Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / Little Red Dots, Astronomer Royal & Life on Mars

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Little Red Dots, Astronomer Royal & Life on Mars · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another episode of Space
0:03
Nuts, the podcast that is out
0:06
of this world. And I am your host for
0:09
this show. My name is Heidi Campo. I'm
0:12
filling in for Andrew Dunkley.
0:14
Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
0:16
10, 9. Ignition
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sequence start.
0:20
Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
0:21
Generic: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
0:24
5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Space
0:26
nuts astronauts report it feels good.
0:30
Heidi Campo: And joining us today, matching we are
0:33
both in black turtlenecks in case you guys
0:35
are wondering, but is the uh,
0:37
wonderful professor Fred Watson, astronomer
0:40
at large. How are you doing today, Fred?
0:43
Professor Fred Watson: I'm very good. I'm uh, basking in
0:46
my black turtleneck. Yeah, it's, it's kind of
0:48
my preferred um, garment is this,
0:51
um, because it is so easy to put
0:54
them off and take them off, no ironing.
0:57
But they kind of get a bit too
1:00
cozy when summer comes. So I have to
1:03
shed my turtlenecks in some Sorry
1:05
turtlenecks in summertime,
1:09
uh, and go back to more conventional attire.
1:11
So anyway, let's um, let's
1:13
um, relish uh, the thought that we're
1:16
both from the same garment. So keep going.
1:19
Heidi Campo: Well, something that is uh, not a black
1:21
turtleneck but is the black of space
1:25
can roll into our first story of the day.
1:28
And we do have a lot of really good stories
1:30
for you today. If you're new joining us, we
1:33
have two episodes every week. One of them is
1:35
the wonderful Fred tells, uh, us all
1:38
about the amazing new science that's
1:40
happening in space. A lot of discoveries,
1:42
there's amazing things happening all the
1:44
time. And Fred tells us all about it. And
1:47
then the other episode that we do every week
1:49
as the listener questions. So you can write
1:51
in your own question questions and Fred will
1:53
answer them. And so yes, the black
1:56
of space is what we are starting off with.
1:59
And not just the black of space, but what's
2:01
in it. And there's a mystery. Our first story
2:04
is talking about the little red dots. And
2:07
this mystery might finally be
2:10
solved.
2:13
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, this is, it's a great story because
2:15
it's got lots of twists and turns. Um, and
2:18
one of the things I really like about it is
2:20
that one of the co authors of this story
2:24
is professor, ah, Avi Loeb,
2:27
um, who is the uh,
2:30
well, basically director of Harvard
2:32
Smithsonian uh, Center for Astrophysics.
2:35
His name usually crops up. Heidi, as you
2:38
will remember, uh, in
2:40
contexts like uh,
2:43
speculating that interstellar
2:46
comets and asteroids are uh, in fact
2:49
uh, essentially alien spaceships,
2:52
he opens our mind to these
2:54
issues. Um, and uh,
2:57
clearly a man with an extremely
3:00
fertile mind. Uh, because this is
3:03
one of the stories that is about a puzzle
3:06
in the early universe. And sure enough,
3:09
uh, R.V. loeb is one of the, uh, one
3:12
of the, basically one of the co authors.
3:15
Uh, so um, we have a uh,
3:17
situation where the James Webb
3:20
telescope has revealed a large number
3:23
of uh, what astronomers call little red
3:26
dots. Uh and they are,
3:29
they're galaxies. Uh,
3:32
but they are and we're seeing them so
3:35
far back in time because of the
3:38
look back time. The James Webb is capable of
3:40
looking back something like 12 billion
3:43
years, uh, almost to the dark
3:46
ages before the first galaxies existed. Um,
3:49
and so these red dots appear red. Uh, that's
3:51
partly because they're red shifted the light
3:54
of them has been traveling for so long that
3:56
the expansion of the universe has stretched
3:58
the light waves and turned them from
4:00
brilliant white into red. Uh,
4:03
because of the. Yes, because of the redshift
4:05
and the expansion of the universe. So um,
4:09
uh, the galaxies we're talking about actually
4:12
do date from that period, perhaps 12.8 or
4:15
thereabouts billion years ago when the
4:18
universe itself was still in its infancy.
4:21
Uh, and they're tiny, they're small, which is
4:23
why they're called little red dots. But
4:26
the curious thing about them is that
4:29
they are unusually bright. Uh,
4:33
they're very faint because we see them so far
4:35
away. But intrinsically they are
4:39
unusually uh, bright. And
4:42
uh, that is a problem
4:45
for the astronomers who
4:48
observe them. Uh, why are they
4:51
brighter than you'd expect? Uh,
4:54
well. And why are they red? Uh, one of the
4:56
suggestions is it's more than
4:59
just the redshift that they might be
5:03
shrouded in dust. That's one possibility
5:06
because as light passes through dust it gets
5:08
reddened. Uh and that could
5:11
account for that. But because they're
5:14
bright, uh, it suggests that they're not
5:17
shrouded in dust. There must be some other
5:19
reason. Um, and
5:22
you know, uh,
5:25
uh, there's several other conundrums
5:28
uh, that relate to this issue.
5:31
Uh, and so what these authors have
5:34
done is looked at
5:37
um, perhaps the way that galaxies form in
5:40
the first place. And we believe that this,
5:43
the early universe had a kind of
5:46
scaffolding, uh if you can put it that
5:49
way, of dark matter, the
5:51
mysterious stuff that we cannot detect other
5:54
than by its gravitational pull. Uh, we call
5:56
that the cosmic web, this scaffolding. Uh,
5:59
and we think it's where galaxies form because
6:02
the dark matter itself had this almost
6:04
foam like structure. Um, and the dark
6:07
matter acted as a kind of kernel, a
6:10
seed for the, the hydrogen of the
6:13
universe because that's what the universe was
6:15
mostly made of back then, apart from dark
6:17
matter, the hydrogen of the universe, um,
6:20
sort of congealed, if I can put it that way,
6:22
gravitationally along these, uh, structural
6:25
lines in the cosmic web. Uh,
6:27
and uh, basically that's how the galaxies
6:30
formed. But what they're suggesting
6:33
is that, um, the
6:35
galaxies formed within what we call dark
6:38
matter halos, the halo around
6:41
a galaxy. That is the dark matter structure.
6:44
And those halos may well have been
6:47
rotating. And it turns out
6:50
that if you, uh, form a galaxy
6:53
inside a rotating
6:55
halo that is spinning relatively
6:58
slowly, what it does is
7:01
it compresses everything in
7:04
the middle. The, the um, press
7:07
release that I've read actually draws the
7:09
analogy, uh, sorry, analogy of
7:12
a fairground swing ride where you've got a,
7:16
you know, a fairground roundabout
7:19
carousel, uh, with chairs on
7:22
it that swing outwards as the carousel
7:24
rotates. Uh, the faster it goes, the more
7:27
the, uh, carousel chairs swing outwards.
7:30
And so what they're saying is if you've got
7:32
a, you know, the uh, analogy is that if
7:35
you've got spinning halo, then
7:38
the faster it spins, the more space
7:41
you've got for the stars to form within it.
7:44
But the slower it spins, uh, the
7:47
less in the, you know, the carousel, uh,
7:50
analog. The, um,
7:53
chairs are inwards. And for the
7:56
story of the dark matter halos, it means that
7:59
the slower they spin, the more compressed the
8:02
region of space within them is. And
8:05
so it takes the. It keeps the
8:07
stars much more closely tied up
8:10
together, the stars that are forming within
8:12
the galaxy. And that is what they
8:15
say is a possible mechanism for
8:18
giving you these really compact little red
8:21
dots. Um, I'll quote from
8:24
this. Uh, the researchers discovered that the
8:26
little red dots likely formed in dark matter
8:29
halos. Spinning so slowly, they
8:31
represent less than 1% of all halos in
8:34
the universe. Their slow spin
8:37
halos would naturally create extremely
8:40
compact galaxies. In a hypothesis that
8:43
elegantly explains several mysteries about
8:46
the little red dots, and I'm quoting there
8:48
from Mark Thompson's article in
8:50
Universe Today. Um,
8:53
so, yes, uh, it looks as though these
8:56
little red dots that have so far been one of
8:59
the big mysteries, uh, uncovered by the James
9:01
Webb Space Telescope. It looks as though, uh,
9:04
here's a step, uh, in the right direction to
9:07
try and prove, uh, uh,
9:10
what the reason for this is that they are,
9:13
um, as the same article
9:16
describes, wonderful natural time capsules.
9:20
And perhaps, uh, there's a possibility that
9:23
they might tell us more as we study them in
9:25
greater detail. They might tell us more about
9:27
this time in the universe when the first
9:30
galaxies were forming. Uh,
9:33
the end of what we call the Dark Ages. Really
9:36
interesting time that we don't really
9:38
understand all that well at present. So
9:41
I, uh, think it's a step in the right
9:42
direction, Heidi.
9:44
Heidi Campo: Yeah, but I mean, well, that's why I love
9:45
James Webb Telescope. It's really, you
9:48
know, it's such a feat of engineering and
9:51
it's discovering. Like, I feel like
9:54
every, almost every week we could have a
9:56
story with James Webb and going on with it,
9:59
and that's really, really
10:02
remarkable.
10:07
Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
10:08
Heidi Campo: And speaking of remarkable, there has been,
10:11
um, another, Another amazing story
10:15
about, um, kind of a breakthrough.
10:18
But before we say that, I, uh,
10:20
forgot to make a very special announcement.
10:23
And Fred knows what it is, Andrew knows what
10:26
it is, Huw knows what it is. But do you
10:29
guys know that because of you,
10:32
we have been ranked the seventh
10:36
astronomy podcast? And Fred,
10:39
that was worldwide.
10:41
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. It's um, in the top 50.
10:44
So we're number seven in the top 50 of
10:47
astronomy podcasts. Yeah, I'd forgotten that.
10:50
Heidi Campo: I know I should have said it first thing. Um,
10:53
so I just, I was thinking of amazing,
10:55
incredible things and I was like, we should
10:56
bring that up. So thank you so much, so much
10:58
everybody for listening and telling your
11:01
friends and telling your co workers and
11:03
telling your pets and dogs and your in laws
11:05
to listen to the nuttiest
11:08
space podcast that there is. So
11:11
thank you guys, really, we really appreciate
11:13
that. We should do, um, maybe Fred, we should
11:16
do like a special listener episode where we,
11:19
I don't know, maybe just we jazz it
11:22
up a little bit as a little thank you to
11:24
everyone for putting us on that list.
11:26
But our next story is also an incredible
11:29
breakthrough. Um, for the very, very
11:32
first time ever, we have the first
11:35
female Astronomer Royal. And that is
11:38
Michelle Docherty. And that
11:41
is quite the accomplishment.
11:44
Professor Fred Watson: Oh yes, it's a great story. Um,
11:47
um, and congratulations to Michelle Doherty,
11:50
um, uh, a, uh, scientist
11:53
of great note. Um, she
11:55
is somebody who has made,
11:59
uh, basically astronomical, uh, advances
12:01
across quite a large number of fields
12:04
of study. She's um, actually
12:07
principally, um, a planetary scientist
12:10
and works on some of the NASA
12:13
spacecraft missions, uh, and is
12:16
very interested in going back to Saturn,
12:19
uh, with robotic spacecraft. She was, um,
12:22
principal, uh, investigator for the
12:25
magnetometer, which was on the Cassini
12:27
mission, which I always think is one of the
12:30
most accomplished, uh,
12:33
um, remote, uh, sensing missions
12:36
ever mounted. Uh, NASA and
12:39
ESA combined on that, uh, mission. Sadly,
12:42
2017 marked the end of it. But we learned so
12:44
much about the planet Saturn, uh, and its
12:47
moons and its rings, uh, that we're still
12:50
analyzing the data. And Michelle is also
12:53
principal Investigator of the magnetometer
12:56
instrument for the JUICE mission, the
12:58
European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons
13:01
Explorer.
13:02
So lots of um, amazing
13:04
accolades uh, for Michelle, Uh,
13:07
um, just to put her achievement
13:10
in context, um, she is the 16th
13:13
Astronomer Royal in the United Kingdom.
13:17
Uh, this is a post that ah had its first
13:19
astronomer royal in 1675 when John
13:22
Flamsteed was appointed by King Charles
13:25
II was the astronomer Royal who was going to
13:27
sort out the problem of longitude which was
13:29
that then the big issue. And he did,
13:32
he did quite a good job with it. There's lots
13:35
of stories about Flamsteed, but since then
13:37
There have been 16 Astronomers Royal.
13:41
Um, until 1972 the
13:44
Astronomy Royal was also the
13:47
uh, director of the Royal Observatory at
13:50
Greenwich and that was founded by
13:52
Charles II in 1675. Uh, I
13:55
worked there twice in fact. Um,
13:58
uh it was at a little tiny
14:01
village called Hersmondsu in Sussex. It had
14:04
moved away from Greenwich which is a suburb
14:07
of the city of London. No chance of doing
14:09
astronomical observations there. They moved
14:11
to Sussex after the Second World War. I
14:14
worked there for a while in the early 70s, uh
14:16
and then I went back there in the ninet work
14:19
uh when, by which time it had moved to
14:21
Cambridge, uh in eastern England.
14:23
Um but until 1972 the director was also
14:26
the Astronomer Royal. After 1972 the
14:29
two positions were separated. The Director of
14:32
the Royal Observatory was not necessarily the
14:34
Astronomer Royal. Uh the most recent
14:37
Astronomer Royal and the person who Michel
14:39
succeeds is um, well he
14:42
was Sir Martin Rees. He's now Lord Rees of
14:44
the Ludlow, um, uh,
14:47
gentleman, uh, based in Cambridge. Uh,
14:50
I've met him a number of times. Uh, you
14:52
certainly wouldn't remember me but I've come
14:54
across him in my career. Uh,
14:57
he uh, has been a strong royal for basically
15:00
30 years since 1995, uh and
15:03
has now stepped down and replace. And his
15:06
replacement is the first, as you said, the
15:08
first female Astronomer Royal in its more
15:11
than 300 year history. Um,
15:15
uh, north of the border between England and
15:18
Scotland, uh, however they are
15:21
ahead of the game because uh, Scotland also
15:24
has an Astronomer Royal.
15:25
Heidi Campo: Oh, okay.
15:26
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, uh, known as the
15:29
Astronomer Royal for Scotland. In fact one of
15:31
them, uh, I think he's two astronomers
15:34
Royal Ago was my PhD supervisor
15:38
Professor Malcolm Longhouse. I had an
15:40
Astronomer Royal um for my
15:42
supervisor. It was a terrifying experience
15:45
I can tell you, uh, Heidi, uh, because
15:48
his brain was the size of a planet and mine
15:51
wasn't. But anyway that's all right. We got
15:52
him Fine. He's still going strong. He's in
15:54
Cambridge now, no longer Astronomer Royal.
15:57
But, um, has he helped shape you.
15:59
Heidi Campo: Into the Titan that you are today?
16:01
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, that's a very nice way of putting it. And
16:03
I'll take that and wear it with pride. Thank
16:05
you very much, Heidi. But,
16:08
um, the current
16:10
astronomer for Scotland is Catherine
16:13
Hayman's, uh, and she's been a strong
16:16
moral for Scotland for, I think about
16:19
four years now. So Scotland was in
16:21
the lead, uh, when it came to female
16:23
Astronomers Royal. The other reason,
16:27
um, that I love this story is because,
16:30
um, when I was at school still,
16:33
I aspired to be the Astronomer Royal.
16:37
And it didn't happen. It didn't happen. But
16:40
there was a kind of equivalent in
16:43
Australia for a few years, the astronomer
16:46
at large. And that was me. That is the job I
16:49
held until the end of last year. So it was a
16:52
sort of quasi Astronomer Royal that I finally
16:54
got to. But not the Astronomer Royal as such.
16:57
But, um, it's very nice. I had quite a lot to
17:00
do with Catherine Heyman's, uh, the
17:02
Astronomer Royal to Scotland. We've
17:04
communicated quite a bit. She gave a
17:06
fantastic lecture for us a few years ago on
17:08
online during COVID Um, and so, um,
17:11
yes, the idea of an Astronomer Royal and a
17:14
new one, uh, is great, and I
17:17
think it's brilliant news all around. Maybe,
17:20
Heidi, one day you could aspire to be the
17:22
Astronomer Royal. I'm not sure whether you
17:24
have to be a British citizen anymore.
17:26
Heidi Campo: Uh, I think. Well, right now we're thinking
17:29
about having a double Master's degree. So
17:31
I'll just. I'll take these, uh, things one at
17:34
one at a time.
17:35
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, good on you. That's great too. Great
17:38
stuff.
17:38
Heidi Campo: Just a lot of work.
17:44
Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
17:45
Heidi Campo: But, um, I, I have no clever segue for our
17:48
next story. So I'll just start telling you
17:50
guys about it. And it is quite
17:53
exciting. I know everyone gets, um,
17:56
pretty excited. I know I certainly do when we
17:58
talk about the possibility of the life
18:01
on other planets. But, um, signs
18:04
of life on Mars can be
18:07
detected using this new test
18:10
that Fred is going to tell us all about.
18:14
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, this, um, is
18:17
a really interesting story. I mean, you know,
18:20
this is on the topic basically of
18:22
biomarkers, uh, which we've talked about
18:25
before. And biomarkers are things that tell
18:28
you that there are life processes going on.
18:31
Uh, and so, for example,
18:34
um, when we look, uh, at the atmospheres
18:37
of planets around other stars,
18:39
extrasolar planets or exoplanets, uh, we
18:42
look for chemicals in the atmosphere that
18:44
Might be only produced by living organisms.
18:47
Um, um. And you
18:50
know, if you find that and you sure it can
18:53
only be produced by living organisms, then
18:55
it's a sign of life, it's a biomarker. It's
18:58
very controversial as we've
19:00
discussed, because there's uh, you
19:03
know, there's always a question as
19:06
to whether there could be a purely chemical
19:08
origin for life in the
19:10
atmosphere, for these chemicals in the
19:13
atmosphere of another planet. That's an aside
19:15
here, uh, because what we're talking about
19:17
now is how you might analyze,
19:20
uh, the um, structures
19:23
of molecules, uh, that you
19:26
find not in the atmospheres of, of
19:28
exoplanets, but on the surface of a planet
19:30
like Mars. And it turns out,
19:33
uh, that some work that's again been done in
19:35
the United Kingdom. Um, there is
19:38
uh, an instrument which is commonly
19:41
used on Mars rovers. In fact, I
19:44
think every Mars rover, uh, since
19:47
the Viking landers or every
19:50
Mars lander since the Viking landers have had
19:52
one of these things. It's called a gas
19:54
chromatograph Mass Spectrometer,
19:56
usually abbreviated to uh,
19:58
gcms. Gas chromatograph
20:01
Mass Spectrometer. It's a lot easier to say
20:04
gcms, they've uh, all got one of these
20:06
things. Um, but
20:09
um, the suggestion that's come from Imperial
20:11
College in London is that
20:15
we're missing a trick that there is
20:18
something within living organisms
20:21
that people haven't really thought of, but
20:24
that it could be detected by this GC
20:26
Ms. Uh, and um, what it
20:29
is, uh, it's a chemical bond
20:33
within the
20:35
molecules of cell membranes. Living
20:38
cell membranes, which I think, uh, are made
20:40
of lipids and things of that sort. I'm not a
20:43
biologist, so I'm always groping around
20:46
here. But the membranes of living
20:49
cells have these molecules within them
20:52
that apparently give a signal
20:56
when analyzed by the gcms.
20:58
Heidi Campo: Oh, wow.
21:00
Professor Fred Watson: That, that dies away when these
21:03
creatures are no longer alive. Uh,
21:06
so the signal disappears after an
21:08
organism has died. The, it's the chemical
21:11
bonds that the, the GCMS is
21:14
detecting. And those bonds are ah,
21:17
actually um, they, they
21:19
disintegrate, uh, on death. Uh,
21:22
they're called, um. The bonds themselves are
21:24
called, uh. Well, the molecules in which
21:27
these bonds are found are called intact polar
21:30
lipids or IPLs. Uh, and
21:32
IPLs show up uh, when they're
21:35
analyzed by one of these GCs, GCMS
21:38
instruments. Uh, but they disappear
21:41
when that um, m.
21:43
Microorganism dies. So here you've got
21:46
a really cluey and pretty
21:49
neat test for um,
21:52
you know, for Living organisms that could
21:54
actually be deployed now because they're
21:57
on Mars already. Uh, I don't
22:00
know whether, um, this paper has
22:03
basically set all the NASA mission
22:05
scientists who are looking after Curiosity
22:08
and perseverance, uh, into a,
22:11
you know, into a panic of making sure that
22:14
they use these instruments to analyze the
22:16
molecules that they've already got. They've
22:18
got samples of uh, the rocks
22:21
and it could be that there might be living
22:23
microbes within those rocks that could be
22:25
detected by this. So my counsel
22:28
is watch this space. Uh, the,
22:31
uh, science paper is uh,
22:34
entitled uh, Intact Polar Lipids as
22:37
Organic Biomarkers of Viable
22:39
Extraterrestrial Life. And it's in uh, the
22:42
journal called Space Exploration. That's the
22:44
place to find it. It's a, uh, really
22:46
interesting idea. And who knows where it
22:49
might lead, Heidi?
22:50
Heidi Campo: Who knows indeed. But one thing
22:53
we do know is that
22:56
Musk's mega rockets
22:59
keep exploding. This is
23:02
the one thing. He's such a
23:05
Musk. And SpaceX, whether you love
23:08
him, whether you hate him, is an interesting
23:10
character on the board and
23:13
they keep pushing the envelope. But
23:16
uh, there's these new tests that Fred's gonna
23:19
tell us about.
23:20
Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's right. In fact, um, by the time
23:23
uh, this episode goes to air, it might
23:25
already have happened. But this is the 10th
23:27
launch of the starship. Uh,
23:30
and I think, um. Well, you,
23:33
you know, I'm not going to go through the
23:34
catalog, but they've, they've been less than
23:37
successful, some of them. The first, I think
23:40
the first one was brilliant because the
23:42
uh, it demonstrated that the booster, which
23:45
is the Falcon super heavy booster, uh, could
23:48
be captured by this,
23:50
um, uh, it's called a
23:53
chopstick mechanism. I think it's like a pair
23:55
of chopsticks sticking out from a tower which
23:57
catches hold of the, the, the vehicle as it
24:00
lands. That was dramatic.
24:02
Heidi Campo: I think that's, it's unbelievable. I think
24:04
that's almost, almost like Nobel Prize
24:06
worthy. Like that is, I think one of the best
24:08
feats of engineering in this.
24:10
Professor Fred Watson: Yep.
24:11
Heidi Campo: In this decade for sure.
24:13
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. In, in an era where we've just got used
24:15
to the boosters returning. And that's because
24:18
Musk pioneered that with SpaceX back in
24:20
2015. I think the first, uh,
24:22
successful booster landing took place the
24:25
first time ever. Uh, but yeah, this
24:27
gigantic thing, you know, it's a huge, huge
24:30
rocket. The whole thing stands much taller
24:32
than a Saturn V from the Apollo era.
24:35
Um, but the booster itself is a good part of
24:37
that. And that has seems to,
24:40
they seem to have that kind of reasonably
24:42
well under control. But it's the starship
24:44
itself, the thing that rides on top of that,
24:48
uh, which has kept exploding. Uh, and
24:51
um, or what's it called, It's a rapid
24:53
unscheduled disintegration. Uh,
24:56
rapid unscheduled disassembly.
24:58
Heidi Campo: That's the, uh, controversial view. I think
25:01
it's kind of cheeky though. It's, you know,
25:04
it's a little optimistic. It's a little
25:05
cheeky. It's like, hey, you know what? We're
25:07
going to keep working on it.
25:09
Professor Fred Watson: You gotta, you gotta, you can afford to do
25:10
that.
25:11
Heidi Campo: He can't afford.
25:11
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, you do. But it, but his whole ethos
25:14
is, uh, you know, try test fast
25:17
and learn fast. Uh, and um, you
25:20
know, so it, and you can do that
25:23
without all the protocols that would have to
25:25
be in place if this was NASA, uh, actually
25:28
running this rather than a private company.
25:30
So, um, hats off to Musk for
25:33
number 10 in this sequence of launches.
25:36
Um, um, by the time this goes to air, ah, we
25:38
might know what has happened. We don't at the
25:40
moment, but we look forward to the event
25:42
with great interest.
25:44
Heidi Campo: Well, I'm hoping it's successful, um,
25:47
for all the engineers sake, for everyone on
25:49
that team. I. It's got to be so heartbreaking
25:52
to pour your heart and soul into a project
25:54
and just not only to have it blow up,
25:57
it blows up on TV and then everyone writes an
25:59
article about it. It's like, oh man, it's
26:01
like if I get a bad grade, nobody knows. But
26:04
if they make a mistake, it's a dramatic
26:07
explosion in the air that everyone in the
26:10
world has their eyes on. So I hope it goes
26:12
well. Um, thoughts and prayers to the,
26:15
uh, science team, the engineering team, and
26:17
hoping for their success.
26:20
Professor Fred Watson: Yep. Uh, hear, hear. I'll,
26:23
I'll agree with that. For all the same
26:25
reasons. It's one thing that we want to see
26:28
succeeding. In fact, starship itself is an
26:31
integral part of the Artemis mission, uh,
26:34
because the starship, you know, the
26:36
crew, um, component of that is
26:39
what is going to take astronauts down to the
26:42
lunar surface by 2027. So
26:45
they've got to get it right within the next
26:46
couple of years.
26:48
Heidi Campo: What do you think? Do you think we stick with
26:50
2027 or do you think it's going to get pushed
26:52
out? I think it's going to get
26:55
pushed out. I, I want to believe, but
26:58
the, uh, it's like one of those old Magic 8
27:00
balls. It's like, signs don't look good.
27:04
Um, I've Had a little bit more of experience
27:06
now working adjacent to NASA. I do not. I
27:09
want to be clear on air that I don't work at
27:11
NASA, but I work in partnership with them
27:13
with some of my graduate assistant work. Um,
27:16
but it's really just. And like you said,
27:18
Fred, it's. It's the loopholes. Or not the
27:21
loopholes, it's the, um, hoops that you have
27:22
to jump through. There's so much. There's a
27:24
lot of red tape. There's so many layers
27:27
of safety that NASA has to go through that
27:30
just makes them run a little bit slower. So
27:32
it's. Yeah, things aren't happening as fast
27:35
as the public would want. Um, they're not
27:38
pumping out progress the same way Disney's
27:40
pumping out Marvel movies.
27:42
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right.
27:44
Heidi Campo: Well, this has been a great episode. We got
27:46
through four whole articles. A, uh, big thank
27:48
you to our listeners and uh, some speculation
27:51
of the future. So we were quite efficient in
27:53
our use of time today.
27:56
Professor Fred Watson: That's why we're number seven.
27:58
Heidi Campo: That's it right there. Best podcast out
28:01
there. Tell your friends.
28:03
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, absolutely.
28:04
Heidi Campo: Well, everybody, thank you so much for
28:06
listening to the Number six seven
28:09
podcast. Uh, number seven
28:12
astronomy podcast. Wow. If we were the number
28:14
seven podcast, you probably see a
28:16
fancier background, uh, and headset.
28:20
Um, but no, thank you so much to our
28:22
listeners. You guys really are fantastic. And
28:24
please keep writing in your questions. Do
28:27
audio questions. Um, we really want to hear
28:30
from you. You guys are half the show.
28:33
Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. And uh, some might
28:36
say the best half of the show.
28:38
Heidi Campo: All right, everybody, well, we'll catch you
28:40
next time for that very, very, uh, own
28:42
Q and A episode. Till next time, have a
28:45
great space, space
28:48
exploration discovery
28:51
and see you next time.
28:53
Andrew Dunkley: Hello Heidi. Hello Fred. Hello, Huw. In
28:56
the studio.
28:56
Andrew, again with another world cruise
28:59
update from the Crown Princess. Since I spoke
29:02
to you last, we have, uh, done some
29:05
amazing stuff. Uh, we visited Iceland and
29:08
Greenland. Um, yeah,
29:11
fantastic. Iceland was amazing. Uh, we did
29:14
a day trip out to a, um, a
29:17
place where the European
29:19
Euro, uh, the. Now let me think if I can
29:22
get this right. The Euro
29:25
Asian tectonic plate
29:28
crashes into the American tectonic plate
29:31
and there's actually a rift valley right
29:34
there that you can literally walk along
29:37
in one part and see how
29:39
the, uh, the European side's been thrust
29:42
upwards. Uh, the American plate goes down
29:45
underneath and they do have earthquakes
29:48
there semi regularly, but, uh, thankfully not
29:50
while we were there. But what an amazing,
29:52
amazing site. Saw some
29:54
incredible sites in Iceland. I was actually
29:57
quite surprised how green it Was. I didn't. I
30:00
was expecting just rock and, and
30:02
volcanic outcrops and I'm sure that's there.
30:05
But where we went was actually green. They
30:07
were, there were, there were farms, there
30:09
were paddocks, there were horses and sheep
30:11
grazing. Um, not at all
30:14
what I expected but uh, fantastic day and
30:17
we were there for the uh, pretty Pride
30:19
Festival in Reykjavik. So we, we hang around,
30:22
hung around the city for a little while after
30:24
our tour and just absorbed the atmosphere.
30:26
Quite, quite amazing. Just thousands upon
30:29
thousands of people. They reckon there were
30:30
about a hundred thousand people there the day
30:32
we were there and our, our ship was in port
30:34
so we added a few thousand to the mix. Uh,
30:37
that was Iceland. Loved uh, it. Then we
30:39
trotted across to Greenland and
30:43
uh, our ah, captain decided at the last
30:44
minute to take us on a little uh, tour
30:48
up um, up the uh,
30:51
uh um sound known as
30:53
Prince Christiansund.
30:56
And it um, was a day of
30:59
just cruising up the sound looking
31:02
at uh, multiple glaciers up close,
31:05
icebergs everywhere, just this
31:07
beautiful untouched landscape
31:10
that very few people get to see. So we were
31:13
thrilled to do that. Then we landed in
31:16
Iceland at uh, Nanortolik and
31:18
spent the day there, went out on a boat to
31:21
look at more icebergs. But this time we got
31:23
up close and personal and they were
31:26
huge. Like twice
31:29
as big as double story homes in some cases.
31:32
They were just. And they were just floating
31:34
there. We got so close to the. We didn't
31:36
quite get close enough to touch them but you
31:38
could see the colours and the cracks and the.
31:41
And the shapes of the ice. They were amazing.
31:44
And uh, a lovely little town, only a thousand
31:47
people. Greenland is about one third the
31:49
size of Australia with a population of less
31:52
than 50,000 and it's under um, the
31:54
Danish, Danish monarchy. So uh, it's a
31:57
sort of a crossover between uh, America and
32:00
Europe really because uh, it is considered
32:03
part of the American um, side of the
32:06
Atlantic. But it's a European country self
32:09
governed under Danish, the Danish
32:11
Monarchy. It's very weird, um, kind of like
32:14
Australia but um. Yeah, that was interesting.
32:17
And then uh, yesterday we went to
32:19
um. I can't think of the name of it. What's.
32:22
What was that place called yesterday?
32:27
Uh, it's about triple uh the size of
32:29
Nanortolik. But um. Yeah, and all these
32:32
colourful little houses. I did post some
32:35
photos on the Space Nuts Facebook page if you
32:37
want to have a look of the icebergs and the,
32:39
and the little houses. I don't know how they
32:41
live in them. It was uh. It's summer here at
32:43
the moment and the temperature was 6 degrees
32:46
and it was freezing for the two
32:49
or three days we were, um, around Greenland.
32:52
Iceland wasn't so warm either, I must say.
32:55
But we're heading south west now and our next
32:58
stop will be Halifax and the temperature will
33:01
be about, I, uh, don't know, uh, five times
33:04
warmer, I'm told. So that's it for now.
33:07
Uh, only a couple of weeks to go and we'll,
33:09
uh, be back in Australia. Um, I
33:12
should just point out we sold our house while
33:14
we're on board and we're moving into a new
33:16
place that we haven't seen yet. So I don't
33:18
know what the Internet will be like when we
33:19
get back. I might have to delay my return to
33:22
SpaceX nuts for a week or two, but we'll just
33:24
see how it goes for now, that's all. Take
33:26
care. Bye. Bye. Uh, you'll be
33:29
listening to the Space Nuts podcast,
33:33
available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
33:36
iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast
33:38
player. You can also stream on
33:40
demand@bytes.com.
33:42
Professor Fred Watson: This has been another quality podcast
33:44
production from bytes.com. um.