atmosphere. There's several
26:25
Speaker 2: images that show a different species of atoms drifting off,
26:30
Speaker 2: reading carbon, the carbon dioxide and oxygen, and.
26:34
Speaker 1: Which makes Marvin paranoid think about that one.
26:40
Speaker 4: Yes, I like that.
26:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish I could think of things like that anyway.
26:46
Speaker 2: Never mind, so stirring up the core if you could
26:52
Speaker 2: do it, and I think the answer to that is
26:55
Speaker 2: there's no known physical method that would let you do that.
26:58
Speaker 2: What you'd have to do is heat it up so
27:01
Speaker 2: that it became more liquid. There may be a bit
27:05
Speaker 2: of liquidity there now, but there's not enough to create
27:07
Speaker 2: a dynamo to generate the magnetic field.
27:09
Speaker 1: It's possibly done a piston engine thing and seized.
27:15
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, in which case un seizing it needn't
27:19
Speaker 2: necessarily started spinning again, so you might still wind up
27:23
Speaker 2: with no magnetic field even if you nuked it to boil,
27:27
Speaker 2: to boil it up a bit. So my answer to
27:30
Speaker 2: all that is to create artificial environments in space which
27:33
Speaker 2: you can control and you know, with mega engineering.
27:37
Speaker 7: Live in the bubbles. Yeah. Close for the question, Thanks
27:43
Speaker 7: for the question. Probably beyond capability to fire up the.
27:48
Speaker 1: Core, Yeah, but you never know. One days can we
27:54
Speaker 1: might be able to harness the energy of the Sun
27:55
Speaker 1: and do all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Who knows,
28:05
Speaker 1: space MutS.
28:06
Speaker 8: Hello again, space Nutters. This is Anna from Astronomy Daily,
28:10
Speaker 8: the podcast, stopping by again with a couple of the
28:12
Speaker 8: important stories we've been following over the past week. We'll
28:16
Speaker 8: dive into SpaceX's upcoming starship test flight with its first
28:19
Speaker 8: ever payload deployment and blue origins highly anticipated new Glen
28:24
Speaker 8: rocket debut. Let's get rolling with today's news. SpaceX is
28:30
Speaker 8: gearing up for an exciting milestone with their seventh Starship
28:34
Speaker 8: test flight, marking the first time the massive rocket will
28:37
Speaker 8: attempt to deploy a payload in space. The mission will
28:41
Speaker 8: carry ten Starlink satellite simulators designed to match the size
28:46
Speaker 8: and weight of their next generation V three satellites. These
28:49
Speaker 8: dummy satellites will follow the same suborbital trajectory as Starship,
28:54
Speaker 8: with their journey ending in a planned splash down in
28:56
Speaker 8: the Indian Ocean. This test is crucial for space x's
29:00
Speaker 8: future plans, as their developing Starship to carry their advanced
29:04
Speaker 8: V three Starlink satellites, which promise to deliver impressive gigabit
29:08
Speaker 8: Internet speeds to subscribers. The upcoming test flight will showcase
29:13
Speaker 8: a significantly upgraded version of Starship. The new generation vehicle
29:17
Speaker 8: features important improvements to boost reliability and performance, including a
29:22
Speaker 8: redesigned propulsion system and a twenty five percent increase in
29:25
Speaker 8: propellant volume, enabling the rocket to undertake longer missions. One
29:30
Speaker 8: of the most challenging aspects of this mission will be
29:33
Speaker 8: the attempted recovery of Starship's reusable booster using a landing pad.
29:38
Speaker 8: This maneuver, which had to be canceled during the previous
29:41
Speaker 8: test flight in November, could result in sonic booms around
29:44
Speaker 8: the landing zone as the booster decelerates from supersonic speeds.
29:49
Speaker 8: If automated health checks indicate any concerns with the super
29:52
Speaker 8: heavy booster or tower, the backup plan involves a controlled
29:56
Speaker 8: splash down in the Gulf of Mexico. The test flight
29:59
Speaker 8: is scheduled for January tenth, though weather conditions could affect
30:03
Speaker 8: the launch date. With FAA clearance already secured, this mission
30:07
Speaker 8: represents a significant step forward in SpaceX's ambitious plans to
30:12
Speaker 8: revolutionize satellite deployment capabilities and advance their Starlink network. Another
30:18
Speaker 8: exciting launch on the Horizon, Blue Origin is on the
30:22
Speaker 8: verge of a historic moment as they prepare to launch
30:24
Speaker 8: their first new Glen rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force
30:28
Speaker 8: Station in Florida. After years of development since Jeff Bezos
30:32
Speaker 8: first announced the project in twenty sixteen, the company is
30:35
Speaker 8: finally ready to demonstrate their entry into the heavy lift
30:38
Speaker 8: launch market. The launch window opens as early as January
30:41
Speaker 8: sixth at one a m Eastern time, with multiple backup
30:45
Speaker 8: opportunities through January twelfth. The rocket's first stage booster, cleverly
30:50
Speaker 8: named so You're telling Me There's a chance, will attempt
30:53
Speaker 8: a landing at sea on their drone ship Jackline, Named
30:56
Speaker 8: after Bezos's mother, New Glen represents a signals in advancement
31:00
Speaker 8: in launch vehicle capability. Standing impressively tall with a massive
31:04
Speaker 8: twenty three foot payload firing, it offers more than double
31:08
Speaker 8: the volume of typical fifteen foot farings used by other rockets.
31:12
Speaker 8: This extra space gives customers unprecedented flexibility in how they
31:15
Speaker 8: package their payloads. The rocket's performance specifications are equally impressive,
31:21
Speaker 8: capable of delivering up to forty five metric tons to
31:24
Speaker 8: low Earth orbit and thirteen metric tons to geostationary orbit.
31:29
Speaker 8: Like SpaceX's rockets, New Glen is designed for reusability, with
31:33
Speaker 8: each booster projected to complete up to twenty five flights.
31:37
Speaker 8: For this debut mission, designated NNG one, the rocket will
31:41
Speaker 8: carry the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a forty five zero zero
31:44
Speaker 8: zero pound payload simulator. This test article will validate crucial
31:48
Speaker 8: systems including communications arrays, power systems, and flight computers that
31:53
Speaker 8: will be used in future operational missions. Blue Origin already
31:57
Speaker 8: has an impressive lineup of customers waiting to fly on
32:00
Speaker 8: New Glenn, including NASA's Escapade Mars probes, Amazon's Kyper Internet satellites,
32:05
Speaker 8: and various commercial and government payloads. If successful, this first
32:09
Speaker 8: flight could count toward Blue Origin certification requirements for national
32:13
Speaker 8: security launches with the US Space Force. And that's it
32:16
Speaker 8: for me for this episode of Space Nuts. I'm anna
32:20
Speaker 8: don't forget to visit Astronomy Daily dot io for your
32:22
Speaker 8: daily fix of space and astronomy news updates. We're constantly
32:26
Speaker 8: updating the site with the latest discoveries, mission updates, and
32:29
Speaker 8: cosmic wonders until our next adventure through the Cosmos. Keep
32:34
Speaker 8: looking up and stay curious about the mysteries that surround
32:36
Speaker 8: us in space.
32:37
Speaker 3: A Space Nuts to the Spice Nuts podcast available at
32:43
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, oh your favorite podcast player.
32:49
Speaker 5: You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.
32:52
Speaker 5: This has been another quantity podcast production from Nuts dot com.