Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Fires on the Moon, Interstellar Glaciers & Mayan Timekeeping Mysteries

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Fires on the Moon, Interstellar Glaciers & Mayan Timekeeping Mysteries · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Ah, hi there. Thanks for joining us on
• 0:02
  another episode of Space Nuts, where we talk
• 0:04
  astronomy and space science. My name is
• 0:07
  Andrew Dunkley, your host, and it's, uh,
• 0:09
  always good to have your company wherever you
• 0:11
  are, whatever you're doing. You might be in
• 0:13
  traffic, you might be in bed, staying awake.
• 0:15
  Um, we generally put people to sleep, but,
• 0:17
  uh, staying awake, um, or you could be
• 0:20
  just hanging around the house doing whatever
• 0:23
  you need to do. Vacuuming, mowing the lawn.
• 0:26
  Yeah, all of that. Uh, coming up in
• 0:29
  this edition, we're going to be talking about
• 0:32
  fires on the moon.
• 0:34
  Professor Fred Watson: What?
• 0:35
  Andrew Dunkley: How? Yes, it's a thing. Yes, it is,
• 0:38
  Jordy. We're
• 0:40
  also. We're also
• 0:43
  talking interstellar glaciers.
• 0:46
  Wow. Uh, the Mayan calendar. And
• 0:48
  another Artemis 2 record that's
• 0:51
  been set. We'll find out all about it on this
• 0:53
  episode of space nuts. 15
• 0:56
  seconds. Guidance is internal.
• 0:58
  Professor Fred Watson: 10, 9. Ignition
• 1:01
  sequence start. Uh, space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
• 1:04
  2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
• 1:07
  3, 2, 1.
• 1:08
  Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts. Astronauts report it feels
• 1:11
  good. Back again to help us understand
• 1:14
  all of that is Professor Fred Watson Watson,
• 1:16
  astronomer at large. Hello, Fred Watson.
• 1:18
  Professor Fred Watson: Hi, Andrew. Good to see you. And, um, good to
• 1:20
  speak with you. Chilly day.
• 1:23
  Andrew Dunkley: What's up Jordy's nose today?
• 1:25
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, I think our, uh. Um.
• 1:28
  I think somebody's just arrived at the door.
• 1:30
  Andrew Dunkley: That's usually how he welcomes them.
• 1:32
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it is, it is. I might just
• 1:35
  need, um, to go and cheque, actually, if you
• 1:37
  don't mind. Oh, okay.
• 1:38
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, we can do that.
• 1:40
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. You can talk to yourself for a minute.
• 1:41
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I'm very good at talking to myself.
• 1:44
  Yes. Um, Jordy's, um. I don't know what
• 1:47
  kind of terrier he is. He's a tiny little
• 1:49
  dog, but he's very, very loud. And whenever
• 1:52
  anybody turns up, he absolutely goes
• 1:55
  off his buns. And,
• 1:58
  um, when Judy and I visited there late
• 2:01
  last year, we, um. We were welcomed by Jordy
• 2:03
  tearing down the stairs and, um, barked
• 2:06
  like a maniac. But, um, yeah, he's
• 2:09
  harmless. He's absolutely harmless. All
• 2:12
  is well. Fred Watson, is he okay?
• 2:14
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, well, he's all right, yeah. He's, uh.
• 2:16
  The people who turned up at the door, nobody.
• 2:19
  Nobody, um, opened the door for them, so they
• 2:20
  just let themselves in. That's right. Oh,
• 2:22
  right.
• 2:23
  Andrew Dunkley: Okay.
• 2:24
  Professor Fred Watson: Well known to us.
• 2:25
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Queenslanders do that a lot,
• 2:27
  apparently.
• 2:28
  Professor Fred Watson: Oh, do they?
• 2:28
  Andrew Dunkley: When we moved to Queensland in 1987, after we
• 2:31
  got married, um, our neighbours walked in
• 2:34
  and introduced themselves
• 2:38
  Professor Fred Watson: and we
• 2:39
  Andrew Dunkley: thought, oh, that's so weird. But no, it's
• 2:40
  not. It's just the Way Queenslanders are ah
• 2:42
  up in, up in the northern tropics.
• 2:45
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 2:45
  Andrew Dunkley: Completely different uh, mindset. But um,
• 2:48
  you get used to it. It's, it's a lovely
• 2:50
  lifestyle. Uh, shall we get down to
• 2:53
  business, friend?
• 2:54
  Professor Fred Watson: Well I suppose so. All right, if we
• 2:57
  must.
• 2:57
  Andrew Dunkley: We, we probably should.
• 2:59
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
• 3:00
  Andrew Dunkley: Let's start off with this um Storey about
• 3:02
  fires on the moon. Now I've looked at the
• 3:05
  moon many times. I've never seen any brush
• 3:08
  fires or bush fires or forest fires or
• 3:11
  you know, dune fires or mountain
• 3:14
  fires or crater fires. Uh, I
• 3:17
  got a suspicion this has got something to do
• 3:19
  with um, something
• 3:23
  humanity is going to do
• 3:27
  um when they get on the moon.
• 3:29
  Professor Fred Watson: Yep.
• 3:30
  Andrew Dunkley: Let's talk about this because uh, fires on
• 3:33
  the moon sounds a little bit um,
• 3:36
  I don't know, impossible but
• 3:40
  it's a, it's a thing.
• 3:41
  Professor Fred Watson: Or will it is a thing. It's, it's a thing.
• 3:44
  And it's all about understanding how
• 3:47
  fires burn on the moon. Um, it's something
• 3:49
  called the 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 their
• 4:01
  research centres, the Glenn Research Centre,
• 4:03
  Johnson Space Centre east, sorry uh
• 4:06
  Case Western Reserve University. What they're
• 4:08
  doing is they're sending uh
• 4:11
  what's called a self contained combustion
• 4:14
  chamber to the moon and it's going on one
• 4:17
  of these commercial lunar payload services
• 4:20
  flights uh that we sort of know
• 4:22
  about from uh, from discussions
• 4:25
  we've had before where the you know, uh,
• 4:28
  basically private companies provide
• 4:31
  hardware uh to uh,
• 4:34
  send on robotic missions to the moon to
• 4:37
  set up things for when humans are exploring
• 4:40
  the moon, um a few years down the track.
• 4:44
  So it's all about um
• 4:46
  safety actually Andrew, uh, that's the
• 4:49
  bottom line for this. It's the uh,
• 4:52
  motivation because
• 4:55
  um, there is a gap in our understanding of
• 4:58
  how fireworks uh
• 5:01
  and that is because we understand how
• 5:03
  fire works here on the Earth. Um how the
• 5:06
  convection brings oxygen into
• 5:09
  the flame and keeps the fire burning. We
• 5:12
  understand how it works in zero
• 5:15
  gravity because experiments have been done
• 5:18
  uh, on the International Space Station
• 5:20
  that uh, allow uh,
• 5:23
  scientists to uh, estimate,
• 5:25
  estimate um basically
• 5:29
  what the behaviour of a fire would be in
• 5:32
  zero gravity. Apparently a candle
• 5:34
  flame in zero gravity is just spherical.
• 5:38
  Andrew Dunkley: I read that um, that's strange. And
• 5:42
  uh, I mean we all know how
• 5:44
  horrible fires can be in terms
• 5:47
  of um, space travel. There have been
• 5:50
  tragedies over the years, um,
• 5:53
  uh, Apollo 1 in particular. But um, uh there
• 5:56
  have been other incidents with fires and
• 5:59
  uh, certain issues. But um,
• 6:02
  what happens on Earth and what happens in
• 6:05
  zero G. We know about
• 6:08
  what happens on the moon, that's
• 6:10
  Professor Fred Watson: what we don't know about. Yeah, uh, and so
• 6:13
  that's the um, that's the reason for these
• 6:16
  tests, uh, because scientists have
• 6:19
  actually raised concerns about the way fire
• 6:21
  might behave on the moon. Because it is
• 6:23
  different when you're in 1/6 of the Earth's
• 6:26
  ah, gravity which is basically lunar
• 6:29
  gravity.
• 6:30
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
• 6:30
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, there is a standard, um,
• 6:33
  that is measured by NASA
• 6:36
  in terms of how things burn. It's called
• 6:39
  NASA
• 6:40
  STD6001B
• 6:44
  and it's what's called a vertical burn test.
• 6:47
  And I'm reading now from uh, a
• 6:50
  Space AstroDailyPod article that describes
• 6:52
  this all very nicely. The current standard is
• 6:55
  a vertical burn test. A 6 inch flame is held
• 6:58
  to the bottom of a vertically mounted
• 7:00
  sample. If the flame climbs more than
• 7:03
  6inc up the sample or if molten
• 7:06
  debris drips off and keeps burning, the
• 7:08
  material fails. It's a straightforward
• 7:11
  repeatable procedure and it's kept crews safe
• 7:13
  on Shuttle International Space Station and
• 7:16
  every commercial vehicle that has followed
• 7:19
  the test has hidden assumptions baked in. The
• 7:22
  buoyancy driven convection will behave the
• 7:25
  same way in flight as it did in the lab for
• 7:27
  low Earth orbit. Engineers have patched
• 7:30
  around this assumption with experience for
• 7:32
  the lunar surface. There is no equivalent
• 7:34
  flight heritage driven fall back on. In other
• 7:37
  words we don't have any experience of how
• 7:39
  things behave in 1/6 gravity.
• 7:44
  Andrew Dunkley: I would assume that knowing um, what we
• 7:47
  know about fire on Earth and in zero
• 7:49
  gravity, with a little bit of gravity on the
• 7:52
  moon, it'd be different again.
• 7:56
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. Um,
• 8:00
  once again um, looking at uh,
• 8:04
  Space AstroDailyPod piece which is very very
• 8:07
  nicely uh, encapsulates what these
• 8:09
  experiments are about, um, there have
• 8:12
  been tests done
• 8:14
  uh, inside uncrewed,
• 8:18
  um, actually they were the Cygnus ones,
• 8:21
  not the Dragon capsules, Cygnus
• 8:24
  cargo capsules, uh, uh, before they
• 8:27
  re enter and burn up in the atmosphere there
• 8:29
  have been uh, what are called sapphire
• 8:32
  tests, the spacecraft fire safety series.
• 8:35
  I think you and I spoke about that, ah,
• 8:36
  probably a couple of years ago. Um,
• 8:39
  so what you do is you deliberately
• 8:42
  ignite samples of the material, uh,
• 8:45
  and look at how the flames
• 8:48
  behave and sometimes actually they
• 8:51
  spread in the opposite direction to the way
• 8:53
  the airflow is coming. Um, and also
• 8:56
  apparently they burn hotter on thinner
• 8:58
  materials and that's all great but
• 9:01
  that's microgravity, that's effectively zero
• 9:03
  gravity. And it is a different
• 9:06
  physical regime as they put it from partial
• 9:09
  gravity combustion, uh, which is what
• 9:12
  we will experience on the Moon,
• 9:15
  uh, all these items, uh, once again
• 9:18
  a uh, very nice summary here. The flame
• 9:20
  shape, the flow structure, the soot chemistry
• 9:22
  and the spread rate all respond non
• 9:25
  linearly to the gravitational acceleration.
• 9:29
  So uh, you can't really, it's not something
• 9:31
  you can simulate. Um, you can,
• 9:34
  you know, you can certainly simulate
• 9:36
  weightlessness either with, by dropping
• 9:39
  things off big towers. Uh, that's one way of
• 9:41
  simulating weightlessness. Yeah. And it's
• 9:44
  what was in Einstein's head when he worked
• 9:46
  out the special theory, sorry the general
• 9:48
  theory of relativity, how gravity works. And
• 9:50
  then there are those parabolic aircraft
• 9:52
  flights that we often refer to as the vomit
• 9:54
  comet, uh, for um, for humans. But
• 9:57
  none of those are uh, long enough
• 10:00
  period, um, in order to
• 10:03
  simulate how things go when something catches
• 10:06
  fire. Uh and of course they're all
• 10:08
  microgravity. Uh so this
• 10:11
  FM2 experiment is designed to
• 10:14
  be self contained. It's uh, a sealed
• 10:17
  um, chamber contains four solid fuel
• 10:20
  samples. Uh and they will go to one of these
• 10:23
  commercial lunar programme uh,
• 10:26
  landers, uh, on the surface. Um,
• 10:29
  and 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, how
• 10:44
  much heat comes from it, how much of the
• 10:47
  oxygen is, is consumed. So all
• 10:50
  that is um, is going to teach us
• 10:53
  what might happen if something went wrong.
• 10:56
  When you have astronauts walking on the moon,
• 10:59
  uh, if you have a, you know, some sort of um,
• 11:01
  habitat. Yeah. Where a, where a fire
• 11:04
  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 we
• 11:12
  don't at the moment.
• 11:14
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, uh, one of the points in the article I
• 11:16
  thought was interesting was that uh,
• 11:19
  there could be materials that exist on Earth
• 11:22
  that are uh, certified, you know, a grade
• 11:25
  fire retardant, you know, nothing to worry
• 11:28
  about here. That might not be the case with
• 11:31
  the same material on the moon.
• 11:33
  Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. That's right. So that's what this is
• 11:35
  all about. And it is, it's common sense
• 11:37
  really when you think about it. Yeah, it's,
• 11:40
  it's a lot better to send a self
• 11:42
  contained experiment to the moon. Um,
• 11:45
  rather than getting somebody standing on the
• 11:47
  moon to light a match in a habitat and see
• 11:49
  what happens. It's yes, that will not
• 11:52
  be good.
• 11:53
  Andrew Dunkley: And I suppose long term we're going to see
• 11:56
  all sorts of facilities on the moon. We're
• 11:58
  going to have uh, as you said, habitat, but
• 12:00
  there'll be, there'll be labs um,
• 12:04
  um. Um. All sorts of, uh, spaces for all
• 12:07
  sorts of different things. Probably things we
• 12:09
  haven't even thought of yet. Uh, there'll be,
• 12:12
  um. You know, uh. They're talking about
• 12:14
  making rocket fuel on the moon now. There's
• 12:17
  a fire hazard if.
• 12:19
  Professor Fred Watson: If ever there was one. That's right. If
• 12:21
  you're separating hydrogen and oxygen, when
• 12:23
  they come back together they. Yep, there's a
• 12:25
  fire hazard. Absolutely right.
• 12:27
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. So there's, there's a lot to take into
• 12:29
  consideration. So it's uh, it's.
• 12:32
  It's obviously something that they really
• 12:33
  need to figure out. And this sounds like a
• 12:36
  very good way of doing it. A controlled
• 12:37
  experiment. Um, and, and
• 12:40
  they. Does it say when they're planning to do
• 12:43
  this? It shouldn't be too long away.
• 12:44
  Professor Fred Watson: No, that's right. I think it's on uh, an
• 12:46
  upcoming uh. Uh, one of these commercial
• 12:49
  flights. I can't see a date in it, uh,
• 12:52
  in this piece. But uh, yeah, I'm sure we'll,
• 12:55
  we'll find about the results when they've.
• 12:57
  When they've actually happened.
• 12:58
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, indeed. All right, uh, if you'd like to
• 13:01
  read all about it, you can find that
• 13:03
  storey@space daily.com and you
• 13:06
  could probably find it on the NASA website as
• 13:08
  well.
• 13:09
  This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
• 13:12
  Professor Fred Watson Watson.
• 13:18
  Professor Fred Watson: Tranquilly Base here. The Eagle has landed.
• 13:21
  Space Nuts.
• 13:22
  Andrew Dunkley: Now, Fred Watson, we move from the moon to
• 13:25
  beyond. Uh, we're going way out
• 13:28
  in fact, uh, to interstellar regions
• 13:31
  of the universe, uh, where
• 13:33
  NASA has um,
• 13:35
  discovered galactic ice.
• 13:39
  They're describing them as interstellar
• 13:41
  glaciers.
• 13:43
  Professor Fred Watson: Indeed, that's right. So yes, from fire to
• 13:45
  ice. It's almost like being on
• 13:47
  Iceland where you've got them together.
• 13:51
  Um, and this is um, uh, a storey that
• 13:53
  comes from um, research that
• 13:56
  has been done using a spacecraft that you and
• 13:59
  I, I think we talked about it when it was
• 14:00
  launched, um, but we don't often
• 14:03
  mention it. And it is producing some quite
• 14:06
  significant results. It's called Sphere X
• 14:09
  uh, which is an acronym for
• 14:11
  Spectrophotometer for the History of the
• 14:14
  Universe, Epoch of Reionization
• 14:16
  and ice's Explorer.
• 14:19
  Andrew Dunkley: I would have guessed that.
• 14:22
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes, I'm sure you would if you were, you
• 14:24
  know, 20 years to think about what it might
• 14:26
  be because I certainly wouldn't.
• 14:28
  Um, but what it's been doing is uh, so
• 14:31
  that it's ah, basically a survey spacecraft.
• 14:34
  It's got wide angle telescopes. Uh,
• 14:37
  it has um. It's
• 14:40
  basically. It takes images but it takes them
• 14:43
  through. I think it's one Hundred and two
• 14:44
  different, different colour
• 14:47
  filters, uh, which, which uh,
• 14:50
  these colour filters are centred on
• 14:53
  uh, key wavelengths in the spectrum, uh,
• 14:56
  which allows you to image, you know,
• 14:59
  see what, where all the iron
• 15:01
  atoms are, see where all the calcium atoms
• 15:04
  are, see where all the hydrogen atoms are,
• 15:06
  see where all the oxygen atoms are. All of
• 15:08
  that stuff comes from this ability
• 15:11
  to see the sky in As I said,
• 15:14
  102 colours. Uh, they're in the
• 15:16
  infrared. So it sort of mimics the James
• 15:19
  Webb telescope. Um, it's
• 15:22
  however, as I said, a wide field telescope,
• 15:25
  which means it's doing surveys rather than
• 15:26
  homing in onto uh,
• 15:29
  small areas of space where you want to
• 15:31
  magnify things so you can see all the fine
• 15:33
  detail. Uh, it was launched um, only a
• 15:36
  year ago, a year or so ago, March 11, 20,
• 15:39
  20, 25. Um,
• 15:42
  and it's uh, already sending back some really
• 15:44
  quite spectacular results. Uh,
• 15:47
  so by the end of last year it
• 15:50
  had completed uh, uh,
• 15:53
  the first of its all sky
• 15:56
  infrared maps of the sky of the
• 15:59
  universe, basically. Um, and it's,
• 16:02
  it's basically measured hundreds of millions
• 16:05
  of galaxies. Uh, it does it
• 16:07
  essentially, uh, in three dimensions rather
• 16:10
  than two. Uh, an imaging telescope you might
• 16:13
  think, can only see uh, everything
• 16:15
  as if it was plastered on the celestial
• 16:18
  sphere. And that's an imaginary concept
• 16:21
  of uh, you know, where you say everything's
• 16:23
  at the same distance and it represents a
• 16:25
  sphere and you can measure the positions of
• 16:27
  objects on that sphere very accurately in a
• 16:29
  science we call astrometry. But with all
• 16:31
  these 102 filters,
• 16:34
  um, you can also use this instrument to
• 16:37
  get uh, estimates of redshift.
• 16:40
  And um, by that I mean the,
• 16:42
  effectively the way the spectrum of a distant
• 16:45
  galaxy is shifted towards the red end of the
• 16:48
  spectrum. Uh, and you could 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
• 17:00
  redshift increases, you could get an estimate
• 17:03
  of what the redshift is without actually
• 17:04
  making a spectrum. It's um, a technique
• 17:07
  that's been known for many years,
• 17:10
  um, essentially called um,
• 17:12
  photometric redshifts. That's what we call
• 17:15
  it. Uh, and um, so what they're doing
• 17:18
  is basically measuring the 3D positions of
• 17:21
  galaxies by the hundreds of millions. Uh, and
• 17:24
  that will tell us a lot about um,
• 17:28
  the state of the union in uh,
• 17:31
  galaxies at very great distances as well as
• 17:33
  the nearby ones. And it'll tell us about the
• 17:36
  evolution of uh, things like
• 17:39
  uh, the amount of water that there is in a
• 17:41
  galaxy, the amount of ice, essentially. Um,
• 17:44
  but they can also use this instrument not
• 17:47
  just to look at distant galaxies, but to look
• 17:49
  at the gas clouds in our own galaxy.
• 17:52
  Uh, and that's where this storey comes from.
• 17:55
  They've looked at what we call m molecular
• 17:57
  clouds, which you might not be surprised to
• 18:00
  hear are clouds of molecules. Uh, and
• 18:03
  um, they are, they're where we think
• 18:06
  stars are born, uh, giant molecular
• 18:08
  clouds. Um, they've looked at some of
• 18:11
  the regions uh, of the Milky Way which are
• 18:14
  richest in these clouds of gas.
• 18:16
  Uh, and um, essentially use the
• 18:19
  fact that infrared can penetrate
• 18:22
  dust rather well. At least near infrared
• 18:25
  can. As we see when we look at some of the
• 18:27
  pictures from the James Webb telescope. Uh,
• 18:30
  that um, uh, dust penetrating ability
• 18:32
  allows you to see deep into some of these
• 18:35
  giant molecular clouds which are otherwise
• 18:37
  opaque to visible light. And then you can
• 18:39
  look at what sort of chemicals are there
• 18:42
  and what sort of ices there are,
• 18:45
  uh, in um, these
• 18:48
  clouds. Um, and the ice we know
• 18:51
  from other studies the ice tends to form on
• 18:55
  dust grains. These are tiny dust grains, we
• 18:58
  call them dust. It's really smoke, uh, in
• 19:00
  space because smoke here on Earth is solid
• 19:03
  particles, very, very tiny. Um,
• 19:06
  uh, that's how dust exists in space,
• 19:09
  in these very tiny particles which are often
• 19:12
  coated with uh, ices because the ice
• 19:15
  condenses on these cold
• 19:18
  dust particles. One of my former colleagues,
• 19:20
  uh, somebody I actually studied with when I
• 19:22
  was at uni about 100 years ago, uh, has spent
• 19:25
  his career in the United States, uh, looking
• 19:28
  at this kind of thing, looking at
• 19:29
  interstellar dust and interstellar. I.
• 19:33
  Excuse me. I don't think he's actually
• 19:34
  involved with this research. Uh, but he would
• 19:36
  have said he would certainly understand and
• 19:38
  probably knows the people who are working on
• 19:39
  it, ah, would understand the results. So what
• 19:42
  they found is um, a whole
• 19:45
  range of different, uh, molecules
• 19:48
  as well as water ice. Um, there are,
• 19:51
  uh, some of the complex
• 19:54
  molecules like polycyclic aromatic
• 19:57
  hydrocarbons. And these are things that are
• 19:59
  uh, I mean the carbon containing, which is
• 20:02
  why they are, ah, called organic molecules.
• 20:05
  Um, and finding those really
• 20:07
  gives you an insight into chemistry that goes
• 20:09
  on inside some of these giant molecular
• 20:12
  clouds. And indeed, we know from other
• 20:14
  studies that uh, some of those ices represent
• 20:17
  the building blocks of life, uh, that we find
• 20:20
  all kinds of molecules that are important in
• 20:22
  life processes. So we haven't discovered life
• 20:24
  yet, but we discovered the, the building
• 20:26
  blocks. Uh, and uh, and the point I
• 20:29
  was going to make, the point of this storey
• 20:31
  is there are huge quantities out there, more
• 20:33
  than anybody expected.
• 20:36
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, we, we have talked about the fact that
• 20:38
  water is plentiful in the universe.
• 20:41
  That's certainly something that's becoming
• 20:44
  more and more evident. But this sheds a whole
• 20:47
  new light on it. Like
• 20:50
  it's out there in a. In abundance.
• 20:53
  Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. That's right. Um, I mean it.
• 20:56
  As you and I have said many times, the um,
• 20:59
  most common two element molecule in the whole
• 21:02
  universe is water, H2O. And
• 21:05
  so it shouldn't surprise us that we've got
• 21:07
  ice everywhere. I mean it's the same in our
• 21:10
  own solar system. We didn't know until
• 21:12
  comparatively recently that ice is abundant,
• 21:15
  particularly in the moons of the outer
• 21:18
  planets, uh, Saturn,
• 21:20
  um, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
• 21:23
  They've all got moons that are very icy. And
• 21:25
  then you go out to the Kuiper Belt and the
• 21:27
  Trans Neptunian objects, they're all icy too.
• 21:29
  Andrew Dunkley: Ah.
• 21:30
  Professor Fred Watson: Uh, as are the comets that reside in the
• 21:33
  Oort cloud. So it's everywhere. Water is
• 21:35
  absolutely everywhere.
• 21:36
  Andrew Dunkley: And the liquid oceans in the um, ice
• 21:39
  moons and uh, the list goes on. And
• 21:42
  of course the way water is ended up
• 21:45
  in certain places. One
• 21:49
  theory uh, we talked about some time back is
• 21:51
  that uh, when Earth, uh, formed the water was
• 21:53
  already here because like this
• 21:56
  where water is attached to those dust
• 21:58
  particles, dust molecules.
• 22:01
  Same 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
  Professor Fred Watson: It's exactly. That's right. That's certainly.
• 22:18
  So we think maybe the worst the Earth's water
• 22:21
  has two sources, one of which you've
• 22:22
  mentioned, it's actually hydrolated
• 22:25
  rocks that um, formed the Earth,
• 22:28
  but also the possibility that some of it came
• 22:30
  from comets. And we've discussed one of the
• 22:33
  problems with that theory and that um,
• 22:34
  sometimes the comets, uh, heavy water to
• 22:37
  normal water ratio doesn't match what the
• 22:40
  oceans of the Earth have. Uh, and I
• 22:43
  think there are some comets that do, but some
• 22:45
  don't. So it's kind of open question.
• 22:47
  Andrew Dunkley: Doesn't match on Mars either.
• 22:49
  Professor Fred Watson: Compared to Earth, I believe not. That's
• 22:51
  right, yeah.
• 22:52
  Andrew Dunkley: Ah, it's all fascinating. I love it. Really.
• 22:54
  You didn't think water was so interesting,
• 22:56
  but it's pretty, pretty amazing stuff.
• 22:58
  Yeah. Great storey this one. You can read
• 23:01
  it@fizz.org or you can read the paper that's
• 23:04
  been published recently at the
• 23:06
  Astrophysical Journal
• 23:09
  Space Nuts. This is with Andrew Dunkley and
• 23:11
  Professor Fred Watson Watson.
• 23:15
  Professor Fred Watson: Okay. We checked all four systems and team
• 23:18
  with a go Space Nuts.
• 23:20
  Andrew Dunkley: Righto. Fred Watson. Couple of Storeys to
• 23:22
  finish up a couple of quick ones.
• 23:24
  Um, I was reading an article the other day
• 23:26
  and it just sort of jumped out at me. A new
• 23:29
  uh, paper has been published after
• 23:32
  a study into um, the way the
• 23:35
  Mayans used to calculate time
• 23:37
  and used mathematics to, to
• 23:40
  um, predict um, things that most
• 23:43
  civilizations would have thought were pretty
• 23:45
  random and damn scary like
• 23:47
  eclipses and uh, seasons
• 23:50
  and the list goes on. Um, but what the
• 23:53
  Mayans did was probably
• 23:56
  far superior to most other civilizations.
• 23:59
  Their mathematics was
• 24:02
  beyond comprehension for most of us. I think
• 24:05
  um, this is all brand new information. I know
• 24:07
  we know about how clever they were but this
• 24:09
  kind of sheds a bit, bit of new light onto it
• 24:12
  by the look of things.
• 24:14
  Professor Fred Watson: Um, that's correct.
• 24:19
  It's um, the result of some
• 24:21
  research that uh, goes
• 24:25
  back to a document called the Dresden
• 24:28
  Codex, uh, which is
• 24:31
  essentially a manuscript that dates from the
• 24:34
  Maya civilization which was
• 24:37
  actually extremely long lived. Um, I
• 24:40
  think it sort of kicked off uh, something
• 24:43
  like 2000 BC or
• 24:46
  BCE and uh, lasted until the
• 24:48
  1600s, uh uh, AD
• 24:51
  or CE common era. And um,
• 24:55
  so that's perhaps a hint
• 24:58
  as to why their
• 25:00
  mathematics and astronomy were
• 25:03
  so effective because they
• 25:06
  had a long long time uh,
• 25:09
  to count the years between certain
• 25:11
  events and to um, you
• 25:14
  know, do that over many many
• 25:18
  years so that you get a really
• 25:20
  accurate idea. And the kind of thing I'm
• 25:23
  thinking of Andrew is the um, lunar
• 25:26
  cycle. Uh, the moon has a cycle of
• 25:28
  18.6 years and on that
• 25:31
  scale eclipses more or less repeat
• 25:35
  throughout the year. Uh, they don't exactly
• 25:38
  repeat so you don't get total eclipses
• 25:40
  occurring in exactly the same place. But
• 25:43
  uh, you can use that cycle in
• 25:46
  order to predict when there are uh,
• 25:49
  likely to be eclipses. So if you've got a
• 25:51
  long established civilization with a long
• 25:53
  memory uh, that 18.6
• 25:57
  year cycle would be well known and well
• 25:59
  understood. Uh, and I think
• 26:01
  um, what's um, made the particular
• 26:04
  study that we're talking about, it's uh,
• 26:06
  published in the journal Science Advances is
• 26:09
  that some of the tables that are in the
• 26:11
  Dresden Codex uh have
• 26:14
  now been interpreted as being the
• 26:18
  method um, by which the Maya people actually
• 26:21
  did do things like eclipse
• 26:23
  predicting eclipses. And
• 26:26
  it differs from from uh,
• 26:29
  uh, what people thought happened. People
• 26:32
  thought these tables were just sort of one
• 26:34
  off things that um, didn't really
• 26:36
  talk to you know, have anything to do with
• 26:38
  each other, the tabulated information.
• 26:41
  But it now looks as though it's uh, much more
• 26:44
  cat clever than that. A kind of iterative
• 26:46
  approach with tables that Overlap. And
• 26:50
  um, basically as time goes on you
• 26:52
  eliminate any kind of errors uh, that might
• 26:55
  be there until you end up with something very
• 26:57
  accurate in indeed. Um, yeah. So
• 27:00
  it's quite an interesting storey, uh,
• 27:03
  for people who are interested in
• 27:05
  archaeoastronomy, which we are of course on
• 27:07
  space age.
• 27:08
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I think it talks about the
• 27:10
  minds having two completely
• 27:13
  different systems, but when they put them
• 27:16
  together and looked at them they went, hey,
• 27:19
  wait a minute, they work together and
• 27:21
  they are so incredibly accurate.
• 27:25
  And um, it opened up a whole
• 27:28
  new realm of uh, understanding about how the
• 27:31
  minds did what they did. Uh, and
• 27:34
  I suppose when you think about it, they had
• 27:35
  4,000 years, as you said, they had a long
• 27:37
  period of time to collate this data.
• 27:41
  So, um, yeah, pretty amazing stuff.
• 27:44
  And it brings me back to that old chestnut
• 27:47
  that we assume we are all
• 27:49
  knowledgeable, we are the cleverest humans
• 27:52
  that ever existed. We're not, we're no more
• 27:55
  intelligent than the first humans.
• 27:58
  We've just progressed over time
• 28:01
  to reach the point we are. But the Mayans are
• 28:04
  exhibiting an intelligence that um,
• 28:06
  predates, um, the modern
• 28:09
  era if you like. And
• 28:12
  they've shown that the intelligence of Homo
• 28:15
  sapiens is long lived. It's not just
• 28:17
  something that's happened in the last few
• 28:19
  hundred years. It's, it's been,
• 28:23
  it's always been there, I guess, is what I'm
• 28:26
  saying.
• 28:26
  Professor Fred Watson: 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, uh, which
• 28:37
  um, can still outdo computers and
• 28:40
  AI although of course AI is catching up. Uh,
• 28:43
  but it's still not human. Um, and
• 28:46
  uh, I don't think it ever will be.
• 28:49
  Andrew Dunkley: I hope not, I hope not.
• 28:52
  Judy and I read an article the other day
• 28:53
  about um, how they're going to use
• 28:56
  AI robots, uh,
• 28:59
  in nursing homes in the not too distant
• 29:02
  future to help people with
• 29:06
  simple, um, things like uh, communication.
• 29:09
  Just having a conversation because they get
• 29:11
  lonely. Um, and they're going
• 29:14
  to use AI robots to do things like
• 29:17
  that. They'll be able to have intelligent
• 29:20
  one on one conversations with a
• 29:23
  human being like this just that blows my
• 29:27
  mind. I know you can kind of do that at the
• 29:29
  moment with, you know, your Google homes and
• 29:31
  all these, but this is a whole new level.
• 29:33
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
• 29:34
  Andrew Dunkley: And it looks like they're going to roll that
• 29:36
  out in parts of Australia in the not too
• 29:39
  distant future. So, yeah, it's a brave new
• 29:42
  world. Um, just. I hope
• 29:44
  they remember the Three Laws. We better not
• 29:46
  forget that. Yeah.
• 29:48
  Professor Fred Watson: Of robotics.
• 29:49
  Andrew Dunkley: Yes, the three Laws of robotics.
• 29:51
  Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:53
  Andrew Dunkley: But if you want to read about that Storey,
• 29:54
  it's uh, @futura,
• 29:58
  uh-sciences.com about
• 30:00
  the Mayan calendar and their mathematical
• 30:03
  brilliance.
• 30:04
  One quick one to finish off, Fred Watson.
• 30:06
  We're going back to Artemis 2. Uh, we talked
• 30:09
  about uh, not so long ago. Um, not like the
• 30:11
  whole mission and everything they did, but
• 30:13
  the fact that they, the, the astronauts
• 30:16
  on that particular mission were the
• 30:19
  humans that achieved the furthest distance
• 30:21
  from humanity in history because of how
• 30:24
  far 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 record
• 30:32
  that was set that somebody just by chance
• 30:34
  decided to follow up and went oh, hang on a
• 30:36
  minute, I've actually found something. What's
• 30:39
  this one about?
• 30:41
  Professor Fred Watson: Well it goes back to um, one of the
• 30:43
  veteran commentators on space flight and
• 30:46
  satellites. Somebody whose work over the
• 30:49
  decades has been invaluable in telling us
• 30:51
  what the, you know, how crowded space is and
• 30:54
  things like that. His name's Jonathan
• 30:55
  McDowell. He um, is
• 30:58
  always, I think his head is full of
• 31:01
  numbers that ah, relate to spacecraft.
• 31:04
  Uh, but he noted that
• 31:07
  um,
• 31:10
  there is something different
• 31:14
  from what was being widely touted during the
• 31:17
  Artemis mission. And that is that
• 31:20
  the distance between the humans on board
• 31:22
  Artemis and uh, the
• 31:25
  humans on the International Space Station
• 31:28
  was a record for the separation of, of
• 31:31
  humans. And it was actually
• 31:32
  419,581
• 31:35
  kilometres. That's the integrity to
• 31:38
  International Space station distance. Um,
• 31:42
  260,715 and a half
• 31:44
  miles if you want that. But um,
• 31:47
  Jonathan McDowell took a closer
• 31:50
  look at what was in space at the time and
• 31:52
  realised that uh,
• 31:55
  the um,
• 31:58
  Chinese space station
• 32:00
  Tiangong, uh, was further
• 32:03
  away with its three taikonauts on board. In
• 32:06
  fact, um, it's about 62
• 32:09
  kilometres further away at
• 32:11
  419,643
• 32:14
  kilometres. So that's the maximum separation
• 32:17
  of humans. It uh, was between Chinese
• 32:19
  taikonauts on Tiangong and Hume and
• 32:23
  the ah, Artemis crew on board
• 32:26
  Integrity. Uh, it's
• 32:29
  very typical of uh, Jonathan McDowell to
• 32:32
  pull little statistics like this
• 32:35
  out of the air. But um,
• 32:39
  he was interviewed by Space.com uh,
• 32:41
  and um, they asked him lots of questions like
• 32:44
  is this significant, this Artemis 2 record?
• 32:47
  And what he said was, was uh, I think quite
• 32:50
  profound in its own way. I think the
• 32:51
  significance is that it's the beginning of a
• 32:54
  shift from how far from Earth are our
• 32:57
  most distant people to how spread out
• 33:00
  is human Civilization. Um, and he said
• 33:03
  there may come a day when it's Mercury to the
• 33:05
  moons of Saturn, which is true.
• 33:08
  Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. I was going to actually suggest that,
• 33:11
  uh, when we go to Mars, the records will be
• 33:13
  set there. Um, and it'll just
• 33:16
  keep growing. And I'd say In
• 33:19
  the next one or 200 years
• 33:22
  we'll probably have people on Mercury at the
• 33:25
  same time as we have people on Pluto or
• 33:27
  something like that. It's very
• 33:30
  possible. Uh, so the numbers will just keep
• 33:32
  growing.
• 33:33
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
• 33:34
  Andrew Dunkley: And in time to come they'll probably go
• 33:36
  beyond that too. Who knows?
• 33:38
  Professor Fred Watson: One day perhaps, if we don't
• 33:42
  do ourselves a fatal injury before then.
• 33:45
  Yeah, yeah.
• 33:45
  Andrew Dunkley: Like Buster, um, poofu valve, as we're.
• 33:49
  Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
• 33:49
  Andrew Dunkley: Running around the solar system. Yeah. Who
• 33:51
  knows?
• 33:52
  Um, great, Storey, if you'd like to read
• 33:54
  about the statistical separation of human
• 33:56
  beings, it's, uh, as Fred Watson said, It's
• 33:59
  Space.com
• 34:02
  and we're all done. Fred Watson, thank you
• 34:04
  very much.
• 34:05
  Professor Fred Watson: Great pleasure, Andrew. Always good to chat
• 34:07
  over these things. And I, uh, look forward to
• 34:09
  talking about some questions with you at some
• 34:11
  time down the track.
• 34:12
  Andrew Dunkley: I think we'll do that very, very soon.
• 34:14
  Probably sooner than most people think. Uh,
• 34:17
  thanks, Fred Watson. Professor Fred Watson
• 34:18
  Watson, Astronomer at large. Don't forget to
• 34:19
  visit us online while you're on the
• 34:21
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• 34:24
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• 34:27
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• 34:58
  and thanks to Huw in the studio. Funny, uh,
• 35:01
  Storey, he saw us log in so he logged out.
• 35:04
  And from me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your
• 35:06
  company. We'll see you on the next episode of
• 35:08
  Space Nuts.
• 35:09
  Professor Fred Watson: Bye.
• 35:09
  Andrew Dunkley: Bye. You've been listening to
• 35:12
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