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Galactic Encounters, The Flying Banana & the Fate of Andromeda · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Heidi Campo: And blast off. We are
0:03
launch. We are go for launch on another
0:05
amazing out of this world episode of space
0:08
nuts.
0:08
Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
0:11
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.
0:24
Heidi Campo: I am your host for this lovely
0:27
evening. For me morning for Fred your host,
0:30
Heidi Campo. And joining us is
0:33
Professor Fred Watson, astronomer at large.
0:36
Professor Fred Watson: Hey, Fred, how are you doing? Heidi,
0:39
it's great to see you after our
0:42
trepidations yesterday.
0:46
Heidi Campo: We are coming to you on schedule, but we
0:48
are a day late. But the stories
0:51
are still the same high quality you can
0:53
expect.
0:54
Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
0:55
Heidi Campo: we had a little bit of troubleshooting to do,
0:57
but just like, the folks over at NASA,
1:00
failure for getting this episode out was not
1:02
an option. And we put our brains
1:05
together and figured it out.
1:06
Professor Fred Watson: So I think you did most of the brain work
1:09
there, Heidi. I don't think I qualify as
1:11
being included in that. I just, watched the
1:13
magic happen when you finally appeared on my
1:15
screen, which was good.
1:17
Heidi Campo: Half of it was luck. I think I just clicked
1:19
on the right buttons in the right order.
1:22
but speaking of luck and a little bit of
1:25
magic, it looks like our first story this
1:27
week is some good news.
1:30
We are not going, going to be crashing
1:33
into the Andromeda Galaxy.
1:35
Professor Fred Watson: so we believe. That's right. So,
1:40
the mantra among astronomers
1:43
for probably
1:45
decades has been, hang on
1:48
to your hats, folks, because one day we're
1:50
going to crash into the Andromeda Galaxy,
1:53
probably in about three and a half billion
1:55
years. The Andromeda galaxy, just to
1:58
remind people, is the largest,
2:03
the nearest large galaxy to our own.
2:06
Ah. And it is, actually rather bigger than
2:09
our own galaxy. and so we,
2:12
have measured the speed of,
2:15
what we call the radial velocity, the closing
2:18
speed between our galaxy and the Andromeda
2:20
Galaxy. That was a measurement that was
2:22
probably made getting on for 100 years ago,
2:24
actually, and maybe more. and the
2:27
two are closing up now. We do get questions
2:30
occasionally on space knots from people
2:32
saying, if the universe is expanding,
2:35
why aren't galaxies all being drawn
2:37
apart? And. Well, they are, but that's
2:40
on the sort of mega scale. That's on the
2:42
bigger scale of the universe. When you look
2:44
at galaxies in the local environment,
2:47
they are, sort of their motions are
2:50
dominated by gravitational forces rather than
2:53
by the expansion of the universe. And that's
2:55
why in what we call our Local group, which is
2:57
a group of about two dozen galaxies, the two
3:00
Biggest are ourselves and Andromeda. they
3:02
have motions that do not reflect the
3:04
expansion of the universe because we're
3:06
looking on too small a scale. It's when you
3:08
look on the big scale that you see all
3:10
galaxies, whizzing away from us.
3:13
So, as I said, an easy observation to make. a
3:15
long, long time ago, astronomers deduced
3:18
that, yes, the Andromeda Galaxy is heading
3:20
towards us. I can't actually remember. The
3:21
figure I should have checked it out is
3:23
something like 200 in the region of 200
3:25
kilometers per second, which sounds fearsome,
3:28
excep, but it's two,
3:31
and a half million light years away. So
3:33
there's quite a long time to go, which is why
3:35
we're talking about three and a half billion
3:37
years. So bringing us a little bit up
3:40
to date, more than a decade ago now,
3:43
a European Space Agency spacecraft called
3:46
Gaia was launched. And Gaia was an
3:49
astrometry satellite. And what that means is
3:51
it measured very accurately the positions
3:54
of stars on the sky, their
3:57
celestial coordinates, the kind of equivalent
3:59
of latitude and longitude that we call right
4:01
ascension and declination, just to give them
4:03
fancy names. so, that
4:06
spacecraft, measured, of course,
4:09
many, in fact, billions of stars in our
4:11
galaxy. It's been one of the most productive
4:13
spacecraft. It's now been switched off. but,
4:15
it also had a look at the Andromeda Galaxy.
4:18
And the reason for that was to see
4:21
whether there was any possibility that you
4:24
might pick up what we call a transverse
4:26
motion. So what you measure,
4:28
what's been measured for a long time, is the
4:30
radial velocity. That's the velocity along
4:33
the line of sight. And yes, Andromeda's
4:35
coming towards us in that dimension.
4:38
But there's, of course, also possibly, a
4:41
motion across the line of sight. We call it
4:42
the transverse motion. And if that was big
4:45
enough, then you'd get a miss. The Andromeda
4:48
Galaxy would, by the time it reached us, be
4:51
somewhere else. It wouldn't be along the same
4:53
line of sight. So, that was measured by
4:56
Gaia. And sure enough, I think what they did
4:58
was put up a limits on the transverse motion
5:01
because it's a very hard thing to do for an
5:04
object 2 1/2 million light years away.
5:07
So, the results, from the Gaia
5:10
analysis were that the collision is
5:12
inevitable. It's going to happen three and a
5:15
half billion years ago. Put it in your diary,
5:17
everybody. however, a new analysis.
5:20
And this is getting to the point now, by
5:23
astronomers, if I remember rightly, yes, the
5:25
University of Helsinki in Finland.
5:28
A, place where we know we've got many Space
5:30
nuts listeners, which is great. What they've
5:33
done is they've said, okay, that's all
5:36
fine and dandy. Those Gaia measurements are
5:38
interesting. They seem to suggest that it is
5:41
actually coming our way. but what they've
5:44
said is, wait a minute. we are, not the only
5:46
kids on the block. the Andromeda Galaxy and
5:49
our own are not the only large objects in the
5:52
Local Group. There are others, including
5:55
a, galaxy with the marvelous name of M. M33,
5:58
in the constellation of Triangulum, another
6:01
nearby. A nearby galaxy, not as big as
6:03
our galaxy or Andromeda, but it's
6:06
big enough to have its own gravitational
6:09
forces. It'll have a significant
6:10
gravitational pull on both ourselves and
6:13
Andromeda. And they also folded in
6:16
one, of the two Magellanic Clouds. These, are
6:19
small dwarf galaxies which are in orbit
6:21
around our own galaxy. In fact, they're being
6:22
swallowed up by our own galaxy. The Large
6:24
Magellanic Cloud is, a, galaxy
6:27
containing probably a few billion stars
6:30
rather than the few hundred billion that we
6:32
would get in a big spiral galaxy. so
6:35
they've taken, the gravity of that object
6:37
into account as well. And when they do,
6:40
they, find that the
6:42
gravitational forces of those two
6:45
other galaxies might well
6:48
pull the, you know, the two colliding
6:51
galaxies aside so that they
6:54
don't collide.
6:56
they've reported this in, actually one of the
6:58
most prestigious journals, Nature Astronomy.
7:01
their, article in that journal is
7:04
called no Certainty of a Milky Way Andromeda
7:07
Collision. So what they've done is they've
7:09
kind of, you know,
7:12
put the odds of a collision at lower than we
7:15
thought they were before. Still could be a
7:17
collision. We won't be here to find out.
7:20
But they've put the odds lower than before.
7:22
So maybe we can breathe a sigh of relief.
7:25
Heidi Campo: Yeah, Well, I actually pulled up the article,
7:28
the scientific article itself, and I have it
7:30
pulled up, and I was just browsing over it.
7:33
and this really is fantastic because I do
7:36
love reading the actual science as it's
7:38
written by the scientists.
7:41
And there is one thing that I'm seeing here
7:43
that maybe you can clarify for me and our
7:44
listeners. it looks like they use something
7:47
and I'm going to butcher this name. Half of
7:48
you are going to laugh at me, and the other
7:50
half of you are going to go, I don't know.
7:51
Sounded right to me. A
7:53
fiducill Fidical. Fidical
7:56
model.
7:57
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, fiducial.
7:58
Heidi Campo: Fiducial. I was not close at all.
8:02
a fiducial model. So what is the difference
8:03
between a fiducial model for predicting
8:06
these, orbits or collision
8:09
courses versus what, what else might
8:12
be used?
8:13
Professor Fred Watson: I'm just looking at, ah, the context. Are you
8:16
reading that from the abstract?
8:17
Heidi Campo: I'm reading that it's actually down under
8:20
predicting. It's in the main body of the
8:22
article under predicting the future.
8:24
Professor Fred Watson: A fiducial model based on the most accurate
8:26
values available. That's a really interesting
8:28
term. I haven't heard that term, used in this
8:30
context before. Usually, a fiducial
8:34
is a, A kind of marker. You call it a
8:37
fiducial mark, which is
8:40
giving you a zero point. And maybe that's the
8:42
context in which that's being used. But,
8:45
Yeah, great question there,
8:48
Heidi. I should look through the paper myself
8:51
in more detail. I did have a quick look at
8:53
the abstract. I don't usually get down
8:56
into the detail, but, I don't know why they
8:58
call it a fiducial model.
8:59
Heidi Campo: That's, I think that's the dirty secret of so
9:02
many scientists. It's like we, we, we are
9:04
also guilty of reading the abstract and if it
9:07
looks interesting, we'll read the methods and
9:09
everything else. But yeah, it's, you know,
9:12
unless you're a super nerd, we're not always
9:15
reading the entire article. For me, if I'm
9:18
reading science, I, I read the headline.
9:19
Okay, is this even in my, Is this even in my
9:22
wheelhouse of something I'm interested in or
9:24
need to know more about? Then I'll read the
9:26
abstract. If the abstract catches my
9:29
attention, then I will actually
9:32
jump ahead. I'll skip the intro and
9:34
background because if it's something I know
9:35
about, then I usually already know what
9:37
they're talking about. And I'll go straight
9:39
into the methods and I'll be like, okay, well
9:41
what did they do to get their information?
9:43
Then I'll jump ahead to their,
9:46
results and I'll see, okay, you know, do
9:48
their results make sense? And then I'll read
9:51
their dissemination of those results to see
9:53
if I agree with their conclusions.
9:58
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I've just been,
10:00
Exactly. You've described the way I look at
10:03
these things as well. I've just been googling
10:05
a fiducial model.
10:08
And as it says, fiducials are marks or points
10:11
of reference applied to, well, in this case,
10:13
images to present a fixed
10:16
standard of reference. So that was kind of
10:19
my assumption of what the word
10:22
means. But a fiducial model gives you,
10:25
obviously a fixed standard of reference to
10:26
start from, which is tricky when you're
10:29
talking about colliding galaxies, because
10:31
which of them's moving? Well, they're both
10:33
moving. So, you know, where's your reference
10:35
point? Where is your stationary standard
10:37
point?
10:38
Heidi Campo: Yeah, and maybe this can be, you know, you
10:41
know, and as scientists, we can say, okay,
10:42
you know, this was published in a prestigious
10:44
article, so we can assume that the
10:47
methods were good enough to get published,
10:50
because the process of getting published is
10:52
already so rigorous. But this could be
10:54
another point where we go and we're like,
10:56
hey, you know, is that mathematical model
10:58
something that you would agree with?
11:01
The results, you know, is like you just said,
11:03
is a fixed model really going to tell us
11:06
what's moving? Well, what's not?
11:07
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right.
11:09
Heidi Campo: Take. This stuff's kind of interesting.
11:13
Roger, your labs are here. Also space nuts.
11:16
But, you know, fiducial models,
11:19
mathematic algorithms and flying
11:21
bananas is my next question, Because
11:26
a flying banana is the topic of our next
11:28
article. And this is going to be another
11:30
thing I need you to define, because if I'm
11:32
thinking of a flying banana, I'm thinking
11:35
that somebody's kid at the grocery store is
11:38
throwing a fit and they're throwing food. But
11:41
in this article, we're talking about, aura
11:43
chasers.
11:45
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Yes. So I'll, get to the flying banana
11:48
in a minute
11:51
because that's, kind of nickname.
11:53
But, what I love about this story is
11:56
it combines two passions of mine,
11:58
one of which is the, aurora borealis, the
12:01
northern light, which, we make regular trips
12:04
up to the far northern Arctic to watch and
12:07
take our tour guests up there to be
12:09
awed by the aurora. We get southern lights
12:12
down here, in the southern hemisphere as
12:14
well, the aurora australis. Heidi. And
12:16
there's actually been some quite good
12:17
sightings recently of the aurora australis
12:20
from southern Australia. we're not anywhere
12:23
near far enough south to see the aurora
12:26
overhead as you do from Alaska or far
12:28
northern Scandinavia. but nevertheless, you
12:31
can see the aurora. So that's one passion is
12:34
the aurora. but, this is.
12:37
It's a report that comes initially from
12:40
fellow aurora hunters. And these are people
12:43
in the United Kingdom, actually in
12:44
Oxfordshire in England. and they were, you
12:47
know, basically out on a clear night looking
12:50
for, the northern lights, the aurora
12:52
borealis. But what they saw was this
12:55
strange blue beam of light sort of
12:57
slicing through the night sky and
13:00
apparently moving. and in fact
13:03
these are sort of, you know, very high
13:06
level aurora hunters because they've got an
13:08
all sky camera, and fixed cameras that
13:11
have captured this strange blue light moving
13:14
through the sky. Excuse me. the reason
13:17
why the. Well two things told
13:20
them that it wasn't an aurora. One is that
13:23
most aurorae aren't blue. the colors you get
13:25
typically are green, and red
13:28
which come from oxygen atoms. you get
13:31
purples and magenta and a few other
13:34
colors coming from nitrogen molecules. But a
13:37
pure blue light is something that
13:39
no you don't actually see. and so
13:42
what they wondered was what is this?
13:45
It's clearly not a natural national
13:48
phenomenon. Sorry, a natural phenomenon
13:50
because it's the wrong color and it's moving
13:52
too quickly. So they did some
13:55
they did some research, and
13:58
it turns out that what they had seen
14:01
was a very fat, a wide
14:04
laser beam pointing upwards that
14:07
came from the flying banana. And what
14:10
is the flying banana? It's a railway
14:13
train. and it's called that because it
14:16
is yellow. It's very, very yellow
14:18
indeed. The flying banana. its
14:21
technical term is the nmt, the new
14:23
measurement train. And what it does
14:26
is at speeds of up to
14:28
125mph getting
14:30
on for 200km an hour in our measure.
14:34
it flies,
14:36
runs over the track. Sorry about our little
14:38
puppy in the background. I don't know whether
14:40
you can hear him barking but he's excited
14:42
about the Flying Banana as well.
14:46
this train runs over the track 125
14:49
miles an hour with lasers pointing downwards
14:52
to analyze in real time the
14:55
state of the track. So it's all about the
14:57
safety of railway passengers in the UK and
15:00
what it's doing is it's analyzing things like
15:03
the separation of the rails, whether
15:05
something's moved in the foundations of the
15:08
rails, the sleepers or ties as you call them
15:10
in the US that hold them together, whether
15:12
the rails themselves are distorted. They can
15:15
check the shape of the rails, they can check
15:17
all sorts of aspects of it at a very high
15:20
speed. But, and this is the trick,
15:23
it also checks the overhead
15:26
electrical wiring because railways in
15:28
Britain, many of them certainly the main
15:30
lines are driven by electric
15:32
traction. So they've got what's called the
15:35
overhead, the overhead wire which is picked
15:37
up, from which the electricity is picked up
15:39
by the trains. So as I understand it,
15:42
it, this laser is also looking
15:45
upwards to sense what the condition of the
15:48
Overhead wire is hence the blue light
15:50
traveling through the landscape.
15:54
and, just before, Sorry, I'm not letting you
15:57
get many words in here, Heidi, but.
15:59
Heidi Campo: No, I'm listening. This is wonderful.
16:02
Professor Fred Watson: Well, to, bring back an experience
16:05
we had. So back in January this year,
16:07
some of our listeners know, I think, you
16:09
know, Marnie and I were doing one of our,
16:11
Aurora Borealis tours up in the far north
16:14
of the world. We were in northern
16:17
Norway, Scandinavia, sorry, Norway, Sweden,
16:20
Iceland and eventually Greenland, which
16:23
was enchanting. But, that's not why I'm
16:25
mentioning it. in a place called
16:28
Abisko, which is in far northern
16:30
Sweden, one night we were aurora
16:33
watching and we saw this
16:36
vertical green beam of light,
16:39
which puzzled me completely.
16:42
it was just pointing upwards. It was
16:44
apparently stationary. It did not last very
16:46
long. I had my trusty Aurora camera,
16:49
ready to take photographs, but it had gone
16:51
before, I had a chance to
16:54
take any. but I'm guessing now
16:57
that that was the same sort of thing
17:00
because Abisco is on the main
17:02
line between. The main railway line between,
17:06
Kiruna, and Narvik. It was buil
17:09
built, more than a century ago to
17:12
carry iron ore from the big mine, which is
17:14
still operational in Kiruna, to the port in
17:17
Narvik, where it's exported all over the
17:19
world to your country and mine, it's one of
17:22
the biggest producers of iron ore in the
17:24
world. And so that railway line has been
17:27
there for a long time. And my guess is that
17:30
maybe there is an equivalent in Sweden of
17:33
the Flying Banana, which shines a green,
17:36
laser beam up at the overhead wires to
17:39
see, what the condition is. And so I'm
17:41
putting out to our Scandinavian listeners, on
17:44
space nuts, because I know a lot of them are
17:46
railway buffs as well. Tell us if there is
17:49
such a thing as a new measurement train
17:52
in Scandinavia that looks at the overhead,
17:54
catenaries or, ah, the overhead, power lines
17:57
for trains. So we look forward to
18:00
hearing your answers, folks.
18:02
Heidi Campo: Yeah, and that's, you know, and that's just
18:03
such a fun story. And it makes me, you know,
18:06
cause trains, trains are
18:09
such, an incredible feat of
18:11
engineering that changed the world. I think
18:14
trains accelerated
18:17
expansion and growth more than almost
18:19
anything else. And I'm sure you and most of
18:21
the listeners know the correlation between
18:24
rocket ships and trains.
18:27
Professor Fred Watson: Okay, tell me what you're thinking of.
18:30
Heidi Campo: Okay, so,
18:34
now I might be butchering this here because I
18:36
Think it's, something about the
18:39
rockets. The size of them
18:41
is a certain size. And
18:44
that size is determined because of
18:47
the standard size of. See, what is it? What
18:49
is it? Because I know you probably have it
18:51
down to the figures.
18:52
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So you're absolutely right. It's
18:55
railway lines and railway tunnels, that
18:57
dictate the size of things. I
19:00
don't know the exact thing that you're
19:02
talking about, but limited. All sorts of
19:04
weird things like the size of the biggest
19:06
telescope mirror that you can take from one
19:08
place to another is limited by the size of
19:11
the track, the railway tunnels that carry
19:13
them around. It might well be something
19:15
similar that you're thinking of in terms of
19:16
rockets.
19:17
Heidi Campo: And if you keep going back far enough. The
19:19
size of the railroad was determined
19:22
by the average size of two horses
19:25
side by side. So the joke is two
19:28
horses asses is what determines the
19:31
size of our rockets in space today.
19:34
And trains, which is just such a
19:37
funny little thing to think of. And just
19:39
again, amazing feats of engineering and
19:42
there's nothing new that's ever built. We're
19:44
always just building and expanding on, the
19:46
prior knowledge we already have. So hopefully
19:48
our ancestors have done pretty good work.
19:53
Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
19:53
Andrew Dunkley: We checked all four systems and being.
19:55
Heidi Campo: With a girl, space nets, and
19:58
sometimes, you know, things are, are
20:01
unsuccessful. You know, we have amazing
20:03
things, we have things that fall apart. And
20:06
there was, you know, that's the case of what
20:08
happened with the Japanese company
20:11
abandoning, their moon mission. So tell
20:14
us what happened with that. Just kind of been
20:16
a blur.
20:18
Professor Fred Watson: Lovely segue there, Heidi. I love your
20:20
segues. From one story to another.
20:24
And you're right, this is an endeavor which,
20:27
you know, again, is being carried out with
20:29
the highest levels of technical knowledge,
20:31
with the highest enthusiasm, and all the
20:34
skill, that has been learned from,
20:37
well, more than 50 years now of space travel
20:40
in terms of robotic spacecraft, as
20:42
Newton said, standing on the shoulders of
20:44
giants. I think every, every one of us is
20:46
doing that one way or another in the
20:48
technology that we make use of. So, in fact,
20:51
some of that technology is just going past my
20:54
office door at the moment. that's called
20:56
Grimace. Grimace is our robotic vacuum
20:58
cleaner. And Grimace makes a lot of
21:01
noise. So if you hear a, whining sound, it's
21:03
not me, it's our vacuum cleaner.
21:05
Heidi Campo: I named my robotic vacuum, Rosie
21:08
after the Jetsons.
21:09
Professor Fred Watson: Okay, good, that's great.
21:12
Heidi Campo: Robotic made was Rosie.
21:13
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, you've got to give them names.
21:15
Ours is called Grimace because A grimace is
21:18
the expression on its face. It doesn't have a
21:20
face, but it just looks as though it's, you
21:22
know, it's got a very stern expression.
21:25
Anyway, turning back to the Japanese company
21:28
Ispace, they have. And as
21:31
you've said, it doesn't always work. and
21:33
in this case, this does not. This has not
21:36
worked. what they have done is,
21:39
sent to the moon, basically, a
21:42
lunar lander which
21:45
indeed had on board a rover,
21:48
a little rover. The lander,
21:51
if I remember rightly, is called Resilience.
21:53
and the rover had a name too, which you can't
21:55
remember, but it's something similar. so the
21:58
idea of, this company is to
22:01
be one of the first, companies
22:03
in the world to achieve a
22:06
landing, a soft landing on the moon. And
22:09
it would certainly have been the first one to
22:11
have the first private company to have a
22:13
rover on them moon. sadly, the
22:16
mission was not successful. This was last
22:18
week, as we are recording this episode now.
22:22
everything went perfectly well with,
22:24
Resilience, until it got close to the lunar
22:27
surface. And then there was a technical fault
22:29
that meant that it didn't decelerate
22:32
quickly enough, for it to make a soft
22:34
landing. So it actually, basically had
22:37
a hard landing on the moon, which we usually
22:39
call a collision. and that, was
22:42
the end of the mission. they're very
22:44
enthusiastic though, about
22:47
keeping going with their, endeavors.
22:50
Unfortunately, it's their second failure. I
22:52
think a couple of years ago they had another
22:54
mission, landing on the moon, which did not,
22:58
make it. It landed, but sort of fell over.
23:00
It was, at the wrong angle, so didn't get,
23:04
any kind of sunlight on its solar panels. I
23:06
think I'm thinking of the right one there.
23:08
And by the way, the rover rover was called
23:11
Tenacious, built in Luxembourg in
23:14
fact, but carried, some equipment on
23:16
board. Sadly, that was never deployed. So,
23:20
you know, a story that's got good parts to
23:23
it because I'm sure they learned a lot from
23:25
this mission, but not as successful as
23:27
everybody had hoped.
23:29
Heidi Campo: I always have a little soft spot for the
23:31
rovers. Ever since they had, the Mars
23:34
rover sing Happy Birthday to itself. I've
23:36
always kind of humanized them ever since
23:39
that. I don't know why I'm like, oh, poor
23:40
rover. Maybe it was Pixar's Wall E that
23:43
gave me a soft spot for these, robots. Good
23:46
old Wall E. But, you know, here's another
23:48
segue for you.
23:49
Speaking of Mars rovers, the Mars
23:51
Orbiter capture. This is our final
23:54
story for today, but the NASA Mars Orbiter
23:57
saw some pretty cool
24:01
sites. You want to tell us a little bit about
24:02
these volcanoes?
24:04
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. So this is
24:07
it's a piece of history almost. This is one
24:10
of the longest running
24:13
orbiters around Mars. I think
24:16
it's been in orbit since 2001 or it
24:18
certainly was launched in 2001. And it is
24:21
called Mars Odyssey. it's a NASA
24:24
spacecraft, one of several in orbit around
24:27
Mars. but this is quite a venerable one.
24:29
It's been around for a long time but it's
24:31
still active and it's still doing the
24:34
kind of research that it was basically built
24:37
to do. looking at the upper atmosphere of
24:39
Mars and basically you know,
24:42
studying the surface. the reason why it's
24:44
made the headlines this week is because
24:48
it captured a beautiful
24:51
view of one of Mars's
24:53
tall volcanoes. Mars has
24:56
ah, an area called the Tarsus Rise. It's a
24:59
high level or Tarsis Montesquieu, the Tharsis
25:02
Mountains. it's a high level region which
25:05
has ah, four really
25:08
prominent volcanoes on it. They are extinct.
25:11
They probably have not erupted for 3 billion
25:13
years or so. they're taller than most
25:16
volcanoes on Earth, 20 kilometers or so.
25:19
the biggest is Olympus Mons, very famous, the
25:22
largest mountain in the solar system. but
25:24
what they've captured with the Odyssey
25:27
spacecraft is a view of Mars
25:30
in the early morning. It's in the dawn
25:33
sky and sorry, the dawn
25:35
landscape. but the surface of Mars
25:38
is covered with cloud. Now
25:41
Mars does have clouds. They are fairly thin
25:44
clouds because its atmospheric pressure is
25:45
only 0.6% of the
25:48
atmospheric pressure on Earth. And there is
25:51
very little moisture in the atmosphere. There
25:53
is some, there's enough to form clouds and
25:55
they're made of ice, basically water ice.
25:58
so there's enough just to form these. But
26:00
here's this wonderful view. Encourage
26:03
people to look at one of the NASA
26:05
websites. Actually it's the main NASA website
26:07
actually NASA.gov if you Google
26:10
NASA Mars Orbiter captures volcano
26:13
peaking above morning cloud tops that's
26:15
exactly what you see. this is Asia
26:18
Mons which is one of the other four volcanoes
26:21
in that region. And you can see its crater,
26:23
its caldera, the summit of the mountain,
26:26
poking above the low clouds on the surface of
26:29
Mars. It's an extraordinary view. It's one
26:31
that we've not seen before. And it was, made
26:33
because the mission scientists managed to
26:36
turn Mars Odyssey on its side so it could
26:38
look horizontally at the landscape rather
26:40
than looking vertically downwards on the
26:43
surface of Mars.
26:44
Heidi Campo: Yeah, this is a great photo. That's, one of
26:46
those ones that's going to be hanging up in,
26:48
someone's office, one day or
26:51
a school, you know, in a science building. I
26:54
mean, that really is a really neat photo.
26:55
Like you said. I mean, what,
26:59
ah, crazy, ah, series of
27:02
stories today from the things that we've
27:05
discovered and the technology and
27:08
everything that humans, have done and they're
27:10
still doing. it's really. And I
27:13
think that's one reason why we're space
27:16
nuts here. I mean, all of us here get so
27:18
excited about space because there's, I think
27:21
for the people who are space enthusiasts,
27:23
it's because there's still so much to do
27:27
and so many other, fields of
27:31
anything. There's so much that's already been
27:32
explained and discovered. We're not
27:34
discovering any new laws of physics anymore.
27:37
That's kind of those are written, but in
27:40
space it's wide open and we're always coming
27:42
up with new mathematical formulas and
27:46
feats of engineering and discovery.
27:49
We have our highs, we have our lows. But
27:52
it's so exciting for the people who are still
27:55
curious and want to know more about
27:59
the universe we live in.
28:02
Professor Fred Watson: Isn't it just. And, you know, I guess that
28:04
curiosity is one of the things that drives
28:06
the million or so downloads a year that we
28:09
get of space nuts. Because we've got people
28:11
out there who love to hear about this sort of
28:13
thing just as we love talking about it.
28:15
Everything from flying bananas to colliding
28:17
galaxies.
28:18
Heidi Campo: We do everything and we
28:21
just want to, you know, I guess we'll just
28:22
say thank you to our listeners. Thank you for
28:24
making, this, this a show worth recording. We
28:26
really do appreciate you guys. And thank you
28:29
for letting me come on as your substitute
28:31
host while Andrew is on holiday.
28:34
he will be back with you in a
28:37
few weeks, so don't you worry. If you guys
28:39
are missing him dearly, he will be back. I am
28:41
just filling in for now, but, Go ahead,
28:44
Peter.
28:44
Professor Fred Watson: Let me just add, forgive me,
28:47
I think our producer Huw might well,
28:50
include in this podcast, a little
28:53
recording that Andrew has sent on his
28:55
progress around the world. So, listen
28:58
on, folks. You might well hear, Andrew's
29:00
voice telling us where he's Got to on his
29:02
round the world trip.
29:04
Andrew Dunkley: Hi Heidi. Hi Fred. Hi Huw in the studio,
29:07
it's Andrew.
29:08
we've embarked on our around the world trip
29:10
on the Crown Princess. we left
29:13
Sydney a couple of days ago and we got out
29:16
of the heads and it was rough as guts. I
29:19
mean it was heavy seas. the
29:22
pilot couldn't even get off the ship and we
29:25
had to drop him off at Eden down near the
29:27
Victoria border, yesterday. So yeah,
29:30
things calmed down a bit after that. But it
29:31
was a pretty rough on first night.
29:34
last night we slept quite well. It was very,
29:36
very calm. we went through Bass Strait. I
29:39
was very hopeful that we'd be able to see
29:41
Aurora Austral Australis. There's been a fair
29:43
bit of sun activity lately and I was
29:46
very hopeful. There'd been a bit about it in
29:48
the news recently but unfortunately
29:51
we've not seen anything and in fact they're
29:54
not letting us up on the the decks at the
29:56
moment because, because of the conditions
29:59
which are deteriorating again as we approach
30:02
Spencer Gulf and head to Adelaide. So
30:05
we'll be dropping off at Adelaide tomorrow
30:07
and visiting the German town of
30:09
Haendorf. activities on board have been
30:12
fun. it's a fun crowd, a fun crew. We're
30:15
having a good time. Yes, I got seasick once.
30:18
We ordered breakfast and then cancelled it,
30:20
then ordered again and got three breakfasts.
30:24
So there's you know, you know, a few glitches
30:27
here and there. But we're having a great
30:28
time. I hope all is going well. I'll report
30:31
in semi regularly as we, as we do things
30:34
around the ship and around the world. So for
30:36
now I'll see you later and
30:39
have fun with Space Nuts while I'm away.
30:42
Heidi Campo: So fun. Thank you Fred. Talk to you next
30:44
week.
30:45
Professor Fred Watson: It's a great pleasure Heidi. Thanks very
30:46
much. Space Nuts. you'll be listening to the
30:49
SpaceNuts podcast Missing Point,
30:52
available at Apple Podcasts.
30:54
Andrew Dunkley: Spotify, iHeartRadio or your
30:57
favorite podcast player.
30:58
Professor Fred Watson: You can also stream on demand@bytes.com
31:01
this.
31:02
Andrew Dunkley: Has been another quality podcast production
31:04
from bytes.um com.