Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Uncharted Discoveries, Comet C/2026 A1 & Elon's Solar Pergola | SN604 Q&A

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Uncharted Discoveries, Comet C/2026 A1 & Elon's Solar Pergola | SN604 Q&A · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi there, Thanks for joining us. This is a Q
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: and A edition of Space Nuts. It's where we take
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: questions from the audience, we tear them up, throw them
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: in the bin, and just make up something else. Today
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we are going to answer questions about things yet to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: be discovered.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: That'll be a short conversation.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Finding planets closer to Earth versus distant discoveries. Somebody's a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: bit confused about that. We spoke about comets in the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: last episode. We're going to look at one specifically because
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: we've got a question about comet twenty twenty six A one,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a very very recent discovery.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: And remember when Rusty.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: From Donnie Brooks so long ago suggested that we could
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: cool a planet with a solar pergola. Well, he thinks
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk has the answer and he's going to ask
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: us a question about it on this episode of Space Nuts.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Fifteen second d in Channel ten nine ignition sequence Space
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Nuts NI or three two more red.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: On Space Nuts as when actually bought it.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Neils Good joining us again to try and sort all
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: of that out. Is Professor Fred Wat's an astronomer at large.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I know he loses sleep over the audience questions because
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: he just wants to get them all so right.
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: Hello, Fred, An't true? Yeah, I do like to get
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: them right. You know, it's why people are somebody.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we get challenged, or sometimes we have somebody look
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: something up and say, I think he needed.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: To tell us a bit more. But you know, we
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: do our homework. Sometimes we get back to people. Sometimes
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: takes us a year or two, but we do. We
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: do do it.
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: We're always aiming for adequacy.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Adequacy is key when we talk about space nuts.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Shall we get into some questions for it?
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: Let's do that. I'm just going to turn the lifetime
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: just I'm doing here?
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, I'll just sit here and peruse the question.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: There it is there, we are. Okay.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: I don't know whether that made any difference, but I
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: can actually see what I'm doing now.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: It helps.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, let's start, Hi, Fred Andrew, do you think there
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: are things in the universe that we haven't imagined existing?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: We didn't see exo planets until the nineteen nineties, but
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: we assumed they were there and we were right. But
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: what about things we haven't considered, like an undiscovered element
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: or a planet bigger than its parents star? What else
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: could be out there that comes from South Africa. Actually,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Bailey in Durban. I visited Durban last year. It's it's
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a fascinating place, beautiful beaches.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Lovely.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: On the on the western Indian Ocean. I think you'd say, yeah,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the west coast of the Indian Ocean. Oh it is,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: that's right, or the east coast of Africa, whichever.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. That's what I was with.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was doing the rather than yeah, well that's
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: because I live over here and I was thinking in
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: terms of where it is that's on the western side
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of the Indian Ocean.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: That's that's correct.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: But sorry, Bailey, getting very confusing.
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: But it's a great question, and I mean the answer
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: is yes. Really, you know, even just within the last
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: few months, we've got things that people have not considered before,
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: little red dots galaxies in the early universe that look
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: as though they're too massive for you know, for their age,
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: their young age, because they're can't be more than a
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: couple of hundred million years old, and yet they're they've
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: got very high mass and very concentrated and that didn't
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: really fit the theory. So these sorts of objects, especially
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: as our telescopes get bigger, are going to take us
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: by surprise, and I think you know, the James Web
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: Telescope has certainly done that par excellence. We've come across
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: so many things that were unexpected and had to almost
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: rewrite the textbooks in many cases. And the next big
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: thing in that regard, as I've said many many times
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: before on space nuts, will be the ELT, the extremely
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: large telescope with an aperture much bigger than the James
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: Web telescope at thirty nine meters compared with the six
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: and a half meters of the Web. So we're going
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  Speaker 5: to learn stuff from that that will, I think blow
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: our minds. Could be exactly the kinds of things that
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: you know that Bailey's mentioning exo planets bigger than their parents,
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: styles and things like that. An undiscovered element is less
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: likely because we know kind of what's going on in
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: the elemental world from the periodic table, which doesn't all
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: those The.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Periodic table does purposely have gaps in it for future discovery,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it.
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  Speaker 5: Well, yes, but they're all at the I think you're
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: kind of beyond the elements that would exist in nature.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Right after it's something we might accidentally invent in that kitchen. Yes,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I'll try to aid kitchen sourer nuclear ocy.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Somewhere if you're.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: If you're sour to produce these new elements.
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: So I think you're probably burning it a bit, probably,
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: and you might need to watch for the radiation that's
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: coming from.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: It as well.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, indeed, I beg just sort of doing some
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: AI searchers on things that may one day discover. Gravitons.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: We've talked about gravitons several times. We don't know if
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: they exist, but they might. We've never found one, but
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: it seems to be applausible way of you know, justifying
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the existence of gravity, new states of matter, just a
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: generalization new states of matter.
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  Speaker 5: That's a good that's actually a good one because there
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: are you know, there are subtilties in the states of
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: matter that are still that are still being discovered. That
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  Speaker 5: might be physics that does that there rather than astronomy.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah it maybe maybe black hole stars. There's another one
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: people have often asked us questions about. They haven't actually
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: found one, but they're starting to find evidence that could
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: lead to the possibility of one. Is that a fair point,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: That's that's right, yep. And the other one that comes
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: up a lot white holes, wormholes, cosmic strings, other dimensions,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: multiple universes.
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  Speaker 4: In a sense that.
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  Speaker 5: Things that if there were discovered, they wouldn't surprise us
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: because there's already a theoretical background for them. But the
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: things that I guess that perhaps Bailey's thinking allow, things
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: like the little red dots, which we now know very
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: unusual aggregations of stars in the early universe, which we
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: didn't think existed.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: It might have been what prompted the question, because it's
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: been big in the news lately, and I actually saw
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: another story about it the other day. It's continuing to
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: that's right, Yes, yeah, we still don't really know what
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: they are.
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: Yes, you know, the the latest theory is slowly spinning
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: dark matter halos. They are, I think the latest theory
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: for what what actually makes these compact red galaxies that
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: the Web telescope has been finding in the early universe.
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: That's I think the current theory. That was October last
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: year that I saw a paper on that. So, yes,
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: it's still still still the working progress.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: There you go, Bay, There's still a lot yet to
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: be discovered, and some of it will definitely surprise us
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: down the track, like even In the last episode, we
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: were talking about a comet that reversed its spin.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: No one's ever seen that before.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, that's sort of thing we're talking about.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Great to hear from you. Hope all is well in Durban.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: We've got a great water park there too. By the way,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: to our next question, if we can find planets orbiting
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  Speaker 1: stars in other solar systems hundreds or thousands of light
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  Speaker 1: years away, why can't we find planet nine in our
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: own solar system? I believe that we're not even sure
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  Speaker 1: about how many planets are in the Alpha Centauri system,
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  Speaker 1: which is our closest neighbor. I don't understand how we
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: can't find things close by when we can find things
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: eons away. Please enlighten me. That's from Sarah in Townsville
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  Speaker 1: in North Queensland.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: A great question too, Oh Sarah, thank you for asking
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: that and sending it in.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: And it depends, Look, it depends.
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  Speaker 5: On the technology and the techniques that we're using to
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  Speaker 5: make these measurements. Planet nine is a peculiarly difficult thing
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  Speaker 5: to try and observe because it's going to be faint.
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  Speaker 5: It's going to be for all intents and purposes, just
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  Speaker 5: an ordinary star until you observe it over a fairly
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: lengthy period of time, when you might detect its movement.
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  Speaker 5: It's so far away if it exists. Whereas, and turning
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: to Alpha Centauri, that's another good point. We do know
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: that there are planets in the Alpha Centauri system, but
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: there might be more than we think there are.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think that that I've found.
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  Speaker 1: Guess giants at this point, but they they believe there
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  Speaker 1: are probably rocky planets, but we haven't found them.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 5: And that's a couple of things going on here. One
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  Speaker 5: is that the smaller the planet going around the star,
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: the harder it is to find it. And also it
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: might take a lot longer to find it, because if
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: you've got a planet like the Earth going around a
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: star and you're looking for its signature on the either
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: the light or the velocity of the star, it's got this,
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: you know, three hundred and sixty five year period. So
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: it's something you need to observe over a long period
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: of time. But the other thing I was going to
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: say is that the two main methods for finding planets
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: around other stars are First of all, that what we
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: call the Doppler wobble technique the fact that as a
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: planet goes around a star, the planet pulls the star
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: slightly out of place, and you can actually measure that
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: displacement of the star's light because it turns out that
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: you looking for velocities in the region of a meter
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  Speaker 5: per second.
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  Speaker 4: That's a very low velocity.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: For you know, trying to measure these things by the
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: radiolosome method, spectroscopy the Doppler Doppler effect. So the Doppler
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  Speaker 5: wobble technique is really sensitive to massive planets that pull
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: the star slightly off center more than a smaller planet would.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: And it's also sensitive to massive planets which are close
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: to the star because that they have the biggest impact
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: on the star. So you've got this combination that means
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: that you really need a lot of light to make
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: these measurements. So for the Doppler wobble technique, you've got
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: to have stars that are relatively nearby, i either relatively
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: bright in our skies. But then you might find that
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: we know much more about some systems that are further
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: away because you're measuring goes by what we call the
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: transit technique, where the light of the star dims slightly
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: when the planet passes in front of it, and that
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: actually is more sensitive.
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: First of all, it's more.
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: Sensitive to things further out in a solar system, further
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: away from their parent star. It's sensitive to smaller objects
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: as well, because we can measure brightness much more accurately
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: than we can these tiny radial velocities, these tiny speeds
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: along the line of size.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: There is a downside to that process, though, isn't a
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: transit method, because I think to confirm an exceit planet,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: you've got to see it twice.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Is it all?
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, it has to be.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: And if it's to be seen, if it's all being
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: a star at like once in a thousand years.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Next week, that's right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: In fact, you really want to see it three times
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: because that way you know that it's the same period
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: of the planet going around the star. You'd really like
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: to see it three times so that you can measure
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: the distance between the first two transits and the second
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: two transits, and they should be the same because you
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: look at something in orbous around the star.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: But two is acceptable as well. And what what I
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: was going to.
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: Say was, you can you can look at that, you
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: can make that measurement for objects much much further away. Now,
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: the Alpha Centauri system doesn't lend itself to the transit technique,
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: and so that's why we're not sure about how many
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: planets are. Doesn't lend itself two very lightweight rocky planets either.
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: So it's a great question, and it's got some fairly
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: sensible answers, and really they depend on our abilities to
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: discover different things under different classifications of observing.
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: For example.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's an interesting quirk, isn't it that the
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: closes something is that, let's like who we are to
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: find it in certain circumstances.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Under some circumstances, that's right.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's mostly being near a Generally speaking, something that's
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: nearer is easier to make discoveries from, just because you've
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: got more light to blow with.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, fair enough, Thank you, Sarah. Lovely to hear
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: from you.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I've actually never been to towns Phil, but I'm going
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: to get there one day.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I think furthest north I've ever made, it is, or if.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: You don't count being on a cruise ship is with
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: some days as far north as I've ever been able
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to get. This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Professor Fred Watson. I believe that this nation should commit
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: itself we achieving the goal before this decade is out
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of landing a man on the moon and returning him
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: safely to the europe MUDs. Last episode, Fred, we were
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: talking about comic P forty one, which was doing that
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: weird respinning thing thing it did. It stopped spinning one
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: way and started spinning the other way and very confusing.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: What we're talking about now is a question from Anchorage, Alaska.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Eli has messaged us. I've heard that there has been
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: yet another once in a lifetime comet been discovered and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: will be visible in April. They're even saying we might
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: be able to see this one in daylight. It's called
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: C twenty twenty six A one and is referred to
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: as a sungrazer. What makes this one so special?
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Where will it be visible? Thanks? Eli?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Great question. I did read about this one. I meant
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: to bring it up with you, but Eli's going before me.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's nice when that happens.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: Well, it is a sungrazer, which means it, as its
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: name implies, passes very close to the Sun. Often sungrazers
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: fall to pieces because the gravitational forces that they feel
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: as they pass the Sun that what we call the
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: tidal effects tend to want to pull them up part
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: and so sometimes they just disintegrate and you get lots
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: of little comets that aren't really that interesting. But yes,
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: comet see twenty six A one. It will pass something
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: like one hundred and sixty thousand kilometers from the Sun's surface.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: And it may be that.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: The way the light is being released from the comet,
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: what we call forward scattering, it could make the comet
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: look quite a lot brighter, which is one reason why
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: people are talking about it being a daylight comet. I
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: am very, always, very skeptical when people talk about that,
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: because there's that old story comets are like cats, they
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: have tails and do anything they like. And yes, great,
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: and it's perfectly true as well that you never quite
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: know what a comet is going to do. But some
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: of these, some grazers, have turned out to be to
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: be quite bright. So it gets nearest the Sun in April,
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: and it's probably going to be one that is not
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: that that won't give us that much time to observe it.
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: And I'm saying that because it's got a long, long
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: period of probably something like six thousand years, sorry big band, No, No,
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: not six thousand, about eight hundred years, something of that sort.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: And the fact I've got a figure here that is
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: double that are probably looking at the wrong numbers there.
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: Orbital period something like depends on what part of the
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: orbit you look at. Sixteen hundred and eighty seven years inbound.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: So yes, it's it is an object that's pretty interesting.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: I think if it gets bright and actually starts showing
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: signs of being a very very brightly visible planet, we'll
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: talk about it again.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: But from the moment, I'm always, as.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: I said, I'm always skeptical because you never know what
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: a comic is going to do, and usually they don't
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: know what you want them to do, just like cats.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Just like just like cats.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, remind us again how they name them, because I'm
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: gathering from C twenty twenty.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Six A one.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: This is the first one they've spotted this year.
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: It's it's also got a temporary designation six AC four
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: seven one, which I think is probably the designation for
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: the object category when it was actually discovered.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: But you're right.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: The P prefix on a comet is when it's periodic,
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: and that usually mean it's got a period of less
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: than two hundred years.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: This is not a P. This is a C.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: And it tells you that it's sort of classification. Is
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: a what S stands for? Actually, I know, I know
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: it means we're all cactus. Next time it turns.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: Up, that will be it. Yeah, that'll be it. I
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: think you're right there.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just takes a long long time to come
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: back and say hello.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it may be.
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: I mean it's it's sometimes called the Krouts group comet,
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: but that will make it, okay, rather than the sea,
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: So that can't be what it is.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: No, No, I could try and look it up.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Why do you do that?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, why don't I what does the C
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: stand for? Going to type fast, you give the naming
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: of a comet?
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: Yep, that's the right question. I will see cactus.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: No, it's you're not going to believe this C stands
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: for non periodic.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that it was what I thought, But I couldn't
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: work out where maybe you take.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: The last letter of the word non periodic.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: On the other hand, if you did that, a periodic
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: comet would also be a C.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: So we're not.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Getting they've got they've paanded themselves into a corner.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: Haven't they absolutely God so much for the International Astronomical Union.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what happens when you put bureaucrats
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: in charge. No, they're good people, so it may be
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: up for it. Yeah, look out for it. It may
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: be good to observe. Whether or not it's a visible
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: comment in daylight debatable, but it's definitely on its way.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And yeah, April is the month to keep an eye
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: out for it. Where would be the best place to
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: sit to have a look at it?
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Similar dark?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Anywhere on the planet.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: I don't know what it's what the exact details of
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: its orbit are, so it may well be one that
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: is best seen before dawn or after sunset.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: But it would depend a little bit on what your
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: latitude multitude is.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, best places, best regions, mid southern latitudes, Chile, South Africa,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Australia and New Zealand of the best opportunities.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think we should just stop space nuts and
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: go to where.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: No, no, they've got funny voices, I think.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: So we've got funny voices as well, and the jokes
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: are terrible.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Oh hang on, that's the same.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Oh dear, all right, Eli Thanks for the question and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: hope all is well. And Anchorage a very interesting, remote,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: cold place, but much visited. Lots of tourists go there
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. It's just such a unique destination.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Thanks Eli, I barlam Mount.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: If I'm promand piece notutes.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Our final question comes from a regular.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I don't like to give him too many bites of
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the cherry, but he's just come up with something that
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I could not avoid based on previous theories that he's
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: come up with. Rusty from donny Brook, he says, Elon's
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: one million satellite power station.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Hi, Fred Andrew.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Just looking at the environmental impacts of these power stations,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: about a quarter of these will shade the earth at
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: any one time. Each will have about an acre four
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: thousand square meters of solar collectors. I don't know what
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the next bit means. The iss is two and a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: half thousand square meter. He will use about twenty efficient
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: cells and there will be about ten percent loss in
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: conversion of light energy. If the undersides are black for
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: astronomical purposes, then we have an eight hundred square kilometer
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: array of solar for our solar pergola. Elon will kill
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: two birds with one or one million stones, data center,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: power and global warming. I cautioned that if he doubles
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the size, it will create a cooler environment than we want.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Cheers Rusty from Donnybrook. You won't give up on his
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: solar pagola. He came up with the idea I don't know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago and pitched it and we
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: we basically kaibo washed it. But now it could Elon
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: have accidentally created one.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: I don't know, I am. I checked what's available about
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: the spacecraft design for these proposed one million satellites that
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: SpaceX is proposing to act as an orbiting data center,
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: and I couldn't find any dimensions for the solar panels.
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: An acre or four thousand square meters sounds very big
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: to me, and a large, a large amount of real
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: estate that I am not sure is I mean, I
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: suspect Donnie, Sorry, Rusty's not Donnie of Rusty Brook, but
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: Rusty of Donnybrook.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Like that?
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that, I mean, Rusty might have done the calculations
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: as to what's needed, but so far I haven't seen
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: any any details of the individual spacecraft. In fact, they
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: may not exist. But an acre for each one sounds
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: like a lot of real estate for a million satellites,
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: and I suspect it's not going to be anything like
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: as big as that. Well, I think the solar pagola
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: idea will once again be shelved, as it has done
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: many times before.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe based on recent reports regarding SpaceX's proposed orbital
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: data center plans, the solar panel infrastructure of these satellites
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: is projected to be massive, with some proposed structures stretching
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: to four by four kilometers in size.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: Well, if you do that, you're it kind of it
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: marks the end of astronomy. Really, Yeah, I can't be
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: four by four kilometers, not maybe not all of them,
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: but some of them.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: It's is.
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting, I don't I don't even know
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: that we have the wherewith auto manufactures all the collectors
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: of that sort of size.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you'd have more like putting a pie
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: in this guy. I reckon.
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: The current state of that venture is that it's gone
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: to the Federal Communications Commission, and I will be interested
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: to see whether they approve it, because eventually it's got
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: to go to the International Telecommunications Union and they will
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: probably freak out a bit because they are Whilst they
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: are kind of mandated to issue launch permits to anybody
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: who can demonstrate the likelihood of being able to put
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: their spacecraft into orbit, I think this one might actually
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: cause them to swallow a little bit deeply. Although they
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: did tick off on the three hundred thousand spacecraft of
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: the Ruandan government's proposal back in twenty twenty, I think
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: that I think that will lapse let next year. I
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: think it's a seven year period that you've gone when
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: you put in a filing to the International Telecommunications Union.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: I think you've got seven years and if you don't
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: launch anything before that, then you basically lose the slot.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, I believe so, and it may well be that
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: that's what's going to happen in this case. Although Elon
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: tends to have, you know, the cash to back his ideas,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and he certainly followed through on a lot of them
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and they've been very, very successful. So yeah, one wonders
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: where this will end up.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: But are they really going to approve.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: That kind of infrastructure in allbit if it's going to
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: cause so many problems for so many other people, especially
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: space sence.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: The first Yes, that's a good question. We kind of
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: hope that common sense prevails. Another of the problems, of course,
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: and this is already being noticed by Starlink more or
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: less one Starlink spacecraft a day that no re enters
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: because they only have a five year lifetime, and we're
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: already starting to see pollutants in the upper atmosphere that
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: come from the spacecraft burning up.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: I was in a meeting last week that I heard
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: one of my colleagues. It's a meeting actually in Vienna,
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: and I was just dialing into it, but one of
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: my colleagues was based in the UK, had a throwaway
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: line which was that Musk is going to put the
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: defunct Data Center spacecraft into a Solar System orbit rather
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: than basically bring them back into the atmosphere to avoid
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: that problem. But I'm not I don't know whether that's true.
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: I haven't found any references to that online, and it
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: would mean to do that you need effectively an awful
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: lot of rocket power on each spacecraft. Much more, yeah,
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: much more to get to get rid of a spacecraft
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: that way, to put it into orbit around the Sun,
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: than it does to put it back into the atmosphere.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: So all of these are questions that I think will
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: be raised by by you know, anybody who's really interested
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: in this stuff, and that includes Space Nuts well Rusty
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: at least un rusty.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: Well, Rusty is a space not.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: He certainly is. Yes, good question, though, love it. Keep
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: working on it, Rusty. I'm sure you'll come up with
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: another sold of Pagola theory in the not too distant future.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Good to hear from you, and good to hear from
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: everybody who said us in questions. If you've got questions
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: for us, we'd love to get them. Just go to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: our website, Space Nuts podcast dot com, space Nuts dot io,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: click on the AMA button at the top, the link
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: that says ask me anything basically, and that's what you do,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and don't forget to tell us who you are away
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: from text and audio questions, most welcome, and have a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: look around while you're there. Don't forget to visit our
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: social media pages as well.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Fred, we're done. Thank you very much.
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: It's a pleasure, Andrew. It's always good to.
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: Be done, and sometimes it's good to be undone as well.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well that's getting a bit too personal, but anyway,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: we'll carry on.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Thanks free, I'll see you later.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: See the time.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Professor freed Wartson, astronomer at large and thanks to here
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: in the studio who couldn't be with us today. He
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: was looking into Bailey's question about things that are yet
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: to be discovered, and he realized that nobody knew he existed.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: From me Andrew Duncley. Thanks for your company. We'll see
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: you on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye, sus.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast player.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: You can also stream on demand at bites dot com.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.