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Fires on the Moon, Interstellar Glaciers & Mayan Timekeeping Mysteries | Space Nuts: Astronomy... · Space News Today

• 0:00
  Hi there. Thanks for joining us on
• 0:02
  another episode of Space Nuts, where we
• 0:04
  talk astronomy and space science. My
• 0:06
  name is Andrew Dunley, your host. And
• 0:08
  it's always good to have your company
• 0:10
  wherever you are, whatever you're doing.
• 0:12
  You might be in traffic, you might be in
• 0:14
  bed, staying awake. We uh we generally
• 0:16
  put people to sleep, but uh staying
• 0:18
  awake. Um or you could be just hanging
• 0:21
  around the house doing whatever you need
• 0:23
  to do. Vacuuming, mowing the lawn.
• 0:26
  Yeah. All of that. Uh coming up in this
• 0:30
  edition, uh we're going to be talking
• 0:32
  about fires on the moon. What? How? Yes,
• 0:36
  it's a thing. Yes, it is, Jordy.
• 0:40
  Uh we're also
• 0:42
  We're also talking Interstellar glacias.
• 0:46
  Wow. Uh the Mayan calendar and another
• 0:49
  Artemus 2 record that's been set. We'll
• 0:52
  find out all about it on this episode of
• 0:55
  Space Nuts.
• 0:56
  >> 15 seconds. Guidance is internal. 10 9
• 1:01
  ignition sequence start.
• 1:02
  >> Space nuts.
• 1:03
  >> 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1
• 1:08
  >> Space Nuts.
• 1:09
  >> Astronauts report. It feels good.
• 1:12
  >> Back again to help us understand all of
• 1:14
  that is Professor Fred Watson,
• 1:16
  astronomer at large. Hello, Fred.
• 1:18
  >> Hi, Andrew. Good to see you and good to
• 1:20
  speak with you.
• 1:22
  >> What's chilly day?
• 1:23
  >> What's up Jord's nose today? Uh, I think
• 1:26
  our um I think somebody's just arrived
• 1:30
  at the door.
• 1:30
  >> That's usually how he welcomes them.
• 1:32
  >> Yeah, it is. It is. I might just um need
• 1:36
  to go and check actually if you don't
• 1:37
  mind.
• 1:38
  >> Oh, okay. Yeah, we can do that.
• 1:40
  >> Yeah, you could talk to yourself for a
• 1:41
  minute.
• 1:42
  >> Yeah, I I'm very good at talking to
• 1:43
  myself. Yes. Um Jord's um I don't know
• 1:47
  what kind of terrier he is. He's a tiny
• 1:49
  little dog, but he's very very loud. And
• 1:51
  whenever anybody turns up, he absolutely
• 1:55
  goes off his buns. And um when Judy and
• 1:59
  I visited there late last year, we um we
• 2:02
  were welcomed by Jordy tearing down the
• 2:04
  stairs and um marked like a maniac. But
• 2:08
  um yeah, he he's harmless. He's
• 2:10
  absolutely harmless.
• 2:11
  >> Uh all is well, Fred. Is he okay?
• 2:14
  >> Yeah. Well, he's all right. Yeah, he's
• 2:16
  uh the people who turned up at the door,
• 2:18
  nobody um nobody opened the door for
• 2:20
  them, so they just let themselves in.
• 2:21
  That's all.
• 2:22
  >> Oh, right. Okay. That
• 2:24
  >> they're well known to us. Come.
• 2:25
  >> Yeah. Queenslanders do that a lot
• 2:27
  apparently.
• 2:28
  >> Oh, do they? When we moved to Queensland
• 2:30
  in 1987 after we got married, um our
• 2:33
  neighbors walked in and introduced
• 2:35
  themselves.
• 2:38
  >> Really?
• 2:38
  >> And we thought, "Oh, that's so weird."
• 2:40
  But no, it's not. It's just the way
• 2:42
  Queenslanders are up in up in the
• 2:43
  northern tropics. Yeah,
• 2:45
  >> completely different mindset, but um you
• 2:48
  get used to it. It's it's a lovely
• 2:50
  lifestyle.
• 2:52
  >> Uh shall we get down to business, Fred?
• 2:54
  >> Well, I suppose so.
• 2:56
  >> If we if we must.
• 2:58
  >> We we we probably should.
• 3:00
  >> Yeah.
• 3:00
  >> Uh let's start off with this um story
• 3:02
  about fires on the moon. Now, I've
• 3:04
  looked at the moon many times. I've
• 3:07
  never seen any brush fires or bush fires
• 3:09
  or forest fires or, you know, dune fires
• 3:13
  or mountain fires or crater fires. Uh, I
• 3:17
  got a suspicion this has got something
• 3:19
  to do with um something
• 3:23
  humanity is going to do uh when they get
• 3:28
  on the moon.
• 3:29
  >> Yep.
• 3:30
  Let's talk about this because uh fires
• 3:33
  on the moon sounds a little bit um I
• 3:36
  don't know impossible but
• 3:40
  it's a it's a thing or will be.
• 3:42
  >> It is a thing. It's it's a thing and
• 3:44
  it's all about understanding how fires
• 3:47
  burn on the moon. Um it's something
• 3:49
  called the flam flammability of
• 3:52
  materials on the moon experiment. uh
• 3:55
  otherwise abbreviated to FM2 uh
• 3:58
  developed by NASA uh in a number of
• 4:00
  their research centers, the Glenn
• 4:02
  Research Center, Johnson Space Center,
• 4:05
  East uh sorry, Case Western Reserve
• 4:07
  University. What they're doing is
• 4:09
  they're sending uh what's called a
• 4:12
  self-contained combustion chamber to the
• 4:15
  moon and it's going on one of these
• 4:18
  commercial lunar payload services
• 4:20
  flights uh that we sort of know about
• 4:23
  from uh from discussions we've had
• 4:26
  before where the you know basically
• 4:29
  private companies provide hardware uh to
• 4:34
  uh send on robotic missions to the moon
• 4:37
  to set up things for when humans are
• 4:39
  exploring the moon um a few years down
• 4:42
  the track. So, it's all about um safety
• 4:47
  actually, Andrew. Uh that's the bottom
• 4:50
  line for this. It's the uh the
• 4:52
  motivation
• 4:54
  because um there is a gap in our
• 4:56
  understanding of how fire works.
• 5:00
  Uh and that is because we understand how
• 5:03
  fire works here on the earth. um how the
• 5:06
  convection brings oxygen into the flame
• 5:10
  and keeps the fire burning. We
• 5:12
  understand how it works in zero gravity
• 5:15
  because experiments have been done uh on
• 5:18
  the International Space Station that uh
• 5:22
  allow uh scientists to uh estimate
• 5:25
  estimate um basically what the behavior
• 5:30
  of a fire would be in zero gravity. that
• 5:33
  um apparently a candle flame in zero
• 5:36
  gravity is just spherical.
• 5:38
  >> I I read that. That's um that's strange.
• 5:41
  And uh I mean we all know how horrible
• 5:45
  fires can be in in terms of um space
• 5:49
  travel that there have been tragedies
• 5:51
  over the years. um uh Apollo one in
• 5:54
  particular, but um uh there have been
• 5:56
  other incidents uh with fires and and uh
• 6:00
  and certain issues, but um what happens
• 6:03
  on Earth and what happens in zero G we
• 6:07
  know about what happens on the moon.
• 6:10
  >> That's what we don't know about.
• 6:11
  >> Yeah.
• 6:12
  >> Uh and so that's the um that's the
• 6:15
  reason for these tests. uh because
• 6:18
  scientists have actually raised concerns
• 6:20
  about the way fire might behave on the
• 6:22
  moon because it is different when you're
• 6:24
  in one sixth of the earth's gravity
• 6:27
  which is basically lunar lunar gravity.
• 6:30
  >> Yeah.
• 6:30
  >> Uh there's there is a standard um that
• 6:33
  is measured by NASA in terms of how
• 6:38
  things burn. It's called NASA-STD-60001B
• 6:44
  and it's what's called a vertical burn
• 6:46
  test. And I'm reading now from uh from a
• 6:50
  Space Daily article that describes this
• 6:52
  all very nicely. The current standard is
• 6:55
  a vertical burn test. A 6-in flame is
• 6:57
  held to the bottom of a vertically
• 7:00
  mounted sample. If the flame climbs more
• 7:03
  than six inches up the sample or if
• 7:05
  molten debris drips off and keeps
• 7:07
  burning, the material fails. It's a
• 7:10
  straightforward repeatable procedure and
• 7:12
  it's kept crews safe on shuttle
• 7:15
  international space station and every
• 7:17
  commercial vehicle that has followed.
• 7:19
  The test has hidden assumptions baked
• 7:21
  in. The buoyancy driven convection will
• 7:24
  behave the same way in flight as it did
• 7:26
  in the lab. For low Earth orbit,
• 7:29
  engineers have patched around this
• 7:30
  assumption with experience. For the
• 7:32
  lunar surface, there is no equivalent
• 7:34
  flight heritage to fall back on. In
• 7:36
  other words, we don't have any
• 7:38
  experience of how things behave in one
• 7:40
  sixth gravity.
• 7:42
  >> So, yeah. So,
• 7:43
  >> I I would I would assume that u knowing
• 7:46
  what we know about fire on Earth and in
• 7:49
  zero gravity with a little bit of
• 7:52
  gravity on the moon, it' be different
• 7:54
  again.
• 7:56
  Yes, that's right. Um, it's it's uh once
• 8:01
  again um looking at uh the space daily
• 8:04
  piece which is very very nicely uh
• 8:08
  encapsulates what these experiments are
• 8:10
  about. Um there have been tests done uh
• 8:15
  inside uh uncrrewed
• 8:18
  um actually they were the signis ones
• 8:21
  not the dragon capsules uh signis cargo
• 8:24
  capsules uh uh before they re-enter and
• 8:28
  burn up in the atmosphere. There have
• 8:29
  been uh what are called sapphire tests
• 8:32
  the spacecraft fire safety series. I
• 8:35
  think you and I spoke about that
• 8:37
  probably a couple of years ago. Mhm.
• 8:39
  >> Um so what you do is you deliberately
• 8:42
  ignite samples of the material uh and
• 8:46
  and look at how the flames behave and
• 8:48
  sometimes actually they they they spread
• 8:52
  in the opposite direction to the way the
• 8:53
  air flows coming. Um and also apparently
• 8:56
  they burn hotter on thinner materials.
• 8:59
  And that's all great, but that's that's
• 9:01
  microgravity. That's effectively zero
• 9:03
  gravity. And it is a different physical
• 9:07
  regime as they put it from partial
• 9:09
  gravity combustion. Uh which is what we
• 9:13
  will experience on the moon. Uh all
• 9:15
  these items uh once again uh a very nice
• 9:19
  summary here. The flame shape, the flow
• 9:21
  structure, the soot chemistry and the
• 9:23
  spread rate all respond nonlinearly to
• 9:26
  the gravitational acceleration.
• 9:29
  So uh you can't really it's not
• 9:31
  something you can simulate. Um you can
• 9:35
  you know you can certainly simulate
• 9:36
  weightlessness either with by dropping
• 9:39
  things off big towers. Uh that's one way
• 9:41
  of simulating weightlessness. Yeah. Um
• 9:44
  and it's what was in Einstein's head
• 9:46
  when he worked out the special the sorry
• 9:48
  the general theory of relativity how
• 9:49
  gravity works. And then there are those
• 9:51
  parabolic aircraft flights that we often
• 9:53
  refer to as the vomit comet uh for um
• 9:56
  for humans. But not none of those are
• 10:00
  long enough period um in in order to to
• 10:03
  simulate how things go when something
• 10:05
  catches fire. Uh and of course they are
• 10:08
  all microgravity. Um so this FM2
• 10:12
  experiment is designed to be
• 10:14
  self-contained. It's a sealed cont
• 10:18
  chamber contains four solid fuel
• 10:20
  samples. uh and they will go to one of
• 10:23
  these commercial lunar program uh uh
• 10:26
  landers uh on the surface. Um and
• 10:29
  apparently the samples, the burning
• 10:32
  samples are lit one after another uh and
• 10:35
  there are all sorts of cameras and
• 10:36
  radiometers and oxygen sensors,
• 10:39
  temperature gauges, all of that stuff to
• 10:42
  look at the the flame geometry and uh
• 10:44
  how much heat comes from it, h how much
• 10:47
  of the oxygen is is consumed. So all
• 10:50
  that is um is going to teach us what
• 10:54
  might happen if something went wrong
• 10:57
  when you have astronauts walking on the
• 10:59
  moon. Uh if you have a you know some
• 11:00
  sort of um habitat uh where a where a
• 11:04
  fire is induced or catches fire whatever
• 11:07
  um we should from from these experiments
• 11:10
  we should know how to deal with it which
• 11:12
  we don't at the moment.
• 11:14
  >> Yeah. Uh, one of the points in the
• 11:16
  article I thought was interesting was
• 11:18
  that uh, there could be materials that
• 11:21
  exist on Earth that are certified, you
• 11:24
  know, agrade fire retardant. You know,
• 11:27
  nothing to worry about here, but that
• 11:29
  might not be the case with the same
• 11:31
  material on the moon.
• 11:33
  >> Exactly. That's right. So, that's what
• 11:35
  this is all about. And it is it's common
• 11:37
  sense really when you think about it.
• 11:39
  It's and it's a lot better to send a a
• 11:42
  self-contained experiment to the moon um
• 11:45
  rather than getting somebody standing on
• 11:47
  the moon to light a match in a habitat
• 11:49
  and see what happens. It's
• 11:50
  >> yes,
• 11:52
  >> that will not be good.
• 11:53
  >> And I I suppose long term we're going to
• 11:55
  see all sorts of facilities on the moon.
• 11:58
  We're going to have as you said habitat,
• 12:00
  but there'll be there'll be um labs, you
• 12:04
  know, um um all sorts of spaces for all
• 12:07
  sorts of different things. probably
• 12:09
  things we haven't even thought of yet.
• 12:11
  Uh there'll be um you know they're
• 12:14
  talking about making rocket fuel on the
• 12:16
  moon. Now there's a fire hazard
• 12:19
  >> if if ever there was one. That's right.
• 12:20
  If you're separating hydrogen and oxygen
• 12:23
  when they come back together they Yep.
• 12:25
  There's a fire hazard. Absolutely right.
• 12:27
  >> Yeah. So there's there's a lot to take
• 12:29
  into consideration. So, it's uh it's
• 12:32
  it's it's obviously something that they
• 12:33
  really need to figure out and this
• 12:35
  sounds like a very good way of doing it,
• 12:37
  a controlled experiment. Um, and and
• 12:40
  they does it say when they're planning
• 12:42
  to do this? It shouldn't be too long
• 12:44
  away.
• 12:45
  >> No, that's right. I think it's on an
• 12:46
  upcoming uh uh one of these commercial
• 12:49
  flights. I can't see a date in it
• 12:52
  >> uh in this piece, but um uh yeah, I'm
• 12:54
  sure we'll we'll find about the results
• 12:56
  when they've when they've actually
• 12:58
  happened. Yeah, indeed. All right. U if
• 13:01
  you'd like to read all about it, you can
• 13:03
  find that story at spaceaily.com
• 13:06
  and you could probably find it on the
• 13:07
  NASA website as well. This is Space Nuts
• 13:10
  with Andrew Dunley and Professor Fred
• 13:13
  Watson
• 13:19
  base here. The angle has landed.
• 13:21
  >> Space nets.
• 13:22
  >> Now, Fred, we move from the moon to
• 13:25
  beyond. Uh we're going way out in fact
• 13:28
  uh to interstellar regions of the
• 13:31
  universe uh where NASA has um discovered
• 13:37
  galactic ice. They're describing them as
• 13:40
  interstellar glacias.
• 13:43
  >> Indeed. That's right. So yes, from fire
• 13:45
  to ice. It's almost almost like being
• 13:47
  being on Iceland where you've got them
• 13:50
  together. Um and this is um uh a story
• 13:53
  that comes from um research that has
• 13:57
  been done using a spacecraft that you
• 13:59
  and I I think we talked about it when it
• 14:00
  was launched um but we don't often
• 14:04
  mention it and it is producing some
• 14:06
  quite significant results. It's called
• 14:08
  Sphere X uh which is an acronym for
• 14:11
  spectrophotometer for the history of the
• 14:14
  universe epoch of reionization and ISIS
• 14:18
  explorer. I would have guessed that.
• 14:22
  >> Yes, I'm sure you would if you were, you
• 14:24
  know, 20 years to think about what it
• 14:26
  might be because I certainly wouldn't.
• 14:28
  >> Um, but what it's been doing is, uh, so
• 14:31
  that it's a basically a survey
• 14:33
  spacecraft. It's got wide angle
• 14:35
  telescopes. uh it has um it's basically
• 14:40
  it takes images but it takes them
• 14:43
  through I think it's 102 different
• 14:46
  different color filters uh which which
• 14:49
  uh these color filters are centered on
• 14:53
  key wavelengths in the spectrum uh which
• 14:56
  allows you to image you know see what
• 15:00
  where all the iron atoms are see where
• 15:03
  all the calcium atoms are see where all
• 15:05
  the hydrogen atoms are see where all the
• 15:07
  oxygen atoms are. All of that stuff
• 15:09
  comes from this ability to see the sky
• 15:13
  in, as I said, 102 colors. Uh they're in
• 15:16
  the infrared, so it's sort of mimics the
• 15:19
  James Web telescope. Um it's however, as
• 15:23
  I said, a wide field telescope, which
• 15:25
  means it's doing surveys rather than
• 15:26
  homing in onto
• 15:29
  small areas of space where you want to
• 15:31
  magnify things so you can see all the
• 15:33
  fine detail. Uh it was launched um only
• 15:36
  a year ago, a year or so ago, March the
• 15:38
  11th, 2025.
• 15:40
  Um and it's already sending back some
• 15:44
  really quite spectacular uh results. So
• 15:47
  by the end of last year um it had uh
• 15:51
  completed
• 15:53
  uh the first of its all sky infrared
• 15:57
  maps of the sky of the universe
• 16:00
  basically.
• 16:00
  >> Mhm. Um and it's it's basically measured
• 16:04
  hundreds of millions of galaxies. Uh it
• 16:06
  does it essentially uh in three
• 16:09
  dimensions rather than two. Uh an
• 16:11
  imaging telescope you might think can
• 16:14
  only see uh everything as as if it was
• 16:16
  plastered on the celestial sphere. And
• 16:19
  that's an imaginary concept of uh you
• 16:22
  know where you say everything's at the
• 16:23
  same distance and it represents a
• 16:25
  sphere. and you can measure the
• 16:26
  positions of objects on that sphere very
• 16:28
  accurately in a science we call
• 16:30
  astrometry. But with all these 102
• 16:33
  filters um you can also use this
• 16:36
  instrument to get uh estimates of red
• 16:39
  shift and by that I mean the effectively
• 16:43
  the the way the spectrum of a a distant
• 16:45
  galaxy is shifted towards the red end of
• 16:48
  the spectrum. Uh and you can do that by
• 16:51
  choosing your filters carefully so that
• 16:54
  um as certain features in the spectrum
• 16:57
  of a galaxy drop in and out as the red
• 17:00
  shift increases, you could get an
• 17:02
  estimate of what the red shift is
• 17:04
  without actually making a spectrum. It's
• 17:06
  um a technique that's been known for
• 17:09
  many years uh essentially called spe um
• 17:12
  photo phototric red shifts. That's what
• 17:15
  we call it. uh and um so what they're
• 17:18
  doing is basically measuring the 3D
• 17:20
  positions of galaxies by the hundreds of
• 17:22
  millions. Uh and that will tell us a lot
• 17:25
  about um the the state of the state of
• 17:29
  the union in uh in galaxies at very
• 17:32
  great distances as well as the nearby
• 17:34
  ones. And it'll tell us about the
• 17:36
  evolution of uh things like uh the
• 17:40
  amount of water that there is in a
• 17:41
  galaxy, the amount of ice essentially.
• 17:44
  Um but they can also use this instrument
• 17:46
  not just to look at distant galaxies but
• 17:48
  to look at the gas clouds in our own
• 17:51
  galaxy. Uh and um that's where this
• 17:54
  story comes from. They've looked at what
• 17:56
  we call molecular clouds which you might
• 17:59
  not be surprised to hear are clouds of
• 18:01
  molecules. Uh and they are they're where
• 18:05
  we think stars are born giant molecular
• 18:08
  clouds. Um they've looked at some of the
• 18:11
  regions uh of the Milky Way which are
• 18:14
  richest in these clouds of gas uh and
• 18:18
  essentially used the fact that infrared
• 18:21
  can penetrate dust rather well at least
• 18:24
  near infrared can as we see when we look
• 18:26
  at some of the pictures from the James
• 18:28
  Web telescope. Uh that um dust
• 18:31
  penetrating ability allows you to see
• 18:33
  deep into some of these giant molecular
• 18:35
  clouds which are otherwise opaque to
• 18:38
  visible light and then you can look at
• 18:41
  what sort of chemicals are there and
• 18:43
  what sort of ices there are in um in in
• 18:48
  these clouds. Um and the ice we we know
• 18:51
  from other studies the ice tends to form
• 18:53
  on on dust grains. These are tiny dust
• 18:57
  grains. We we call them dust. It's
• 18:59
  really smoke uh in space because smoke
• 19:02
  here on Earth is solid particles very
• 19:04
  very tiny. Um that's how dust exists in
• 19:09
  space in these very tiny particles which
• 19:11
  are often coated with ices because the
• 19:15
  ice condenses on these cold cold dust
• 19:18
  particles. One of my former colleagues,
• 19:20
  somebody I actually studied with when I
• 19:22
  was at uni about 100 years ago, uh has
• 19:25
  spent his career in the United States,
• 19:27
  uh looking at this kind of thing,
• 19:29
  looking at interstellar dust and
• 19:30
  interstellar ISIS. I excuse me, I don't
• 19:33
  think he's actually involved with this
• 19:34
  research. Uh but he would have he would
• 19:37
  certainly understand and probably knows
• 19:38
  the people who are working on it uh
• 19:40
  would understand the results. So what
• 19:42
  they found is um a whole range of
• 19:46
  different uh molecules as well as water
• 19:49
  ice um there are uh some of the complex
• 19:54
  molecules like polycyclic aromatic
• 19:57
  hydrocarbons and these are things that
• 19:59
  are I mean they're carbon containing
• 20:01
  which is why they are called organic
• 20:04
  molecules u and finding those really
• 20:07
  gives you an insight into chemistry that
• 20:09
  goes on inside some of these giant
• 20:12
  molecular clouds and indeed we know from
• 20:14
  other studies that some of those ices
• 20:17
  represent the building blocks of life
• 20:19
  that we find all kinds of molecules that
• 20:21
  are important in life processes. So we
• 20:24
  haven't discovered life yet but we
• 20:25
  discovered the the building blocks uh
• 20:27
  and uh and the the point I was going to
• 20:29
  make the point of this story is there
• 20:31
  are huge quantities out there more than
• 20:33
  anybody expected.
• 20:36
  Yeah, we we have talked about the fact
• 20:38
  that water is plentiful in the universe.
• 20:41
  That's certainly something that's um
• 20:43
  becoming more and more evident, but this
• 20:46
  sheds a whole new light on it like um
• 20:50
  it's out there in a in abundance.
• 20:54
  >> Exactly. That's right. Um, I mean it, as
• 20:57
  you and I have said many times, the um
• 21:00
  most common two element molecule in the
• 21:02
  whole universe is water,
• 21:04
  >> H2O. And so it shouldn't surprise us
• 21:06
  that we've got ice everywhere. I mean,
• 21:09
  it's the same in our own solar system.
• 21:11
  We didn't know until comparatively
• 21:13
  recently that ice is abundant,
• 21:15
  particularly in the in the moons of the
• 21:17
  ice outer planets, uh, Saturn, um,
• 21:21
  Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
• 21:23
  They've all got moons that are very icy.
• 21:25
  And then you go out to the Kyper belt
• 21:27
  and the trans neptunian objects. They're
• 21:28
  all icy, too.
• 21:30
  >> Uh as are the comets that reside in the
• 21:33
  or cloud. So, it's everywhere. Water is
• 21:35
  absolutely everywhere. And the liquid
• 21:37
  oceans in the ice moons and the list
• 21:41
  goes on. And of course, the the way
• 21:44
  water is ended up in certain places. Uh
• 21:47
  one uh theory we talked about some time
• 21:50
  back is that when earth formed the water
• 21:53
  was already here because like this where
• 21:56
  water is attached to those dust
• 21:58
  particles or the dust molecules. Same
• 22:02
  with all the material that made earth
• 22:03
  and it's just eventually as conditions
• 22:06
  changed seeped into the places where
• 22:09
  it's now become oceans and clouds and
• 22:12
  rivers and created a whole ecosystem.
• 22:15
  Exactly. That's right. That's certainly.
• 22:18
  So, we think maybe the worth the earth's
• 22:20
  water has two sources. One of which
• 22:22
  you've mentioned. It's actually
• 22:24
  hydrolated rocks that um formed the
• 22:27
  earth.
• 22:28
  >> But also the possibility that some of it
• 22:30
  came from comets and we've discussed the
• 22:32
  one of the problems with that theory and
• 22:34
  that um sometimes the comet's uh heavy
• 22:37
  water to normal water ratio doesn't
• 22:38
  match what the oceans of the earth have.
• 22:41
  Uh, and I I think there are some comets
• 22:44
  that do, but some don't. So, it's kind
• 22:46
  of open question.
• 22:47
  >> Doesn't match on Mars either compared to
• 22:50
  Earth.
• 22:50
  >> I believe not. That's right.
• 22:52
  >> Yeah, it's all fascinating. I love it.
• 22:54
  Really, you didn't think water was so
• 22:55
  interesting, but it's pretty pretty
• 22:57
  amazing stuff.
• 22:58
  >> Yeah. Great story this one. You can read
• 23:01
  it at f.org or you can read the paper
• 23:03
  that's been published recently at the
• 23:06
  Astrophysical
• 23:07
  Journal. Space Nuts. This is with Andrew
• 23:11
  Dunley and Professor Fred Watson.
• 23:16
  >> Okay, we checked all four systems and
• 23:18
  with
• 23:19
  >> Space Nuts,
• 23:20
  >> right, Fred, couple of stories to finish
• 23:22
  up. Um, couple of quick ones. Um, I I
• 23:25
  was reading an article the other day and
• 23:27
  it just sort of jumped out at me. A new
• 23:29
  uh paper has been published uh after a
• 23:32
  study into um the way the Mayans used to
• 23:37
  calculate time and used mathematics to
• 23:39
  to um predict um things that most
• 23:43
  civilizations would have thought were
• 23:45
  pretty random and damn scary like
• 23:47
  eclipses and uh seasons and and the list
• 23:51
  goes on. Um, but what the Mayans did was
• 23:55
  probably far superior to most other
• 23:58
  civilizations. Their mathematics was was
• 24:02
  beyond comprehension for most of us. I
• 24:04
  think um this is this is all brand new
• 24:06
  information. I know we know about how
• 24:08
  clever they were, but this kind of sheds
• 24:10
  a bit of new light onto it by the look
• 24:12
  of things.
• 24:14
  >> Um, that's correct. It's uh it's um the
• 24:21
  result of some research that uh goes
• 24:25
  back to a document called the Dresden
• 24:28
  Codeex uh which is a
• 24:32
  essentially a manuscript that dates from
• 24:34
  the Maya civilization which is was
• 24:37
  actually extremely longived. Um, I think
• 24:40
  it sort of kicked off uh something like
• 24:43
  uh 200 BC or BCE uh and lasted until the
• 24:49
  1600s uh uh AD or CE common era.
• 24:54
  >> Uh and um and so that's perhaps a hint
• 24:58
  as to why their mathematics and
• 25:01
  astronomy were so effective because they
• 25:06
  had a long long time
• 25:09
  uh to count the years between certain
• 25:12
  events and to um you know do that over
• 25:16
  over many many years so that you get a
• 25:20
  really accurate idea and the kind of
• 25:23
  thing I'm thinking of Andrew is the um
• 25:25
  what the lunar cycle uh the moon has a
• 25:28
  cycle of 18.6 in six years and on that
• 25:31
  scale eclipses more or less repeat
• 25:34
  throughout the throughout the year. Uh
• 25:37
  they don't exactly repeat so you don't
• 25:39
  get total eclipses occurring in exactly
• 25:41
  the same place but you uh you can use
• 25:44
  that that cycle in order to predict when
• 25:48
  there are likely to be eclipses. So if
• 25:50
  you've got a longestablished
• 25:52
  civilization with a long memory uh that
• 25:55
  18.6 six year cycle would be well known
• 25:58
  and well understood. Uh and I think the
• 26:02
  um what's um made the particular study
• 26:05
  that we're talking about it's published
• 26:06
  in the journal science advances is that
• 26:09
  some of the tables that are in the
• 26:11
  Dresden codeex uh have now been
• 26:15
  interpreted as as being the um method by
• 26:19
  which the Maya people actually did do
• 26:22
  things like eclipse predicting
• 26:24
  predicting eclipses.
• 26:26
  And it it's it differs from from uh uh
• 26:30
  what people thought happened. People
• 26:32
  thought these tables were just sort of
• 26:34
  one-off things that um that that didn't
• 26:36
  really talk to, you know, have anything
• 26:38
  to do with each other, the tabulated
• 26:40
  information. But it now looks as though
• 26:43
  uh it's much more clever than that. a
• 26:45
  kind of iterative approach with tables
• 26:47
  that overlap and um basically as time
• 26:52
  goes on you eliminate any kind of errors
• 26:55
  uh that might be there and so you end up
• 26:57
  with something very accurate indeed. Um
• 27:00
  yeah so it's a quite an interesting
• 27:02
  story uh for people who are interested
• 27:05
  in archa astronomy which we are of
• 27:07
  course on space
• 27:08
  >> yeah I I think it talks about the the
• 27:10
  minds having two two completely
• 27:13
  different systems but when they put them
• 27:16
  together and looked at them they went
• 27:18
  hey wait a minute they work together and
• 27:21
  they they are so incredibly accurate
• 27:25
  >> and um and it opened up a whole new
• 27:28
  realm of uh understanding about how the
• 27:31
  minds did what they did. Uh and I
• 27:34
  suppose when you think about it, they
• 27:35
  had 4,000 years, as you said, they had a
• 27:37
  long period of time to to collect this
• 27:40
  data.
• 27:41
  >> So, um yeah, pretty amazing stuff.
• 27:44
  >> And it it brings me back to that old
• 27:46
  chestnut that we we assume we are all
• 27:50
  knowledgeable. We are, you know, we are
• 27:51
  the cleverest humans that ever existed.
• 27:54
  We're not. We're no more intelligent
• 27:56
  than than the first humans. We've just
• 27:59
  progressed over time to reach the point
• 28:02
  we are. But the Mayans are exhibiting an
• 28:04
  intelligence that predates u the modern
• 28:09
  era if you like.
• 28:11
  >> And that they've shown that the
• 28:13
  intelligence of homo sapiens is long
• 28:16
  lived. It's not just something that's
• 28:18
  happened in the last few hundred years.
• 28:20
  It's it's it's been
• 28:23
  it's always been there is I I guess is
• 28:25
  what I'm saying.
• 28:27
  >> Yes, that's right. So it's that's homo
• 28:29
  sapiens. That's right. It's uh it's we
• 28:32
  are gifted with um a brain of 100
• 28:35
  billion neurons
• 28:37
  >> uh which um can still outdo computers
• 28:40
  and AI although of course AI is catching
• 28:42
  up. Uh but it's still not human. Um and
• 28:46
  uh I don't think it ever will be.
• 28:49
  >> I hope not. I hope not. Judy and I read
• 28:52
  an article the other day about um how
• 28:55
  they're going to use AI robots
• 28:59
  uh in in nursing homes in the not too
• 29:02
  distant future to help people with um
• 29:06
  simple things like uh communication,
• 29:09
  just having a conversation because they
• 29:11
  get lonely. Um and they're going to use
• 29:15
  AI robots to do things like that.
• 29:17
  they'll be able to have intelligent
• 29:21
  one-on-one
• 29:22
  conversations with a human being like
• 29:25
  this just that blows my mind. I know you
• 29:28
  can kind of do that at the moment with
• 29:30
  you know your Google Homes and all these
• 29:31
  but this is a whole new level this
• 29:35
  >> and it looks like they're going to roll
• 29:36
  that out in parts of Australia in the
• 29:38
  not too distant future. So yeah, it's a
• 29:41
  brave new world. Um
• 29:44
  just I hope they remember the three
• 29:45
  laws. We better not forget that. Yeah.
• 29:48
  >> Of robotics.
• 29:49
  >> Yes. The three laws of robotics.
• 29:51
  >> Yeah.
• 29:52
  >> Yeah. Uh but if you want to read about
• 29:54
  that story, it's at uh
• 29:56
  futura-sciences.com
• 30:00
  about the Mayan calendar and their
• 30:02
  mathematical brilliance. One quick one
• 30:05
  to finish off, Fred. We're going back to
• 30:07
  Artemus 2. Uh we we talked about not so
• 30:10
  long ago um not like the whole mission
• 30:12
  and everything they did, but the fact
• 30:13
  that they the astronauts on that
• 30:16
  particular mission were the humans that
• 30:20
  achieved the furthest distance from
• 30:22
  humanity in history because of how far
• 30:24
  out they had to go to loop back around
• 30:27
  the moon. But now they've made another
• 30:29
  quirky little um discovery about a
• 30:32
  record that was set that somebody just
• 30:34
  by chance decided to follow up and went,
• 30:36
  "Oh, hang on a minute. I've actually
• 30:38
  found something. What's this one about?
• 30:41
  >> Oh, well, it's it goes back to um one of
• 30:43
  the veteran commentators on space flight
• 30:46
  and satellites, somebody whose work over
• 30:48
  the decades has been invaluable in
• 30:51
  telling us what the you know how crowded
• 30:53
  space is and things like that. His name
• 30:55
  is Jonathan McDow. Uh he um is always I
• 30:59
  think his head is full of numbers that
• 31:02
  relate to spacecraft. Uh but he he noted
• 31:07
  that um
• 31:09
  the that the there is something
• 31:13
  different from what was being widely
• 31:16
  touted during the Arteimus mission. And
• 31:18
  that is that the distance between the
• 31:22
  humans on board Artemis and uh the
• 31:25
  humans on the International Space
• 31:27
  Station was a record for the separation
• 31:30
  of humans. And it was actually 419,581
• 31:35
  kilometers. That's the integrity to
• 31:38
  International Space Station distance. Uh
• 31:42
  260,715
• 31:44
  12 miles if you want that. But um
• 31:47
  Jonathan McDow took a closer look at
• 31:50
  what was in space at the time and
• 31:53
  realized that uh the um Chinese
• 31:59
  space station Tiangong
• 32:02
  uh was further away with its three
• 32:04
  tyonauts on board. In fact, it's um it's
• 32:07
  about 62 kilometers further away at
• 32:11
  419,643
• 32:14
  km. So that's the maximum separation of
• 32:17
  humans. Uh it was between Chinese
• 32:20
  tyonauts on Tiangong and H and the uh
• 32:23
  Artimus crew on board integrity. Uh it's
• 32:28
  it's very typical of Jonathan McDall to
• 32:32
  to pull little statistics like this out
• 32:36
  of the air. But um the he was
• 32:39
  interviewed by space.com uh and um they
• 32:42
  asked him lots of questions like is this
• 32:45
  significant this Arteimus 2 record and
• 32:48
  what he said was uh I think quite
• 32:50
  profound in its own way. I think the
• 32:51
  significance is that it's the beginning
• 32:54
  of a shift from how far from earth are
• 32:57
  our most distant people to how spread
• 33:00
  out is human civilization. Um and he
• 33:03
  said there may come a day when it's
• 33:04
  Mercury to the moons of Saturn. Yeah,
• 33:07
  which is true.
• 33:08
  >> Yeah, I I was going to actually suggest
• 33:10
  that uh you know when we go to Mars, the
• 33:12
  records will be set there. Um and and
• 33:16
  it'll just keep growing. Yeah. And I'd
• 33:18
  say in the next one or 200 years, we'll
• 33:22
  probably have people on Mercury at the
• 33:25
  same time as we have people on Pluto or
• 33:27
  something like that. You know, it's it's
• 33:29
  very possible. Uh so the numbers will
• 33:32
  just keep growing.
• 33:33
  >> Yes. Yeah.
• 33:34
  >> And you know, in time to come, they'll
• 33:36
  probably go beyond that, too. Who knows?
• 33:39
  >> One day, perhaps if we don't uh do
• 33:42
  ourselves a fatal injury before then.
• 33:45
  >> Yeah. Yeah. Like um bust a pufoo valve
• 33:48
  as we're
• 33:49
  >> Yes.
• 33:49
  >> running around the solar system. Yeah.
• 33:51
  Who knows? Um great story. If you'd like
• 33:54
  to read about the statistical separation
• 33:56
  of human beings, it's uh as Fred said,
• 33:59
  it's space.com.
• 34:02
  And we're all done. Fred, thank you very
• 34:04
  much.
• 34:05
  >> Great pleasure, Andrew. Always good to
• 34:07
  chat over these things and I look
• 34:09
  forward to talking about some questions
• 34:11
  with you at sometime down the track.
• 34:12
  >> I think we'll do that very, very soon.
• 34:14
  Probably sooner than most people think.
• 34:16
  Uh, thanks Fred. Professor Fred Watson,
• 34:18
  astronomer at large. Don't forget to
• 34:20
  visit us online while you're on the
• 34:22
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• 34:25
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  And thanks to Hugh in the studio. So,
• 35:01
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• 35:03
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• 35:06
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• 35:08
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• 35:09
  Bye-bye.
• 35:10
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