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Cosmic Reflections: The WOW Signal, Uranus' New Moon & SpaceX Triumphs · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Heidi Campo: Everybody, welcome back to what might
0:03
very well be my last episode
0:06
hosting this podcast, Space
0:08
Nuts.
0:09
Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
0:12
10, 9. Ignition
0:14
sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
0:17
2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
0:20
3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
0:23
report. It feels good.
0:25
Heidi Campo: Uh, the podcast is not going anywhere. Don't
0:27
you worry. Uh, we'll have our regular host,
0:30
uh, Andrew Dunkley, return maybe next
0:33
week. Um, or I might be back. So this could
0:35
be a very dramatic goodbye and then I show up
0:37
again. But we don't know. What we do know
0:40
is that the beloved, um, Fred Watson is
0:43
still here with us today. Fred, how are you
0:45
doing?
0:46
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, pretty good, thank you, Heidi. Um,
0:49
feeling for you because you've done such a
0:51
fabulous job over the last 13
0:54
weeks. I think it is. Um, and,
0:57
um, yeah, we've. We've had some
1:00
hitches and glitches and all kinds of things
1:02
like that, but you've come through it all
1:05
wonderfully. And, um, I think the podcast is
1:07
in better shape now than it was before.
1:09
Heidi Campo: Oh, thank you. That's very kind. It's so
1:12
crazy to think of, you know, just 13 weeks
1:15
ago. You guys can think about where you were
1:17
13 weeks ago and how much has changed over
1:19
the summer. And for me, I was involved in
1:22
a NASA proposal project where
1:24
we wrote a whole proposal trying to get
1:27
funding. We didn't get the funding, but it
1:29
was a really fun project. Um, I wrote
1:31
another proposal that's going to be submitted
1:33
to the IRB soon. It's just like, wow, so
1:35
much. So much has happened and changed in 13
1:38
weeks. Um, what about you, Fred?
1:41
How's your. Well, I guess, winter.
1:43
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, it's been a winter. Yeah, it's been a
1:45
very busy time, actually. We, we did a,
1:47
um, tour at one point, and
1:50
we've done a lot of things. Um,
1:53
uh, good, uh, things, and mostly good
1:56
things. One or two things that. Less good.
1:58
But all things are going well and we're
2:01
still going strong, and the podcast will
2:03
continue to do so. And of course, in that 13
2:05
weeks, we had that lovely news that we were
2:07
seventh in the top 50 podcasts on
2:10
astronomy and space science. So that's.
2:13
Heidi Campo: Well, I have one word for that.
2:17
Can you guess my word?
2:19
Professor Fred Watson: Um, mine will be awesome.
2:22
Heidi Campo: I'm going to say. Wow.
2:24
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, good. Well, what a. What a lovely segue
2:27
into.
2:28
Heidi Campo: And that is a segue. You guys know me and
2:30
love me for my segues.
2:32
Wow is actually our first article
2:35
of the day where we are talking about a radio
2:38
signal. This is something I know nothing
2:40
about. Fred knows everything about so let's
2:43
hear this from Fred.
2:45
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, yeah, um, I'm glad to hear
2:47
that you, um, you were coming fresh to this
2:50
story because it's one that keeps one
2:52
returning and is, you
2:55
know, one of the ones that intrigues us all
2:58
in the quest for whether there is
3:01
intelligent life beyond our
3:03
planet. Um, so the story
3:06
is, uh, it goes back to 1977
3:09
when a telescope in your country, Heidi.
3:12
Uh, radio telescope, uh, the Big Ear
3:14
Observatory, Delaware. Delaware,
3:16
Ohio. Uh, that
3:19
telescope had. By 1977 it had
3:22
completed a really excellent radio
3:25
wavelength survey of the sky, the northern
3:28
sky. Uh, and it was being sort
3:31
of handed over to the SETI Project
3:34
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
3:36
Um, and that made, uh,
3:39
it the, you know, the biggest ear, if I can
3:42
put it that way, because it's called the Big
3:44
Ear. Uh, uh, it was
3:46
effectively the biggest ear in the world
3:48
listening for radio signals that might have
3:50
had an intelligent origin, uh,
3:52
somewhere deep in space. So, uh, the job it
3:55
was doing was actually looking for
3:57
extraterrestrial intelligence signals. Uh,
4:00
the telescope's no longer there, actually. I
4:02
believe the site is now a golf course. So.
4:04
Heidi Campo: Oh, wow.
4:06
Professor Fred Watson: There you go. Wow. Um,
4:10
uh, so what, what happened? Well, uh, the.
4:14
Back in 1977, your
4:17
information came out on a. What was called a
4:19
line printer. The, basically a printer with
4:22
a lot of numbers on, um, was nothing like
4:25
the elegant, uh, hardware that we've got
4:28
these days where we just immediately plot
4:30
graphs and things of that sort on our lovely
4:32
color screens. Everything was in black and
4:34
white. Uh, and your information came out
4:37
as uh, I said, on a printer. Uh, and
4:40
so, uh, an astronomer, sadly, I can't
4:42
remember his name. Jerry, I think, was his
4:44
first name. Um, he was
4:47
looking through this, this output,
4:50
uh, as I think he probably did every
4:52
day, uh, and came upon
4:56
a, ah, set of numbers and letters actually,
4:58
because it's in, um, you know, the
5:00
numbers aren't enough for this. It's in. I
5:03
don't think it's hexadecimal, but it's some
5:04
code a bit like that. So you get numbers and
5:06
letters. Uh, and he came across this string
5:09
of letters that indicated a very,
5:12
very strong signal, uh, for
5:14
a very short time. And uh,
5:17
with, uh, his red biro
5:20
pen, he wrote wow in the margin of
5:23
the print hour. And that's why it's called
5:25
the wow. Signal. And it's been called that
5:27
ever since. Sadly, what it hasn't had ever
5:30
since is any real understanding of what
5:32
caused it, uh, because, um, it
5:34
was never repeated. Um,
5:37
and ah, a lot of analysis
5:40
Was done as to whether it was a signal that
5:43
had come from some terrestrial source, you
5:46
know, TV station or something of that sort,
5:48
or satellites. Uh, because there were
5:51
of course satellites there. We had satellites
5:53
in place for uh, 20 years by then.
5:56
Um. And um. People have looked at things
5:59
like well, uh. Could it have been reflection
6:01
of a radio signal from the moon? Uh, because
6:04
radio telescopes can pick up reflections from
6:06
the moon. Um, but no, it wasn't. The moon was
6:09
on the other side of the Earth at the time.
6:10
So that wasn't going to be what it was.
6:13
Um, and so it's been a focus of interest.
6:16
You know, was it really a burst of
6:19
radiation at the particular
6:22
frequency, uh, which um.
6:24
We have always kind of thought maybe
6:27
any uh, intelligent aliens out uh, there
6:30
might use. Um. This. Um. It's
6:33
a frequency that actually
6:36
hydrogen, uh called hydrogen radiates on.
6:40
So uh. It's perhaps the best known
6:42
frequency in the whole of radio astronomy.
6:45
Um because cold hydrogen
6:47
radiates signals at that frequency. And
6:50
that's um. Cold hydrogen lets you map
6:53
the, you know, the distribution of hydrogen
6:55
in space and gives us insights into
6:58
the universe that we wouldn't have had
7:00
otherwise. It's at a frequency of 14, 20
7:02
megahertz. Um, we usually ah, often
7:05
talk about the 21 centimeter line because
7:07
that's the wavelength of this. Of this
7:09
radiation. So that frequency was what was
7:12
chosen and um, for the. The.
7:15
You know, for the. For the SETI search.
7:18
Uh, and getting this massive signal at that
7:21
frequency, of course is very, very
7:24
intriguing and remains so to this
7:27
day. So why is it in the news again?
7:29
Well, because, um. Things have moved
7:32
on a little bit in terms of computation and
7:35
data analysis since 1977,
7:39
as Joe has. That's right. So,
7:41
um, quite a large group of um,
7:44
interested scientists have got together, uh,
7:47
and basically reanalyzed the
7:50
data. Um, uh,
7:52
they've actually um, put um.
7:55
I think the original uh,
7:58
printouts through optical character
8:01
recognition software, um, so that
8:04
they can actually digitize
8:07
what was just numbers on a piece
8:10
of paper. And that of course lets you then do
8:12
a much more um, sophisticated
8:15
analysis. Uh, and so what they've done is
8:17
looked again at the signal and it turns out
8:19
that uh, things are slightly different from
8:22
what we thought they were. And in particular,
8:26
uh, the um. Um.
8:28
Intensity of the signal is
8:31
about uh. It's probably about um.
8:34
20% higher than what
8:37
was originally estimated. So it was even
8:39
stronger than people thought at the time.
8:43
Uh, and it's. Yeah, it's got, you
8:46
know, a few other little things that have
8:48
changed uh, but at the end of the day,
8:51
it doesn't really give us any more
8:53
information about what caused this. Uh,
8:55
and I just to, uh, kind
8:58
of recap a little bit. I remember writing a
9:01
little article, it's probably a couple of
9:03
years ago now, about again about the wow
9:06
Signal. But, uh, about new research
9:09
that had speculated on what might have caused
9:12
it. And I think that is still the most likely
9:15
cause. Um, and it comes about
9:17
because of a phenomenon that we didn't know
9:20
about in 1977, but we do now.
9:22
And that is, uh, these flares on
9:25
highly magnitude. M sorry. Highly
9:28
magnetized neutron stars. So neutron
9:31
stars are, as we know, we often
9:34
talk about them. They're the size of a city,
9:36
but with the mass of a star in them.
9:38
So they're highly compressed material.
9:41
They've got intense magnetic fields. Some of
9:43
them beam out radiation like a lighthouse.
9:45
And we call them pulsars because we see that
9:48
lighthouse being pulsating. Um,
9:51
but these events that we call fast radio
9:54
bursts, which have been known about for the
9:56
last 10, 15 years or so, we think
9:59
come from flares on really
10:01
highly magnetized neutron stars. Uh,
10:04
some objects that we call magnetars.
10:07
So these flares,
10:10
um, they don't come out at the frequency that
10:12
I'm talking about, though. What's interesting
10:15
is that, um, the suggestion is
10:18
that what you've got is a cloud of hydrogen.
10:21
And, uh, behind it, perhaps a long, long way
10:23
behind it, is one of these magnetars, perhaps
10:26
in an even more distant galaxy, that suddenly
10:28
flares and, um, beam radio waves, which we
10:31
would see as a fast radio burst.
10:34
But the effect of that on
10:37
the cloud of hydrogen that's between us
10:40
and the magnetar is to excite it and turn it
10:43
into a kind of laser. It basically
10:45
excites the radio radiation within the cloud
10:48
of hydrogen. And then you get that, uh,
10:50
hydrogen signal until that.
10:52
Heidi Campo: So they work kind of like, uh, light waves
10:54
going through a prism or rain creating a
10:57
rainbow. Does it work? Kind of like that.
10:59
Refracting. Refracting the signal.
11:01
Professor Fred Watson: It's. And, uh, that's part of the story. I
11:04
think maybe a better way to think of it might
11:06
be like, um. If you,
11:10
uh. If you've got a. Well, you know,
11:12
something like, um. We used to talk about
11:14
organ pipes because that's how sound waves
11:17
were. You know, if you've, if you've got a
11:19
cavity and you yell into
11:21
it and. And it's, uh. And it's the right
11:24
size, that will set up a resonance, uh,
11:27
with your voice. And it will amplify your
11:29
VOICE and that's more or less the process
11:32
that's taking place within these clouds of
11:34
hydrogen. But uh, um,
11:37
it's on a much more gigantic scale.
11:40
And so you get this almost laser like effect
11:43
on the radiation that magnifies it. And
11:46
that's perhaps the best
11:48
explanation so far. We have seen similar
11:50
phenomena to this, uh, but they're not
11:53
as intense as the wow signal. The wow signal
11:55
is still the most intense unexplained signal.
11:59
So, um, make of that what you will, Heidi.
12:02
Um, is it from aliens beaming radiation
12:05
somewhere? Is it from a natural
12:07
alignment of two objects that
12:10
uh, give the give rise to this kind of laser
12:12
like radiation beam? I don't know. But,
12:15
um, I think the wow signal will continue to
12:19
uh, intrigue astronomers and space scientists
12:21
for a long time to come.
12:23
Heidi Campo: Absolutely. Absolutely. It is, you know, it's
12:25
tough because, you know, and folks at seti,
12:28
there's probably so much confirmation bias
12:30
they have to overcome because you're going to
12:32
look, you're going, if you're a hammer,
12:34
everything's a nail. And so many times we
12:35
want to look at something and go, that's got
12:38
to be what I want it to be. And then we get
12:40
more pieces of the puzzle and we're like, oh,
12:42
shoot, that's definitely
12:45
hoping it was.
12:48
Generic: Okay.
12:49
Professor Fred Watson: We checked all four systems and being with a
12:51
go space nets.
12:53
Heidi Campo: But, um, with our next story,
12:55
we are getting more pieces of the puzzle that
12:58
are very clear. And this is
13:01
actually about my favorite planet,
13:03
Uranus. I think it is
13:05
beautiful, I think it is underrated. And
13:08
we are now discovering some new
13:11
moons orbiting around this
13:14
fantastic sideways blue marble
13:17
planet.
13:19
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I mean, I always think, um,
13:23
a discovery of something like a new moon is
13:26
really big news, even if it's only 10
13:28
kilometers or six miles across as this one
13:31
is. Um, ah, I
13:34
do remember when I was a youngster
13:38
getting, uh, interested in astronomy. M. We
13:40
thought Saturn had nine moons.
13:43
Um, um, and I don't know whether you're
13:46
familiar with the total that we know now, but
13:48
the membrane, not sure.
13:50
Heidi Campo: With what it's at from the last time I heard
13:52
it, but it keeps growing.
13:53
Professor Fred Watson: It does. It's 274.
13:55
Heidi Campo: Heidi 74. I think the last time
13:58
I heard it was in the 250s, so.
14:00
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Continuing to grow.
14:02
So it keeps. And, and a lot of that is, um,
14:05
these are really small objects that lurk in
14:07
the rings of Saturn. Um, and
14:10
of course, uh, Uranus has rings as well. And
14:13
what we found in this new discovery, uh,
14:16
is a Moon that is
14:18
just on the edge of uh, the rings, the ring
14:21
system of Uranus. Um, what I
14:24
think impresses me about this story most
14:27
is the achievement that it represents when
14:30
it's once again highlighting just
14:33
how effective and efficient the James Webb
14:35
telescope is. Uh, because that
14:38
telescope has been used uh, to discover this
14:40
moon. The moon as I've already said, is
14:43
about, thought to be about ah, 10
14:45
kilometers across, 6 miles or
14:48
so, something like that, maybe 7 miles. Um,
14:52
it is at a distance
14:55
of um, 30 times
14:58
the distance from the Earth, uh,
15:01
to the sun, uh, which is um,
15:04
it's something like three if I remember
15:07
rightly. It's about 3 billion kilometers.
15:10
Heidi Campo: So if you were on the surface of Uranus,
15:12
you'd notice, be able to see it. It'd
15:15
be too small and too far away probably.
15:18
Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Um, I mean
15:20
Uranus is a gas giant. So you, you'd be,
15:23
you'd be floating I guess or something like
15:25
that. But yes, kind of a station.
15:28
Yeah, it would almost certainly be, it would
15:30
be too small to see uh, with the unaided
15:33
eye. Um, but yes, ah,
15:36
you know that the, the, the
15:38
triumph is being able to see it from the
15:40
distance that we are here on our uh,
15:44
uh, extraordinary
15:46
discovery of a tiny object at such an
15:49
amazing distance away. So uh,
15:52
it's a good story. What does it mean? It
15:54
means we've got a new object which
15:57
currently has the name of
15:58
S2025U1
16:02
which tells you that it's the first um,
16:05
Uranus moon discovered in
16:07
2025. The
16:10
S meaning satellite. Uh, so uh, that's
16:13
an International Astronomical Union code, uh,
16:16
which is commonly used for new discoveries.
16:19
But it will end up with a name, uh, that
16:22
um, ah, either comes from the
16:25
writings of Shakespeare
16:27
or from uh, Pope, um, ah,
16:30
Alexander Pope because they're the
16:33
two authors, uh, whose characters
16:36
are actually um, the names of the
16:39
characters have been adopted, uh, for the
16:42
moons of Uranus, um, with
16:45
the most famous ones like Titania, ah, Oberon
16:48
and Ophelia. These are all big name
16:51
moons of that planet, uh, who knows
16:53
what.
16:54
Heidi Campo: Cupid.
16:55
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, all of that, all of those. Who knows
16:57
what s 2025 new one will wind
17:00
up with. But uh, uh, it'll be
17:03
something pretty cool I think.
17:05
Heidi Campo: So to be a moon, does it have to be
17:08
a certain size?
17:10
Professor Fred Watson: That's a great question. Um, and uh,
17:13
uh, where that blurring
17:16
occurs is in the rings of
17:19
objects like Saturn, uh, and
17:22
Uranus. So those rings are made of many,
17:25
many particles, some uh, of
17:28
which are just pieces of dust, but some are
17:30
Quite large. You know, you've probably got
17:32
things 10 meters across which are orbiting
17:35
and forming the ring systems. Uh, are they
17:38
moons? That's the question. Uh,
17:41
what's the boundary between a large ring
17:43
particle and a moon? And
17:47
so the size is probably a critical thing. I
17:49
don't think there is a size limit. I think
17:52
it's more about, uh, for
17:55
example, with this newly discovered moon.
17:57
Yes, it's perhaps 10 kilometers across,
18:01
uh, but it's not in the ring system of
18:04
Uranus. It's clearly not a ring particle. It
18:06
is an independent moon. So I guess that's
18:09
actually what qualifies it for the, for the
18:11
title.
18:13
Heidi Campo: Excellent. I don't know why I thought of the
18:15
classic Star wars line. That's no moon.
18:19
Space station.
18:21
Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
18:23
Heidi Campo: I'm a nerd. I can't help it.
18:27
Generic: Roger, your labs are here.
18:28
Professor Fred Watson: Also space nuts.
18:30
Heidi Campo: Um, I have uh, an Amazon
18:33
Alex Zaharov-Reutt that I use to get my
18:34
morning news and all over the news today,
18:38
while we're recording this was all the news
18:40
of the starship launch and the success. And
18:42
we were talking about that on our last
18:44
episode. We had our fingers crossed. We
18:47
were hopeful for the success of the
18:50
um, SpaceX Starship launch. And it looks
18:53
like it did. Great. Do you want to tell us
18:55
more about this?
18:57
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, um, it is, it's really
19:00
basically a good news, good news story in the
19:03
sense that uh, um, once again,
19:05
um, the technology has worked. Uh,
19:09
so just a recap of
19:12
what we're talking about. Um,
19:14
SpaceX, their biggest rocket is the
19:17
Starship, which is in two parts, the super
19:20
heavy launch vehicle and what is called ship,
19:22
which is the top stage, uh, of the vehicle.
19:26
And that pairing, uh, has
19:28
had 10 test launches so far.
19:32
Um, some of them were less than
19:34
successful, some of them resulted in
19:37
what, um, SpaceX terms,
19:40
uh, a rapid unscheduled disassembly.
19:43
Uh, we would call it an explosion, but they
19:46
call it a rapid unscheduled disassembly.
19:49
And um, so it's um, uh, great
19:51
to report that the 10th flight, uh,
19:54
everything went absolutely according to plan.
19:57
And the plans were a little bit different
19:59
from some of the earlier missions. Um, you
20:01
probably remember, Heidi, that the way that
20:04
the booster itself, the super heavy part of
20:07
the spacecraft returns, uh, to Earth, it
20:10
returns to its launch pad and is
20:13
captured by what are being called the
20:15
chopsticks, a pair of arms that grab
20:18
hold of it as it comes down and basically
20:21
puts it back on the launch pad so it can be
20:23
reused almost immediately, which is
20:26
extraordinary technology, um, that has been
20:28
successfully tested in some of the earlier
20:30
missions. That wasn't the plan for this
20:32
mission. The super heavy booster was
20:35
purposely uh, dropped into the ocean. Um,
20:38
but the ship itself uh, made
20:41
a soft landing. Now it was a soft landing on
20:44
water, uh, and that was intended as well. And
20:47
in fact it virtually hit its target because
20:50
there was a boy, uh, with cameras on it
20:53
ready in the vicinity to watch this thing
20:55
land. And indeed it did. Uh, and um,
20:58
its breaking rockets slowed it down so that
21:01
it basically just kissed the water and then
21:05
sank down into water. There's a lot of steam
21:07
about as you'd expect from rocket jets,
21:10
um, playing on the, um, on the water surface.
21:12
And that was intended as well. That was in
21:14
the Indian Ocean. So I think it was something
21:16
like a 45 minute flight that the ship itself
21:19
made. Um, so that was all
21:21
exactly what was planned. And that's great
21:24
news because it means that things are on
21:26
track. Um, it's critical uh,
21:29
uh, that we should have a working system
21:32
because as you know, the ship itself
21:36
is going to be the vehicle that will land
21:39
Artemis astronauts on the moon, hopefully
21:41
in 2027. Maybe it will slip a little bit. But
21:45
uh, Chip is going to be Starship itself. The
21:48
ship part of it is going to be the landing
21:50
vehicle, uh, that will take Artemis
21:53
astronauts down to the surface. So it's got
21:55
to work and it's got to work well and that's
21:58
why it's great to see these tests uh,
22:01
coming. Good. Of course, um,
22:03
Elon's um, whole
22:06
motivation for building this gigantic
22:09
rocket, 400ft tall,
22:11
123 meters. Uh, his motivation is
22:14
to take people to Mars. And um, I think
22:17
that's a little bit further down the track.
22:19
He might have the vehicle to do it, but I
22:21
think there are a lot of problems to solve
22:23
before we send people to Mars on Starship.
22:27
Heidi Campo: I've heard him say that he wants to be the
22:29
first person to be born on Earth and die on
22:32
Mars.
22:33
Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
22:33
Heidi Campo: And uh, there's kind of the joke. It's like,
22:36
well you need to specify if it's going to be
22:38
in the landing or if you've walked on Mars.
22:42
So that would be a very important
22:45
specification. Yeah.
22:48
Either way we are making crazy
22:50
progress rapidly towards, towards these
22:53
visions. I mean is there there been a point
22:56
in your career, your space career, where you
22:59
saw advances happening this rapidly
23:02
at any point?
23:03
Professor Fred Watson: No. And um, I um, mean that. But there was
23:06
a critical moment which was back in 2015
23:10
and that's when SpaceX managed to
23:12
successfully land a booster and
23:16
reuse it, because that's the game changer,
23:19
that technology that allows you to bring a
23:20
booster back rather than just dumping it into
23:22
the ocean, which is what happened, um,
23:25
for, you know, all the decades before that,
23:27
um, costing millions of dollars.
23:30
Uh, but if you can reuse the booster, then
23:32
suddenly you've, you've made an economy. That
23:35
is a game changer. And, and that's actually
23:37
what's happened. So. Yes, I've never seen
23:40
things happening as rapidly as they are now.
23:42
Heidi Campo: Yeah. Uh, has this
23:45
impacted astronomy? Are we able to get more
23:48
satellites and, um, tools out there for
23:50
you?
23:51
Professor Fred Watson: Because it's. Yes, that's right. Because it's
23:54
now cheaper, uh, to launch,
23:57
uh, things into orbit, then
24:00
telescopes, uh, can be
24:02
launched on a much lower budget, ah,
24:05
astronomical telescopes into orbit, uh, than
24:07
they were before. Um,
24:12
it used to be this cost that people used
24:15
to talk about to get something into orbit was
24:17
about $20,000 per kilogram, and that's
24:20
come down to $2,000 per
24:23
kilogram. Um, and, you know, that's
24:26
just a game changer. In fact,
24:29
with Starship, it's forecast that it might
24:31
come down to $200 a kilogram, uh,
24:34
which, you know, is just unheard of.
24:37
So if you've got a cheap way of getting stuff
24:40
into space, then it costs you less to have an
24:43
astronomy mission. So, yes, it will impact
24:45
our, uh, science.
24:47
Heidi Campo: Well, that's amazing. And you know,
24:50
for all you space nuts listening, maybe we'll
24:52
all one day be able to afford a ticket to
24:55
space. But until then, I
24:58
know of something that you can do that will
25:01
impact, uh, space in a positive way.
25:04
That's absolutely free. And I'm
25:07
specifically talking to you people living
25:09
in Australia, if you're a resident, if you're
25:12
a citizen, this is something that you can
25:15
and should get involved with that can
25:17
absolutely, positively impact
25:20
space.
25:21
So I'm going to let Fred tell you guys all
25:23
about the Australian. The Australian,
25:26
uh, Dark Sky Alliance.
25:30
I'm not saying that word right.
25:31
Professor Fred Watson: No, it's quite, quite all right. It's
25:33
actually Australasian and, uh. Australasian,
25:36
yeah. So it includes, uh, Australasia,
25:39
includes New Zealand and some of the other
25:41
neighboring countries around Australia. Uh,
25:44
and it's the Australasian Dark sky alliance,
25:46
uh, an advocacy body that was
25:48
founded, um, back in 2019, um,
25:51
actually by my partner Marnie,
25:54
uh, and other colleagues of hers came, uh,
25:57
together to set up this advocacy body
26:00
to basically, um, tell people
26:03
about dark skies and, um, what you can do
26:06
with them. The fact that you can see
26:09
the stars for a start, from A dark sky park.
26:12
But, um, since then it's
26:14
basically, uh, uh, changed quite a lot
26:17
because we've now recognized just how
26:18
damaging light pollution is, not just for
26:21
astronomers and stargazers and perhaps people
26:24
who watch the sky for cultural reasons. Uh,
26:27
wildlife is severely impacted by
26:30
light pollution and human health is as well.
26:33
We know much more about now about the way our
26:36
circadian rhythms require us to have this
26:39
night and day, um, succession. So
26:42
the Australasian Dark sky alliance, uh, is
26:45
always calling for good lighting. Uh,
26:48
it's got an approval program for light
26:50
fittings, uh, a little bit like, uh, what is
26:53
now called Dark Sky International. Used to be
26:55
the International Dark Sky Association. Dark
26:58
Sky International, uh, based in the usa,
27:01
but here in Australia, uh, the
27:04
alliance is currently
27:07
wanting to follow a number of countries in
27:09
Europe, uh, such as France, Germany,
27:12
Croatia and in fact the European Union as a
27:15
whole is looking at this to have legislation,
27:18
uh, at a national level
27:22
that protects dark skies, that effectively
27:25
controls light pollution. Because at the
27:26
moment there are no national controls here in
27:29
Australia for light pollution. So they've set
27:31
up a petition, uh, to uh,
27:34
send to Parliament. It's open until the
27:37
19th of September. They need 10,000
27:39
signatures for it to go ahead. You can only
27:41
sign if you are resident, uh, in Australia
27:44
or a citizen of Australia. Uh,
27:47
so I'm sorry for people beyond our
27:50
uh, borders, but I hope you will, um, applaud
27:53
us for doing this. Uh, so, uh, anybody
27:56
within Australia who's interested, uh, if you
27:58
go to um, the site, the website which
28:01
is uh,
28:02
australasiandarkskyalliance.org it's all
28:05
one word, australasiandarkskyAlliance.org
28:08
and you'll find a petition there and you can
28:10
sign it if you're in Australia.
28:12
Heidi Campo: And we'll make sure we have Huw, our
28:14
producer, put it in the description, uh, so
28:16
you can easily click on it too. And I know we
28:19
try, you know, we try not to get political,
28:20
but this is an important cause and you know,
28:23
with being the, what are we, seventh,
28:26
uh, most listened to astronomy
28:28
podcast in the world. We're hoping this
28:30
platform can help us get to the signatures.
28:32
And if you're not in Australia and you
28:35
feel compelled to help, uh, just share it on
28:38
your social media platforms and then maybe
28:40
your um, reach can help us expand this,
28:44
this mission and just help us keep our
28:47
skies dark and the stars shining and
28:49
the vision of space and the
28:52
space nuts, uh, being able to look up at
28:55
the stars with our naked eye for
28:58
the future.
29:01
Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great. You're a good advocate for Dark
29:03
skies. Heidi, thank you for those words.
29:05
Heidi Campo: Well, you know, that's why I'm a space
29:08
nut. I think every single one
29:11
of us who's in this industry, you know, you
29:13
grow up and maybe you're with a
29:16
beloved relative, uh, or a friend, and you're
29:18
looking up at the sky. And then your first
29:20
camping trip where you really get out there
29:23
and you're looking up and you see the Milky
29:26
Way for the first time, it's burned in
29:28
everyone's memory. I mean, all of you
29:30
listening to this, you guys know how awe
29:33
inspiring that feeling is, and we really do
29:36
want to protect that. It's.
29:39
I think it's something that it's almost
29:42
part of being a human, because there's no
29:45
other animal that looks up and admires the
29:47
sky like we do. I mean,
29:50
we really are meant for the stars, I think.
29:54
Professor Fred Watson: Came from the stars and meant for the stars.
29:57
Absolutely.
29:59
Heidi Campo: And that's it for me, being an absolute
30:01
cheeseball. Um, you guys,
30:04
we'll see if we get Andrew back next week,
30:07
because we'll go from just me being a cheese
30:09
ball to Andrew with his dad jokes.
30:12
But, um, if you guys don't have me back on
30:15
next week, I have really enjoyed being,
30:18
um, your host. Host for this summer.
30:21
Um, you know, I always joke it's summer for
30:22
me. I'm in Houston, Texas, Space City. And
30:24
Fred's in Australia, so it's winter for him.
30:27
It's nighttime for me right now and daytime
30:30
for you. So it's a fun little global
30:32
adventure. So I just want to say thank you to
30:34
all of our listeners for having me on, and
30:36
Fred has been a pleasure, and I will see
30:39
you again very soon for our Q
30:42
and A episode.
30:44
Professor Fred Watson: Can't wait.
30:45
Heidi.
30:47
Andrew Dunkley: Hello, Huw. Thought I'd say your name first
30:49
today. Heidi. Fred, it's Andrew here
30:52
reporting from New York City,
30:55
just near Times Square. Since I spoke to you
30:57
last, we visited Halifax in Canada,
31:00
and we did a trip out to
31:03
Peggy's Cove, which is a lovely little
31:06
village out on the granite outcrop there with
31:08
probably one of the most famous lighthouses
31:11
in the world, which, uh, uh, was
31:14
just adorable. And, uh, then we had a look
31:16
around Halifax itself before getting back on
31:18
board and traveling to New York City. We got
31:21
off and have spent the last two days
31:23
in New York looking around. We, uh, went to
31:26
the 9, uh, 11
31:29
memorial. We wanted to do that in 2012, but
31:31
we couldn't, uh, get in because the security
31:33
was too tight and we didn't have our
31:35
passports. But this time we did. And, uh,
31:38
wow. Yeah, very sobering, I think would
31:41
be the best way to describe it. And the
31:42
museum is incredible. Built on the
31:45
foundations of the old Twin towers. You can
31:47
still actually see the footings and the
31:50
slurry wall that keeps the Hudson river out,
31:53
uh, which didn't actually fail when that, uh,
31:56
building collapsed. Just, um.
31:59
Yeah, um, very,
32:02
very sobering is all I can say. We
32:05
felt very sad
32:08
most of the time walking through there. Uh, I
32:10
think the most, um, telling moment was when
32:13
the, um, you
32:16
went through a part of the museum and they
32:17
played 911 calls and messages
32:20
that people were sending to their loved ones.
32:22
And yeah, that just hits you in the face. And
32:24
then we did a walking tour. Uh, and did.
32:27
We did everything. We went out to Liberty
32:30
Ellis island, we, um, went,
32:33
uh, uh, over the Brooklyn Bridge, we walked
32:35
across it, we went to Chelsea Market, we went
32:37
to the Rockefeller center, and we finished
32:40
the day off with a, um,
32:43
trip, ah, out to Yankee Stadium. And we're
32:45
watch the baseball where the Boston Red Sox
32:48
beat the Yankees 6 3. So there was a hell of
32:51
a lot of booing. And I got to tell you this,
32:53
on the train coming back, there was a street
32:55
performer who wanted to do a backflip and no
32:57
one was interested. We were all too tired.
32:59
Anyway, he did his backflip and then he
33:02
abused us because no one had tip him.
33:05
Oh, it was funny. So funny. Oh, and they were
33:07
giving away, um, bobblehead dolls at the
33:10
base the of ball because it was Seinfeld
33:12
night and they were George Costanza
33:15
bobbleheads. And we, we were handed these as
33:17
we walked in. We didn't know what to do with
33:19
them. So we're walking along and people came
33:21
up and offered us money. We walked away with
33:23
80 bucks. So I love
33:26
New York. It's such a weird and
33:29
wonderful place. Anyway, that's where we are.
33:31
Uh, today. We're heading off for Washington
33:33
D.C. and then up to Niagara Falls and then
33:37
to Boston. Uh, but I'll be home by the time
33:40
the next report's due, so this would probably
33:43
be my last. And once we get
33:46
settled in our new home and we get the
33:47
Internet on, uh, I might make a comeback on
33:50
the show. Unless Heidi's done such a great
33:52
job, they're going to kick me to the curb.
33:55
Either way, we'll see you real soon.
33:57
That's it from me. Hope you've enjoyed my
34:00
holiday as much as I have, but bye. Bye.
34:03
Uh,
34:03
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34:06
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